A former president of the Board of Overseers and several other prominent alumni were appointed to key positions in President-elect Bill Clinton's transition team last week.

Franklin D. Raines '71, who is the vice chair of the Federal National Mortgage Association and a former lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government, will head the "cluster" examining potential appointments in the areas of economics and international trade.

Raines did not return repeated phone calls last night.

Raines served on the Board of Overseers from 1986 to 1992, acting as president in the 1991-92 academic year. As Harvard's 30 member alumni-elected governing board, the Overseers advise the President and the Harvard Corporation on administrative matters.

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1976, Raines worked from 1979 to 1991 as a vice president and partner in the New York investment firm of Lazard, Freres & Co. Previously he served as a staffer in the Carter administration, working in the White House and the Office of Management and Budget.

Raines, like Clinton, went on to spend two years studying at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship.

In an interview with The Crimson about one year ago, Raines emphasized the continued need for government funding of university research projects.

"The government can't be looking to be afreeloader with regard to university-basedresearch," Raines said. "The government and theuniversity have got to figure out a way to talksensibly about this issue."

The overseer, who in his speech at PresidentNeil Rudenstine's inauguration described his daysprotesting ROTC and on the steps of MemorialChurch, also said his position on the exclusion ofgays from the military and its ROTC impact is amoderate one.

"I had a very strong opinion on the ROTC issue20 years ago, but this one is a lot more subtle,"Raines said. "I would be concerned about adisproportionate effect on the students with thescholarships" compared with the effect on thediscriminatory policies.

Raines will probably work closely with otherHarvard personalities, including Kennedy Schoollecturer Robert B. Reich, who is heading the teamcoordinating the creation of Clinton's newlyplanned Economic Security Council.

In addition to Raines, three men with Harvardlaw degrees were selected to head clusters: SamuelBerger will lead the search on state and nationalsecurity, while Peter Edelman '58 and BernardNussbaum will direct the group on justice andcivil rights.

Berger, who graduated from Harvard Law Schoolin 1971, is a Washington attorney. During theCarter administration, he was deputy director ofpolicy planning in the State Department. Bergeradvised Clinton on foreign policy during thecampaign.

Edelman and Nussbaum both earned law degrees in1961. Edelman is a Georgetown law professor and aformer vice president of the University ofMassachusetts. He was also a key domestic policyadviser in the unsuccessful 1980 presidentialcampaign of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54-'56.

Nussbaum is a partner in a New York law firmand worked as senior counsel to the HouseJudiciary Committee when it considered impeachmentof Richard Nixon in 1974.

The economic transition crew, which is nowheaded by figures with strong Harvard connections,will likely need to work fast.