Weller was the first Western civilian reporter to enter Nagasaki after it was devastated by a nuclear bomb in August 1945.

He also covered the signing of the armistice aboard the USS Missouri which ended WWII.

In 1933, Weller wrote Not To Eat, Not for Love, a novel about undergraduate life at Harvard.

Alfred E. Vellucci

Alfred E. Vellucci, the former Cambridge mayor notorious for his zealous feuds with Harvard, died Oct. 17, 2002 in Cambridge City Hospital. He was 87.

Vellucci’s conflicts with Harvard began in 1956, his first year on the Cambridge City Council, when he proposed separating the University from Cambridge.

His most famous threat was a plan to purchase Harvard Yard by eminent domain and pave it over for public parking, thereby solving Cambridge’s parking problems.

Vellucci, who grew up in Somerville, developed contempt for everything Harvard early on.

Vellucci once drove to New Haven for the Harvard-Yale football game and found his way to the Bulldogs’ locker room to deliver a beat-Harvard pep talk.

According to Cambridge political pundit Robert Winters, Vellucci’s attacks on Harvard were not merely personal but also bore political utility.

This policy supplemented his populist approach to politics well, winning him three terms on the Cambridge School Committee and a seat on the city council from 1955 to 1989.

He was elected mayor in 1971 and served three more two-year terms in office.

“He was one of the most engaging and entertaining members of the city council,” Winters said.