The Harvard Salient: April 15, 1999: Cover Stories

Uncle ROTC Wants You
The UC strikes a blow for patriotism and common sense

By Bronwen McShea
Associate Editor

April 11 witnessed a victory for common sense, responsible legislation, and for the men and women who serve this country as ROTC cadets and midshipmen. Incredibly enough, this triumph occurred at a general meeting of Harvardís Undergraduate Council. By a vote of 28 to 20, the UC passed a bill requesting a thawing of the ice-cold shoulder which the University has given ROTC for thirty years. [more...]

Barbarians in Charge
Institutionalized radicalism at Harvard

By Bridge Colby
Staff Writer

When Students for a Democratic Society invaded University Hall thirty years ago this month and physically removed Harvard administrators from the building (then Dean of Freshmen Archie C. Epps among them), their stated purpose was to protest the presence of ROTC on campus and the involvement of Harvard professors in the Vietnam War. But the raid was, in fact, far more than that. It represented a general assault on the University as the representative of tradition, rational learning, and American ideals. [more...]

A Generation Apart
The moral legacy of the radicals of 1969 lives on

By Roman Martinez
Editor

Thirty years ago this month, Harvard members of Students for a Democratic Society seized and occupied University Hall. Storming the building, they forcibly ejected Harvard deans and demanded that the university abolish its ROTC programs. A battery of tear-gas toting policemen was finally needed to reestablish order. The tumult was nothing new for college campuses of the 1960s, which were bitterly agitated over such issues as civil rights, the sexual revolution, and, of course, Vietnam. Discord and protest were the order of the day. [more...]