While the anti-war movement that began in the early 1960s has fizzled, many activists among the alumni here this week say its influence has shaped the rest of their lives. They say most of their classmates who helped found the nuclear disarmament campaign at Harvard more than a quarter-century ago are still working for social change.

Adam Hochschild '63, a co-founder of Mother Jones magazine, began his activist career in Harvard's Tocsin organization, which pushed for an atmospheric test ban treaty and organized the first national march on Washington against nuclear weapons. Hochschild later worked for civil rights in 1964, campaigned for McGovern in 1972 and demonstrated against the Vietnam War.

"In a way, Tocsin owed its existence to the Kennedy years," Hochschild says. "His being there unleashed a lot of stuff like this. He appeared to promise a lot. His Harvard connections fed the illusion that as Harvard students we had some specific influence in Washington."

Radical activism was far from the norm among students in the early 1960s. "I was not a red-hot, but my social conscience did develop while at Harvard," says Daniel del Solar '63.

"I did act as a signatory for a Socialist Club that needed three names on a petition in order to become a club," del Solar says. "I signed in the name of free speech. I never even went to any meetings. But today I still can't get security clearance as a result."

Del Solar now runs a radio station in California which he describes as "a forum for maintaining free speech." He also studies the effectiveness of migrant education programs and has worked as a reporter in Central America.

Mary Felstiner '63 says her political activism, and particularly her interest in women's rights, developed after graduation. "I left Radcliffe and realized a few years later that I had been duped," she says of her college experience. "Nothing would drive me to political action faster than that feeling."

And Marcy Benstock '63, a professional organizer credited with stopping New York City's Westway development, says she grew interested in politics only after graduation. "When I was at Radcliffe I was apolitical," she says. "I was an English major."

Only when she moved to New York and "came face to face with urban problems" did she become active. "I started to read the newspaper for the first time in my life," she says.

These veterans say they have not abandoned their ideals.

"Thinking back over the whole thing, I can't think of anybody who was active in this group that went over to the other side," says Hochschild.

Felstiner says she chose to teach at San Francisco State University because she believed she could best further the study of women's issues there.

"It is important to be at a university that doesn't resemble Harvard in any way because I feel the problems in this country with mass education are connected to the class problems," Felstiner says.

Benstock says that when she moved to New York, "the problem that bothered me most was soot on my windowsill--air pollution."

"Eventually, I applied for a grant to look into what kind of job the Environmental Agency was doing. They said, `This problem has been studied enough. We want someone to do something about it,'" Benstock says.