"Why wouldn't you charge Egyptian taxpayerswhen you would charge U.S. Taxpayers [forresearch]?" asked J. Roy Rowland (D--Ga.), whobriefly presided over the hearing.

Harvard's Vice President for Finance Robert H.Scott said in a telephone interview from Cambridgethat the University does not artificially lowerrates for non-federal groups.

But Scott acknowledged the indirect costs areoften lower for foreign governments because manyof the projects are based off campus, often in thesame country whose government is funding theresearch.

"We try to collect what we consider the fullindirect costs from everyone," Scott said.

No matter how badly Harvard fared atyesterday's hearing, Stanford and MIT did worse.

The Pentagon charged MIT with overbilling thegovernment by $19 million in 1990, and federalinvestigators told the Crimson that the audit'sfive-year finding, not yet completed, will totalapproximately $75 million.

MIT has already refunded the government nearly$700,000 for admitted overbillings.

In addition, Pentagon officials testifiedyesterday that MIT's accounting mistakes, all ofwhich they say favored MIT, may have beenintentional.

The Naval Investigative Service (NIS) isconducting a criminal investigation at MIT todetermine whether officials defrauded thegovernment.

The NIS is conducting similar in quiries atStanford and the University of Hawaii, butofficials yesterday refused to testify about theseinvestigations because they were still ongoing.

The Pentagon yesterday accused Stanford ofovercharging the government $231 million between1981 and 1988. Federal investigators said thetotal could exceed $300 million if those pastthree years were factored in.

Stanford has already paid the government $1.3million