"Boston's methadone clinic for political junkies."

That is how Hendrick Hertzberg '65, former editor and now contributing editor to the New Republic, describes the Institute of Politics (IOP). Hertzberg should know; he is spending his second term as a recuperating IOP fellow.

But if the IOP is a clinic for those outside academia, for Harvard students it is a lifeline to the outside world.

The IOP offers forums for public figures speaking on various political issues throughout the year and runs a fellowship program for politicians and journalists.

"The institute in general is in the business of bringing people in public life to Harvard," says Charles Truehart, the director of the IOP forum. "It is designed to serve the Kennedy School" by keeping it in touch with the outside world.

Since its inception close to two decades ago, the Institute has brought politicians and journalists to Harvard for a semester of scholarship and relaxation.

Fellows are figures from public life who are often on a sabbatical from politics, Truehart says. Once here, fellows are required to teach a non-credit seminar and to participate in the life of Harvard, "keeping their door open to students," says Truehart.

"The fellowship selection process is very competitive," says Theresa Donavan, director of the fellowship. "There are lot more people interviewed than selected."

"There is a network of fellows and other people related to the Kennedy School" who suggest names to us for potential fellows, Truehart says.

"We try to have a broad a representation as possible among each group of fellows," Donovan says. This year's fellowship group has two women, two minorities, and four white males. Three are politicians and four are journalists.

Only one of the group of fellows is a conservative. Donovan explains, "There is a Republican administration so a lot of Republicans have jobs within the administration."

Lee Edwards

Lee Edwards may have reason to be optimistic today as he sits in his sunny Institute of Politics office.

But Edwards--the sole conservative among the politicians and journalists who make up this semester's IOP fellows--did not have such an airy forum a quarter century ago when he participated in the right's revolt against liberal Democratic orthodoxy and the staid Republican status quo.

Now Edwards can smile when he talks about how the fortunes of conservatives have changed to the point where being called a conservative no longer has bad connotations.