The son of presidential candidate Pete DuPont said last night that his father will leave the race for the Republican nomination unless he makes strong showings in Iowa and New Hampshire.

"If we don't come in third or higher in Iowa and New Hampshire, I imagine there will be a press conference to collapse the whole thing," Ben DuPont told a dozen students last night at the Freshman Union.

As for his father's campaign organization in the South, DuPont said the campaign has done very little preparation in the South, adding that DuPont hopes to rely on the effects of a good showing in New Hampshire and Iowa.

DuPont, 23, recently graduated from Tufts University and worked as an engineer designing medical equipment until he quit to work full-time on his father's presidential campaign.

The career change was only the latest vicissitude of life as the son of the former Delaware governor. "When I was 17 my dad raised the state drinking age from 18 to 21. Imagine explaining that to your classmates. It was a tough year for me."

The younger DuPont said his father believes the Social Security system will fail unless the government persuades some citizens to forgo their benefits. DuPont's plan would offer workers the chance to invest their Social Security payments in a tax-free account instead of paying the required fee to the Social Security system.

He also said the public school system was in deep trouble, citing a University of Northern Iowa study showing that although Iowa's public school system is the best in the U.S., it is only the 14th best in the world.

"We should improve the public school system by opening it up to competition," said DuPont. "Give families a choice of where to send their kids." He also said his father supports a system of federal aid to college students under which "anyone could borrow the money to go wherever they want."

DuPont also called for strong measures against drug abuse, including laws that would link drug convictions to drivers' licenses. "People will be told, 'If you use drugs, you won't drive.'"

Discussing the Persian Gulf, he said, "We ought to go there and stabilize things. If that means military support, then that's what we should do."

DuPont said ethical questions surrounding abortion, gay rights and AIDS belonged at the state and local level and not in Washington. "Roe vs. Wade should be overturned," he said. "Abortion should be sent back to the state level. That is where murder is decided, and abortion is sort of the same thing."

As for gay and lesbian rights, DuPont said "Gays and lesbians should be given equal protection under existing laws."

DuPont campus representative Joe P. Hughes '88 called the 12-person audience "a good turnout," given that the candidate has only had a Harvard student campaign group for a month, and "considering the liberal atmosphere around here."