Though I hold its law degree, I am not a Harvard fan, certainly not in athletics. My student attitude mirrored Adlai Stevenson’s: “to bed every night a cheer for Princeton, every morning a groan for Harvard.”
As a New York Times stringer my senior Princeton year, I did a 1963 interview of Madame Nhu, South Vietnamese President Diem’s de facto first lady as the U.S. military involvement was growing.
Though she had been targeted by protest the previous day at Harvard, the Daily Princetonian staffers left her on the pre-program campus stroll to follow her beautiful daughter. I stayed with the mother, who commented: “Either Harvard must change, or the world must be warned against Harvard.”
I could not imagine when I included that quote in my story for The Times that a U.S. president would ever incorporate that sentiment in a campaign threatening the higher education that gives our country prestige and strengths, including by attracting foreign students, many of whom become its admirers and contributors to scientific research, medical services, and general civic capacities.
Today Harvard is on the front line of a vital national struggle: to maintain the democratic soft power that is a pillar of our global standing. All our schools need to join proudly, as Princeton is doing, with the “ten thousand men [now people] of Harvard” to oppose the power grabs of a president for whom the adjective “autocratic” increasingly appears insufficient.
Though I hold its law degree, I am not a Harvard fan, certainly not in athletics. My student attitude mirrored Adlai Stevenson’s: “to bed every night a cheer for Princeton, every morning a groan for Harvard.”
As a New York Times stringer my senior Princeton year, I did a 1963 interview of Madame Nhu, South Vietnamese President Diem’s de facto first lady as the U.S. military involvement was growing.
Though she had been targeted by protest the previous day at Harvard, the Daily Princetonian staffers left her on the pre-program campus stroll to follow her beautiful daughter. I stayed with the mother, who commented: “Either Harvard must change, or the world must be warned against Harvard.”
I could not imagine when I included that quote in my story for The Times that a U.S. president would ever incorporate that sentiment in a campaign threatening the higher education that gives our country prestige and strengths, including by attracting foreign students, many of whom become its admirers and contributors to scientific research, medical services, and general civic capacities.
Today Harvard is on the front line of a vital national struggle: to maintain the democratic soft power that is a pillar of our global standing. All our schools need to join proudly, as Princeton is doing, with the “ten thousand men [now people] of Harvard” to oppose the power grabs of a president for whom the adjective “autocratic” increasingly appears insufficient.