And Councilor David E. Sullivan said theprogram "brings additional buyers into the marketwho otherwise wouldn't be there." Other tenantactivists have charged HRE used the program toexpand its holdings, since Harvard always retainedthe option to buy back each home whose owner hadreceived a University mortgage subsidy.

According to documents released with the 1984letter which mentioned that the programs had beendissolved, the Cambridge Option Plan lent morethan $7.2 million from 1979 to 1984. The PurchaseOption Plan which ran from 1977 to 1984, lentnearly $4.6 million. The interest rates of bothprograms ranged from 6 to 17.5 percent.

The letter said Harvard had replaced the twoprograms with "limited" loan subsidies for newfaculty and "a small, limited second mortgage plan($20,000 maximum)."

But the mortgage programs recently returned tothe public eye when it was discovered that formerSupreme Court nominee Douglas Ginsburg bought aHarvard-owned house in 1979 under the PurchaseOption plan.

Ginsburg bought the residence at 1 Bryant St.in Cambridge for $126,000 in 1979, receiving a$135,000 mortgage for 40 years at six percentinterest. Seven years later, he sold it for$760,000. Ginsburg's case was unusual because atthe time he was in his fourth year as an assistantprofessor at Harvard Law School. He did notreceive tenure until 1981.

Tandler said the two mortgage plans were meant"to provide incentives to certain senior facultypersonnel," and that the programs, which are stilltechnically in effect, "are only available totenured senior faculty with the approval of thedean of the faculty."

As for the number of exceptions made to thisrule, he said, "I don't think it was a hell of alot." But he added, "The general plan providedonly senior faculty. However, there were thosecandidates who were on they verge of securingtenure and were included in the University'slong-term plans...There weren't a hell of a lot ofthose...the exceptions to the rule would probablyamount to less than 2 percent."

Polvere's letter stated, "All of the loans areto tenured faculty members except for four tosenior administrators."

Vice President and General Counsel DanielSteiner, who administered the program through mostof its active years, would say only that "therewas some variation from faculty to faculty" in theway mortgages were granted.

"A number of people who bought weren'tnecessarily senior faculty. [Ginsburg] was one ofthose," said Vice President for AdministrationSally Zeckhauser, who directed HRE from 1978 untilshe was promoted to vice president this fall. Shesaid "it was generally the notion of the deans"that the mortgages would go to senior professors,but that Ginsburg's mortgage was "notinconsistent" with University policy.

Doth Zeckhauser and Tandler said the houseGinsburg bought "was in very bad shape" because ithad received heavy use as Harvard's Hillel House.Tandler added that Ginsburg spent more than atenth of the house's value to renovate it. ButZeckhauser said, "I can't say it was all becauseof the condition of the house...the market was notvery good for that type of house [when Ginsburgbought it]."

In 1979, at the peak of the energy crisis, shesaid home-buyers shunned big, drafty piles likethe Bryant St. house because of the heating costsand high taxes. "They were seen as whiteelephants," she said.

Dane Professor of Law Albert M. Sacks, whoserved as dean of the Law School from 1971 to1981, said Ginsburg's mortgage was not unusualbecause in the mid-1970's, most law schoolprofessors with his record and status eventuallyreceived tenure and settled down permanently atthe University.

"I thought of him as an assistant professor onthe tenure track...a very fine prospect," saidSacks. In recent years, Law School professors havenormally spent about three years as assistantprofessors before either receiving tenure or beingrejected. But Sacks said Ginsburg's six-year stintas an associate professor "was very usual for thatperiod."

"He was not unique, he was not peculiar, therewere other cases like his," he said.