Word: rotcs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...FACULTY's decision to permit students to cross-register at MIT for non-credit participation in ROTC was the right one. The real issue here is whether the University should prevent students from doing whatever they choose in their spare time. Following the trend of the last decade toward permitting students greater freedom in their private lives, the Faculty decided that Harvard should not interfere with anyone who finds ROTC valuable...
...argue that Harvard should prohibit enrollment in ROTC on moral grounds leads to the conclusion that it should extend moral judgements to other student activities. If the United States Army is evil, then the federal government that controls it is likewise evil. But no one would suggest that Harvard should prevent students from taking summer internships in the federal government. If Harvard is obliged to resist "complicity" in the evil allegedly perpetrated by the American military, shouldn't it also proscribe students from government employment, campaign work for pro-military political candidates, and any number of other supposedly immoral activities...
...academies starts with a tremendous advantage. Fully 43% of the Army's generals are West Point "ringknockers"; 56% of the Navy's admirals went to Annapolis; 34% of the Air Force's generals attended one of the academies. Says General Melvin Zais, 60, an ROTC graduate from the University of New Hampshire: "The West Point influence is like a drop of blue ink in a glass of water. It isn't much in volume, but it influences the coloring of the whole glass. West Point permeates our resource...
...editorial on the ROTC left me dazed. Happily, it was well dealt with by the dissenting opinion, but I was still worried by the fact that this was, after all, only a dissenting opinion. Does the majority of the Crimson staff really subscribe to this suppression of the individual's rights that is advocated, and like to leave their own moral decisions to the judgement of the university? If so, it is sad. One wonders what would have been the reaction if the faculty had been considering a prohibition on participation in a radical organization, instead of the ROTC...
Finally, I must confess a sentimental attachment to ROTC. It saved me from the draft in '69, kept me from going to Vietnam as an infantryman, and may conceivably have saved my life. Had I not been able to get into ROTC in graduate school, I would have been, of necessity, a more direct and odious agent of US imperialism than I became. It's convenient that seniors in '76 don't face that choice, but I hope you'll forgive a little Crimson-like subjectivity in my criticism. Richard K. Betts Lecturer in Government