Three rambunctious Yalies and a renegade Harvardian student were caught blue-handed early yesterday morning in an attempt to paint John Harvard's statue with the official color of Yale University.

The students, whose hands and clothes were covered in blue paint, were spotted in Harvard Yard by a University security guard at about 3 a.m. yesterday morning, according to Harvard Police Chief Paul E. Johnson.

The men were only a few feet away from John Harvard's statue, which--probably not coincidentally--had been doused with the same shade of blue paint.

Despite the suspicious circumstances, the four men pleaded their innocence, Johnson said.

"The students claimed the paint was there when they got to the statue," he said.

University police will not recommend any disciplinary action against the students, Johnson said. They will, however, forward police reports to the appropriate authorities at Yale.

Harvard security guard Peter D. Skillman, who was patrolling the Yard after the incident yesterday, estimated that a gallon of blue latex paint had been poured over the statue, covering it "from head to belly."

Harvard's Buildings and Grounds workers washed and rewaxed the statue yesterday morning, restoring it to its original pristine condition--but not before the newly painted idol had elicited a few puzzled looks from passersby.

"He looked like a big Smurf," said Sourav Goswami '96, who saw the desecrated statue yesterday morning.

Other students, however, did not even notice the statue had been sabotaged, perhaps because the vandals weren't quite creative enough.

"If they really wanted to get people's attention, they should take John's head," said Jordan S. Ellenberg '93.

"I wish I'd seen it," said Mark A. Roth '96. "I find it hilarious that people from Yale can do such a thing and get away with it."

Johnson did not release the name of the traitorous Harvard student allegedly involved in the incident, but Skillman said he was rumored to be a transfer student from Yale.

The statue of John Harvard, which is one of the Yard's main tourist attractions, has acquired a mythic significance over the years which has made it a frequent target of vandals.

In one particularly bizarre incident two years ago, unidentified students dismembered a sheep and draped the statue with its entrails. A few years earlier, Dartmouth students doused the statue with green paint on the occasion of the Harvard-Dartmouth football game.