The Tercentenary of Harvard College was markedwith a series of thick, lavishly illustratedpapers detailing the pyrotechnics of thecelebration. On the whole, The Crimson's job onthe Tercentenary could stand up to any othercoverage.

The last major structural change at The Crimsonrevamped the election process: executives would beelected in the fall of their Junior year, takeoffice in February, and leave office in January oftheir Senior year. No longer would editors worktheir way up the ladder of assistant managingeditor, managing editor and president, changingjobs each semester.

Also in 1940, the Crimson Network, a whollyowned subsidiary which broadcast Crimson newsthrough the College, was founded by severaleditors with $400 of the paper's money. Thepredecessor of WHRB soon separated from itsparent, for lack of common interests.

WWII and Its Cold Aftermath

In 1940, the specter of war could no longer beignored, and The Crimson urged preparations. Theissue announcing the bombing of Pearl Harborcarried a 5:11 a.m. time slug. The paper hadstayed open until the last possible minute to getthe latest bulletins.

The University ran a summer term in 1942, andThe Crimson ran a summer paper, publishing threedays a week. As its own contribution to the wareffort, The Crimson gave the nation its fence--tobe melted down for ammunition.

The Crimson published its own 70th birthdaycommemorative edition that year. Within a fewmonths, it would publish its last issue of theregular paper until almost a year after the warwas over.

The Crimson dawned its uniform on Friday, May14, 1943. It would carry the "Harvard ServiceNews" banner until nearly a year after the war'send.

The new paper had a very different tone.

Although The Crimson of 1942 had editoriallyinveighed against the scandalous treatment ofJapanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor, the ServiceNews had fewer scruples. "Japs Planned Death ofGrew, Charlie Chaplin," read the headline of astory on Ambassador's Grew's allegations. Atleast, Grew believed it, and the Service Newsbelieved Grew.

This kind of copy was one of the reasons whythe Graduate Board decided not to empower theService News to editorialize. Instead, the paperwas administered during the war by a board thatconsisted of David M. Little '18, master of AdamsHouse and secretary of the University, Anna Hoke,the paper's accountant, Donald T. Field '31 andThomas S. Kuhn '44.

In short, the paper was run like a patrioticversion of The Gazette.

As the war drew to a close, the paper coveredmore news of the College. General Education andthe development of President James B. Conant'sideas on American education were big storiesduring the 1943-45 school year, and the ServiceNews covered them extensively.

The Crimson reappeared in 1946, but thefinancial rebirth was more difficult to achieve.The trustees absorbed the Service News' debt, butthe building needed renovation and a new heatingsystem. It managed to pull through in time togreet McCarthyism and the most intriguing time ofThe Crimson's history.

A shameless publicity hound, Senator JoeMcCarthy picked victims whose prominence wouldassure him widespread coverage--and Harvard was aperfect target. For several years, McCarthy madeHarvard and Harvard professors his whipping boys.