Sixth interview with Fred Harrington (1988)

Fred Harrington (#135) Transcript FH: The scientists then pretty much ran the University. Elvehjem's predecessor, E. B. Fred, and Elvehjem were both natural scientists, biological scientists, as were the other persons of power. And Elvehjem was 00:01:00 the Dean of the Graduate School. There was, however, a great revolt on the part of the social sciences-humanities people, who demanded a little more consideration and objected to the fact that the president and vice-president and the Dean of the Graduate School were all biological scientists, and, in particular, objected to the fact that the top administration didn't seem to help the social sciences and humanities much. And, in particular, kept all the Wisconsin Alumni Research money for natural science. Originally, a little bit of it had gone to social sciences and humanities, but then it was all given to the natural scientists. We began a program of protest--I was then in the History Department--with social scientists, particularly political science, sociology, anthropology. TB: Was Indian History your particular specialty? FH: No, 00:02:00 American History. I'm American Foreign Relations. A Williams major. TB: That's right. FH: I was a historian who was close to the social scientists. In fact, my American Foreign Relations was sometimes listed in Political Science. So I was among the historians. Not one to lean towards humanities, but to lean towards the social scientists. And we were protesting, and we finally got a little piece of the WARF money. But this was a big thing. Were we going to be put down, and were the scientists going to run things, or were we going to be involved? So when E. B. Fred retired as president, I became the Social Science candidate. I was, by that time, Special Assistant to President Fred, because, under pressure, he brought me in.... TB: I see. FH: ...When I came back from Europe in 1956, and I was--from '56 to '58 I was Special Assistant to President Fred, working for the social sciences within the administration. And when the regents had to pick a president, they had to pick between me--representative of social sciences and humanities--and Elevehjem as a representative of the natural sciences and preferred, or course, by the outgoing president and what not. Elvehjem got it. Well, he was a very distinguished person, he should have had the Nobel Prize, a great scientist. Much more important as a scientist than I was as a historian. But I was the social science representative, and I didn't get it, but Elvehjem asked me to be his vice-president so that he would be able to get along with the social scientists. I was 00:03:00 that, and for four years I was his vice-president and helped him as much as I could, but also worked with the social sciences and humanities, and we did get some money. Particularly from the foundations of that time. That was what I did mostly, I suppose. TB: Was that '58 to '62? FH: Fifty-eight to '62, when Elvehjem was president, I was vice-president. Then Elvehjem died. I was about to leave--I had been appointed President of the University of Hawaii, and was in Japan, actually. I had not taken the Hawaiian job yet. I was going to take it in the fall. But I was out there on a Fulbright Lectureship in Japan when Elvehjem died. I then was brought back as president because if I'd been the runner-up, since I was going to Hawaii and there was a great demand to keep me here, I was made president. But the important point is by that time the Board of Regents had changed. Instead of being kind of a right-wing, Republican Board of Regents, it had become a mixed Board of Regents with strong Democratic, liberal influence because Gaylord Nelson had become governor. And the regents had shifted over, so that even though Elvehjem was president I was much closer to the regents than Elvehjem was. Indeed, while he was president, I saved him from a very difficult position with the Medical School by reason of having influence with the regents. So it was logical enough when Elvehjem died I was brought in as president immediately. With the 00:04:00 support of the faculty. The people who had been in favor of me or Elvehjem asked that I remain. In fact, I was an extraordinarily popular president in the beginning. I had the support of the faculty, I had the support of the regents, I had the support from downtown because Nelson was still governor and wanted me to be president, and I had the support of the other parts of the University, like the Milwaukee campus because I had been the main person inside the administration who had worked for the Milwaukee. Thus I came in very popularly and had my own way. TB: You were president of the entire system, right? FH: Yes, except that it was not a system then. I was president of the University, which