ISN'T IT POSSIBLE that at least one of the Harvard nominees is a more qualified or a more virulent foe of apartheid than one of the AAA candidates? The majority doesn't care. It should. Single-issue candidates must be viewed with skepticism in any election. To endorse them without bothering to examine who their opponents are and what they stand for is to seek democratic reform by ignoring democratic principle.

The insurgent campaign in last year's overseers election seems to have sent a message to the powers that be here at Harvard. Unfortunately, we know very little about most of the candidates nominated this year by the University. But some recognizable names on the Harvard slate indicate that the University sought a diversified field of nominees.

One nominee, Frances FitzGerald '62, is a well-known and well-respected left-wing author. She is also a member of the editorial advisory board of The Nation, as solid a leftist credential as there is. And Sen. Gore is certainly no appeaser of apartheid. He voted last summer for particularly harsh sanctions against South Africa. That will certainly have more effect on conditions there than Harvard hemming and hawing and "taking a stand for the values of equality and freedom that we ostensibly hold sacrosanct."

It's hard to argue against calls for a more open University. But it's also unfair to criticize the University's power structure for remaining closed when it seems, in some ways, at least, to be opening.