The patriot and the Harvard president

AS GAYS with critical language and leadership skills get needlessly drummed out of the armed forces, the little-known story of how a Harvard president and an aspiring astronaut engineered the return of ROTC to Harvard Yard provides an example of the political confrontation needed to allow every patriot to serve in uniform.

The day before graduating with the Harvard class of 1977, Charles V. "Chuck" DePriest received a commission as an Air Force second lieutenant during a ceremony in the courtyard of Eliot House. Eight years earlier, the Crimson faculty had voted to boot ROTC from campus in the midst of Vietnam War protests.

DePriest, the great-grandson of the first black member of Congress elected in the 20th century, grew up in Bedford beneath the roar of nearby Hanscom Field. Pursuing a childhood ambition to fly jet fighters and become an astronaut, he was accepted into a summer Air Force ROTC training program in spring 1975, shortly after the fall of Saigon.

The determined sophomore, seeking not just the opportunity to earn wings but also the ROTC scholarship funds desperately needed to continue his education, marched into Massachusetts Hall and sat in Derek Bok's outer office until the Harvard president had no choice but to see him.

Bok, an Army veteran, sympathized with DePriest, who subsequently took ROTC courses at MIT under a cross-registration agreement already in place while Bok authorized the flow of ROTC funds to the Crimson coffers.

Bok's strategy amounted to academic camouflage -- allowing DePriest to quietly take the required ROTC courses at MIT on a non credit basis while channeling the scholarship funds through the bursar's office.

What the lawyerly president didn't count on, however, was the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" stratagem falling apart when DePriest began parading around campus in full uniform. His proud appearance resounded like a bugle call in the powerful Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which had voted to sever the university's links to ROTC in 1969.

In a dramatic showdown in May 1976, Bok, supported by a fellow Army veteran, the well-respected dean Henry Rosovsky, stood up before the faculty and said it was wrong to deny Harvard men the chance to serve their country and to deny our country the service of Harvard men.

With the end of the war a year behind, the faculty yielded, voting to approve the MIT arrangement already informally in place.

One year later, DePriest received his commission and went on to flight school, eventually earning a major's oak leaves as well as a degree from Harvard Medical School.

The military needs and deserves the best minds of our generation, an argument that Bok effectively made over 30 years ago.

Efforts to get DePriest to fly under the faculty radar screen didn't work any more than the current policy of forcing gays to choose between the closet and their uniforms.

Just as Bok confronted the faculty to force an accommodation with reality, the next US president must force a showdown with Congress to change federal law regarding gays in the military.

When "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" goes the way of segregated ranks and bans on women, perhaps Harvard will fully restore ROTC on campus, reviving the nation's oldest chapter.

In the meantime, Harvard should take a moment to salute Bok, retiring as Harvard president next month for the second time in his career, along with DePriest, who found a way to restore military service as an honorable option for Crimson grads.

Brian Wright O'Connor, communications director for Citizens Energy Corporation, is writing a book about his family's military service across three generations.