meant Madison and Milwaukee, and extensions, and the two-year campuses. It was still the University of Wisconsin, though. It was not a system. It was a system, but it was the University of Wisconsin, and all the teachers' colleges, which are now parts of the University, had become state colleges but they were in a separate system. TB: The state colleges were separate. FH: Separate systems. TB: You didn't have anything to do with Whitewater and Oshkosh, Stevens Point, River Falls and so on. FH: No. I was the president of the Madison campus, Milwaukee, the two year campuses, 00:05:00 extension--agriculture extension and general extension. So that I was really the person that ran the Madison campus, because there was no chief Madison officer in those days. In fact, the general feeling was that the Madison campus was the campus, and the whole University, and that the rest was just on the fringe. But you can see this and that I was President of the University, but ran the Madison campus. There was a provost in Milwaukee that was under me, and there were persons in the other parts of the University, but they all were under me. So that in the beginning of my presidency I ran everything. This was of some consequence because the general feeling was that I was still in charge in Madison when the troubles came along, beginning in 1967. Yet at that time we were already making a transition because the University was growing so rapidly we were establishing two new degree-granting campuses in Racine-Kenosha and in Green 00:06:00 Bay--Parkside and Green Bay. We were establishing those. They were built upon our two-year campuses, but we made them degree-granting campuses so that we were going to have four campuses, and the extension was getting bigger. So that it was at that point that we moved towards having a chief Madison official. That was, well, maybe 1964-65. We appointed a provost here and later made him chancellor. That was Bob Fleming, who we brought up from in Illinois and who left us in '67 to go to Michigan as president, where he still is, still is president--or is president again. But it was at that point that we turned the day-by-day administration of Madison campuses and the other campuses over to the chief officer there and when we appointed a provost here. Actually, we prepared for this by having my vice-president, Bob Clodius--who's now the head of the state universities--Bob Clodius was acting provost, say in `63, '64, something like that. Then we brought Fleming in. And Fleming was, in any case, a Madison person. He had been trained here in the law school and had been a professor here. We did this--to bring in an outsider to the Madison campus, as we found out with Albert Flint (??), would have been difficult at that time. And not desirable. TB: What was to be the function of the chancellor vis-a-vis the president? FH: The chancellor, as in any system--the California system being perhaps the best of them--the president has overall charge and handles the legislature and handles the budget and hands it out to the various campuses. But the internal matter of handling the campuses is in the hands of the chancellor. This is of substantial importance in reference to the student troubles, 00:07:00 but has led a special importance, well a special relevance here because I was still turning the thing over when the student troubles began. [unclear] Since athletics is a big thing in any of our Big Ten universities. I stayed in politics, but I also stayed in athletics. I had no alternative, really, because the regents were interested in athletics. So that I was involved in the appointing of the athletic director as late as '67 when, already, student troubles were beginning. That was when Hirsch was brought in, Crazylegs Hirsch. Let me make the point now. When I became president we had a good year and went to the Rose Bowl. I became president in '62, we went to the Rose Bowl in '63. The last time. It was a very dramatic Rose Bowl when we lost but almost won. Actually, of course, if we had present rules we wouldn't have gone 00:08:00 because the rules then were that the winner of the Big Ten couldn't go two years in a row, or three years in a row. So we were runner-up to Ohio State, I think, and were actually tied with Purdue for second place. And yet we beat Purdue so we were invited, and we went. Lots of people thought I would be against our going because I had been an anti-athletic type as a professor, but obviously we should go, and certainly the regents wanted to go. But I still retain my anti-athletic position to some extent because when we had a regents' discussion on it, I stated publicly that post-season athletics was not very important. I got in a lot of trouble when I got out to California. In any case, I make the point because I still, at the end of