Harvard officials misled Allston residents at a public meeting in June when they told nearly 175 community members that President Neil L. Rudenstine has committed the University to never again purchase land secretly under his watch.

Harvard's pronouncement in early June that from 1988 to 1994 it had secretly acquired 52.6 acres of land in the Allston section of Boston consumed the agenda of the June 25th meeting of the Allston Civic Association.

When State Sen. Warren Tolman asked Harvard officials to promise not to purchase land secretly again, Kevin A. McCluskey '76 director of community relations, said Rudenstine had made this commitment to Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino for the duration of his term as president.

But in his first public remarks to The Crimson since the University revealed the purchases, Rudenstine was not categorical.

"I don't want to make an absolute statement, but I think you can say that this was a thoughtful, long-term set of purchases and that we don't have another such set of purchases in mind at the moment," he said.

Rudenstine made no commitments- or even an explicit statement-when asked repeatedly about the future of the University's policy on third-party purchasing, known as buying through a "straw." For the Allston purchases, Harvard officials hired Beal Cos., a prominent real estate developer in Boston, to purchase the 14 parcels for them during the seven-year period.

Though all sides seemed to clearly understand after the June meeting that the University would not purchase land secretly under Rudenstine, community and Harvard officials-to the highest echelons of the administration-scrambled after this latest statement to determine what Harvard's policy really is.

Those who attended the Allston Civic Association meeting in June said they heard an explicit promise, and Harvard officials present said it was meant to be one.

"I understood [what they said] to mean that Rudenstine wouldn't buy land through a third party again as long as he was president, "said Paul Berkeley, president of the Allston Civic Association.

When read Rudenstine's statement, Berkeley said, "That does surprise me because that's not what I took them to mean. It sounds like he's backed off from what the original commitment was, and it's certainly something I remember. "

Though McCluskey declined to comment on the record last night, administration sources suggested that the misrepresentation was unintentional.

McCluskey's boss, Vice president for Government, Community and Public Affairs James H. Rowe III '73, expressed surprise when read Rudenstine's remarks.

"That's a new development, " Rowe said in an interview Saturday night. Though Rowe did not speak at the Allston Civic Association meeting, he sat three rows from the back of the room and said in the interview that he, too, recalled McCluskey's promise.

Rudenstine did say that the University would not undertake another aggressive search for land-as they had in Allston-during his administration, and he restated that Harvard has no immediate plans to use the parcels.

"I think fundamentally that those properties were bought with something like a 50 to 350-year time horizon in mind, "he said. "We're not going to be planning for the next 1,000 years. "

"These are not the sorts of things universities do-can do or should do-frequently, " the President said. "You shouldn't often be looking out 50 to 350 years. "