HARVARD

Well, I looked at some of former president Gay's supposed plagiarisms, and they were not very impressive. I would hardly call them plagiarism.  But then, the essays in which they were to be found were not terribly interesting either. Out of curiosity, I did a little searching for information about the people who have been president of Harvard since I was an undergraduate there. James Conant was an impressive scientist. Nathan Marsh Pusey was not an impressive intellect at all, but he resisted McCarthy in his former position and that was a good thing. Derek Bok was a reasonably impressive legal scholar. Most of the presidents of Harvard in the past 70 years have been people one would not really be interested in talking to if one had a chance.

I actually met Conant when he was the head of the American portion of a divided Berlin. Since I was a traveling Sheldon fellow he agreed to see me. Not very exciting. I also had lunch once with a committee that was meeting with Pusey.  He seemed to me very much like a retouched photograph of himself.  Academic administrators by and large are people who do just enough to get tenure and then go into administration.

I should not imagine any of this will have an effect on my Marx study group, which starts February 2.  Eight faculty and 25 students signed up for it and I am really excited to have a chance to teach again.

I do not know yet whether I will be permitted to record the sessions or whether that is a good thing. I will let you know. Meanwhile, I am safe and protected in my retirement community while all the rest of the  world is going to hell. I gave another thousand to the DLCC.  It is pretty much all I can do.