the season, went to the football banquet. Not because I was interested in athletics but because that was expected of me. 00:09:00 The president of the University was still involved in the athletic team. I mention this because I got the blame, pretty much, for the student troubles even though by that time the question had been turned over to the Madison campus chancellor. And obviously when we had a bad football season I had to go to the football banquet too and was involved in the appointment of Hirsch, although that really should have been the chancellor's job. And the question was, should we fire the coach? This was Milt Bruhn--should we fire him? That was a question of which I was brought in to the Athletic Board, although we already had a chancellor--oh, we had a provost who was becoming chancellor. And the 00:10:00 Capital Times hasn't forgiven me for this, saying I was the guy that fired Milt Bruhn, although I.... TB: Fired who? FH: Milt Bruhn was the football coach who went to the Rose Bowl in '63. (March 23, 1988) But he had bad seasons after that because he had given up on recruiting--it was too dull for him. And the Cap Times says that although I'm a great president, but the one thing to have against me was that I fired Milt Bruhn. Actually, I didn't. I kept him for a year longer than the Athletic Board wanted to, but I never bothered. It's just not of very great importance to me, except it has some relationship to this. Because when the first student troubles came, we had a president and a provost--I think we had moved from provost to chancellor. After Fleming got here, we made him chancellor and made the Milwaukee provost, Klotsche, chancellor too. And we made a chancellor for extensions, a chancellor in Green Bay and in Parkside. So we're talking about chancellors here 00:11:00 now, although the provost title was still in at the beginning. Well, when the first troubles came, and the first student protests, Fleming was still here. TB: And then Dow.... FH: No, this was actually before the big Dow trouble. The big Dow trouble, when there was a riot and all that kind of thing, came right after Fleming left, and Bill Sewell was--- TB: Oh, that's right. FH: Have you talked to Sewell? TB: No. I should. FH: He was involved in these student troubles, although he of course had left the chancellorship before it came along. In any case, the first student troubles came with demonstrations and so on, and demonstrations outside the president's office and the chancellor's office and what not. And demands, non-negotiable demands, already, on the part of leaders. There were relatively few real radicals here, but one 00:12:00 of them was here, Bob Cohen. Cohen, who later left here and went to Buffalo. I guess the Philosophy Department here kicked him out or whatever. He was a student, a grad student--I think he was expelled. TB: In '68 sometime. FH: Not for disciplinary reasons. TB: Yes, I think in connection with the Dow riots, perhaps? FH: Maybe so. In any case, I don't want to say anything because I don't remember it. But I do remember Cohen being involved in these first troubles. And there were protests outside the president's office--obviously not an occupation of the president's office, but protests outside it, and so on. And then I was called into Cohen. I guess I was at home, and called into my office to talk. I called Fleming and said, "How about your coming in?" And he said, oh no, he'd been advised by Hansom not to come, to 00:13:00 stay home. That he shouldn't talk. Well, I said, "I'm the president, but you're the chancellor, and I think you ought to be there." Already you'd had the Berkeley problems, and already I knew that Kerr took charge of everything although he was president and there was a chancellor--guy named Strong. In fact, Kerr ran everything on the Berkeley campus. When I was out there visiting, before the student troubles, there were signs up saying, "Keep Off the Grass By Order of the President." TB: Even though it should have been the chancellor. FH: He absolutely ran everything, the same way that Bill Friede (?) did in North Carolina. He never stopped running Chapel Hill, although he had a system, too, with other campuses and one important other campus. And I remember the problems that Kerr had, and it seemed to me 00:14:00 clear that he stuck his neck out too much and the chancellor ought to be running it, at least at first. I suppose the general view in the state was that I was in completely in charge, but I felt this was right to turn over. My recollection may not be all that good, but things were beginning to happen by this time. The Berkeley thing had happened--seems like the Columbia thing hadn't begun to happen---- TB: Well, Columbia--'68, I think. After Dow. FH: After Dow. Well, that's later. But the Berkeley thing had