In the decades since Harvard expelled the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) from campus at the height of the Vietnam War, the relationship between the University and the marginalized program has continued to be a contentious one.

By 1984, it appeared that Harvard was adjusting the tenor of its relationship with the Corps by implementing a series of pro-ROTC initiatives. The University granted official recognition to a ROTC support group, the Harvard-Radcliffe Friends of ROTC, and it began to reimburse MIT for the expenses it incurred by allowing Harvard students to participate in the program on the MIT campus.

By the end of 1983-1984 school year, the prospects for ROTC’s further inclusion in Harvard’s campus life looked brighter, but the changes that were made during this time served more to establish important precedents than to permanently transform Harvard’s relationship to the program.

1984, THE PREQUEL

In the late 1960s, amid student protests against the Vietnam War, a rising tide of opposition emerged to ROTC’s presence at Harvard.

Students and faculty members expressed concerns about ROTC’s recruitment of undergraduates for the war. Faculty members also questioned the academic rigor of ROTC courses, which were taught by military officers in the Departments of Military Science, Naval Science andAerospace Studies. In April 1969 a group of students occupied University Hall in an act of protest against the Corps, and the Faculty subsequently voted to expel the ROTC program.

The process of removing army, navy and air force units was completed in June 1971, in accordance with a timeline mandated by the Harvard Corporation—the University’s governing body.

By the time Andrew C. Deardorff ’84 graduated with his Harvard diploma, he was also commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Army

ROTC program, an accomplishment that was only made possible nine years earlier by the precedent set by Charles V. DePriest ’77, who became the first Harvard student to be commissioned by the ROTC program after the 1969 ban.

As a Harvard sophomore, DePriest made a dramatic entrance in University President Derek Bok’s University Hall office and demanded that Harvard accept his ROTC scholarship and allow him to participate in the program from MIT’s campus. The next year, the University officially approved an arrangement that allowed students to participate in ROTC at MIT. Harvard would also accept scholarship funds from the government that would be used to cover the students’ tuition.

Participation in ROTC was considered an extracurricular activity, and cadets received no credit for their MIT ROTC courses, a policy that remains in place today.

“Harvard was very happy to cash the checks from the U.S. government to pay for our tuition but at the same time not provide any official recognition,” said Andrew C. Deardorff ’84, a graduate of Army ROTC. “It would have been great to have our ROTC courses be placed on our transcripts. There is no record at Harvard of my having taken part in ROTC.”

WHY CAN’T WE BE FRIENDS?

In the hopes of attracting greater attention to Harvard’s policy toward ROTC members, Deardorff formed the student club “Friends of ROTC” in 1983. According to Deardoff, the club may have been the first ROTC support group on campus since Harvard broke ties with the armed forces.

“We were looking for a little bit more official recognition of students participating at MIT,” Deardorff said.

The “Harvard-Radcliffe Friends of ROTC” was originally named the “Harvard-Radcliffe ROTC Club.” The student group had to forgo the original name because the Faculty voted in 1969 to deny the recognition of official ROTC groups on campus.

Deardorff said he remembers that many controversial organizations made their way on campus by setting up “Friends of...” clubs, citing as an example the Friends of the Spartacus Youth League which supported the national communist organization of a same name.

But aside from the name change Deardoff said the process of getting the club approved was not difficult. Much like other campus groups, the Friends of ROTC was asked to comply with Harvard’s established nondiscrimination policies, specifically that the club would not be allowed to deny membership on the basis of sexual orientation.

Deardorff was asked to make an unprecedented formal pledge in before the Undergraduate Council promising that his club would not discriminate. This pledge was not required of other club leaders.

“I had to jump through the hoops a little publicly by having to make a special presentation to the student government, but once all the boxes had been checked, we were recognized,” Deardorff said Anthony G. Brown ’84, a ROTC graduate and now Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, said he remembers that students showed more curiosity than opposition to the ROTC program. Brown said that the faculty held a stronger position against the ROTC than the students and he believes that students would not have revolted had ROTC been reinstated at Harvard at the time.

“It was my impression that the student body was supportive of ROTC. The student body would have embraced [reinstatement],” Brown said.

However, opposition groups sprang up in response to the newly approved Friends of ROTC club. The student groups Enemies of ROTC and Opponents of ROTC were approved by the Committee on College Life within two weeks of the approval of the Friends of ROTC.

“We were trying to support Harvard’s policy of not having recruiters on campus,” said Jonathan E. Caws-Elwitt ’84, then vice president of the Enemies of ROTC. “We wanted to represent the other perspective that we are against the ROTC presence, and we came up with this stupid name, and I regret the choice of words.”

Both clubs quickly fell into inactivity. Caws-Elwitt remembers that the Enemies of ROTC made buttons displaying the acronym “erotc,” a play on “erotic,” but not much else.

“We were just a short-lived reaction,” Caws-Elwitt said.

Deardorff did not realize his goal of turning the club into a “forum for speakers” but he said that the “message was delivered by getting the club recognized.”

Even though Friends of ROTC also quickly fell dormant, it established a precedent for other ROTC-related clubs that exist at Harvard today.

PAY UP

After eight years of allowing Harvard students to participate in its ROTC unit for free, MIT officially asked Harvard for reimbursement payments in 1984.

With no Faculty involvement, the administration begin issuing payments, which totalled about $40,000 in 1984 for over 60 cadets.

“There were people at Harvard that were uncomfortable that we had reached this backdoor agreement,” said John B. Fox ’59, then Dean of the College. “It could be argued that by spending money at MIT we were undermining the Faculty vote [of 1969].”

Nonetheless, Fox said that many were simply glad to put the issue to rest.

“A great number felt relieved to get the topic off the table,” he said.