begun to happen, and decided he was in charge. And he got all the flak, because he reported to us in the Association of American Universities, "Freedom Under Clark Kerr--F-U-C-K." That tested him on obscenity as well as on protest. TB: What was the acronym again? FH: Freedom Under Clark Kerr. TB: I see. FH: When there was some protest on the part of obscenities as well as other things. And, of course, he had it taught. In any case, it seemed to me that Fleming should be in on it, so I called him in, and together we met with Cohen, who seemed to be most intricate, and a few others--we kept them out of the room, which we couldn't do later, I guess. We kept them out of the president's office. I was still on Bascom, we were both on Bascom. I was in an office that is now the chancellor's office, and the chancellor 00:15:00 was down at the other end. I was on my way to getting out, because we were building this building, and since we've developed this chancellor system, I suggested to the Building Commission--we had the floors here, so we'd have a central administration here and be out of the way of the Madison campus, although we couldn't really be out of town because this was the capital. In any case, we were still in Bascom and this is how it began. At that point I said to Cohen and to Fleming, "This is the chancellor's business. It's something you should take up with the chancellor." And after that, after that first discussion, they did. TB: I see. FH: And from then one, Fleming did it--of course, he talked to me about it--but he did it, and he handled it pretty well. For example, Cohen was saying, "We're going to keep you prisoner," because he had a meeting at the end of a hall, which people learned not to do later on in the troubles. And Fleming said, "Well, I'm a lawyer. You do that, and the minute you try to keep me prisoner I'll have the law on you." Which, in those days, worked but later on it didn't. And indeed in those days the radicals were still praising us to some extent. For example, in that first meeting Cohen praised me because I had resigned from the Madison Club, because we tried to get a Jew in and they blackballed him. So I resigned. It seems awfully old, doesn't it? Seems old stuff, a long way back. Cohen said, "Well, you've resigned--why don't you work with us?" TB: Do you remember what it was that 00:16:00 Cohen wanted you to do at that time? FH: I guess I'd have to refresh my mind on this. Maybe it was keeping Dow off the campus, although Dow didn't come until after Cohen had left. TB: Yes. Well, there had been a previous conflict over Dow in, I think, February of '67, in the winter. And it didn't get violent. There had been--- FH: That was probably it. These things to have gone on through. In any case, I thought Fleming handled this quite well, and there were some people arrested in connection with that. TB: There was some kind of sit-in or something. FH: Yes, and the sit-in was after this first encounter, which I mentioned mainly because I turned it over to Fleming. There were some arrests made. Fleming, who was a--after then was not very much a lawyer but a labor negotiator, and able to handle things pretty well. Better than I, anyway. Of course, it became difficult and tougher later. But he showed this ability. He said it's a lot easier at Michigan than here--we'll talk of that later. But when the troubles came and people were put in jail, then, he bailed them out. He bailed them out, which was his effort to show that he was on both sides. He tried to make friends, he tried to handle it. He bailed them out because he had just done some labor 00:17:00 negotiation and received a check for $4000 or something like that. So he had a lot of money in his bank account, which even University administrators didn't have in those days. And he put the money up, a couple thousand dollars, for the bailing out. And when the money was returned, it was given to the lawyers of the protestors, and they never gave it back to Fleming. He never got it back. TB: You're kidding. FH: Check with Fleming, because he's the one that told me that. TB: That is disgusting. FH: Yes, yes. Though I don't suppose that's been publicized much. TB: I never heard that. FH: Put in a phone call to Fleming. You should talk with him about that. TB: I should, yes. I will. FH: Fleming, of course, had lots of troubles at Michigan but 00:18:00 handled them well, I thought. As he said the troubles weren't as great as up here. Well, it was right at that point Fleming got some reputation out of this. In those days, you still could get some reputation out of hammering the troubles. ???? TB: He was considered pretty good at it. FH: He was, he was. He then had some famous offers from Minnesota and Michigan. He was, in any case, a lawyer in a high administrative position--the head of a prestigious campus. And naturally his lawyer friends in all places--Minnesota, Michigan, and so on would be interested in him. At that time, it was uncommon for lawyers to head institutions. I mean, he'd have a Ph.D and a doctorate. Although I suppose he became one when they turned law degrees into doctorate's degrees. He didn't--if you pay $25. But yes, he then went to, he chose Michigan against Minnesota. Better place. But on the other hand, Minnesota was a place you could build and Michigan was already built. TB: Michigan was also somewhat of a hotspot. Ann Arbor, right, was a real hotspot in those times. FH: Yes, it was, it was. In fact, his predecessor, according to the president, said he was scared to death. He 00:19:00 obviously was--he talked to us, he was scared, this ??? to occur was thoroughly complicated and seemed rather amused. TB: Oh really? FH: Well, he told of these things like the F-U-C-K story. He told them about Joan Baez being there. He obviously couldn't measure up to her, not having charisma or anything. He is a rather dull-looking fellow. But, yes, I remember--what's the name of this professor? In any case, the president's house is right on campus in Michigan. And uh, the president was sacred to death! So that obviously Fleming was a much better person for that. But, of course, we lost a lot. We lost a lot because when he left, we then made Sewell chancellor--Sewell was a very capable person. In fact, more of a sociology research man. Very capable person. The person responsible for making the Sociology Department here the number one department in the country, which it is now. And they rate it number one. Just reason anymore. And this is a major first in the liberal--quite sympathetic with the students. But lacking the skills of--which I also lacked--and lacking the judgment, for example, in the ??? case to head down, to get people off campus. That there should be no--- TB: Right. FH: So we got ourselves into trouble. When this trouble came, the Dow trouble, in...'67? TB: Yes, well, October '67. 00:20:00 October 17th, October 18th was the big riot.and so on-- FH: Because that would mean that it was right after Sewell took over, because Fleming was in charge in the early part of '67 when the troubles began. So that Sewell was in charge, and in fact I made a great point that he was charge, and when the troubles began to stem I went over to Milwaukee, which I had to do quite a bit anyway. But it seemed to me this was giving him, and he wouldn't--he was always telling what to do. Not that I'd have done any better. But I was in Milwaukee when the real troubles began. I was coming back, I was in touch. Because I heard it when I was in Milwaukee, the troubles. TB: You went down to Milwaukee--you mean you went down just to visit, or to do some business down there? FH: University of Wisconsin--in fact I had a meeting that probably was previously 00:21:00 scheduled with a group of Milwaukee faculty. TB: So you weren't on campus the day of Dow. FH: I was not on campus when it began, but when it began I was called in Milwaukee, came, and ??? again to one of my assistants from when I reached the other side of town, and then came in, and trouble were, well, the big matter of the trouble was over. TB: When you got back. FH: When I got back was--the decisions in reference to the story, so immediately I went to his office. It was up to him to handle it, but I certainly anxious to support him in every way. Sewell was shocked by the damage that was done by the police--and, of course, anybody would be--but there was also a point that a small-town police force, and it was not only a little out of hand but the police were scared to death too. So that we handled it badly, in other words. But when Sewell began to handle it, his children came into it. Two of his children were students here. TB: Oh, really? FH: And they were altogether on the side of the students, and the designated grievance thing, and ??? he was really.... So what he did, and with my support, was to bring in his close friend, Burt Fisher, who's retired now, and was the support of 00:22:00 Sewell during that period that followed. In fact, he helped Sewell all the time. TB: Was he in an official capacity? FH: I think when Sewell became chancellor he used Fisher as an unofficial advisor. That would be the late summer and early fall of 1967. But he was still using him when the troubles came, and then, since he obviously needed help--the head of the University Committee and I felt that he needed help and asked him who he needed--well, he wanted Burt Fisher. So it seems to me that Burt Fisher then became "official" as an assistant to the chancellor. Burton Fisher. He's still in town. He was very sick for a long time and could've died, but I don't think he did. He's a professor emeritus, and he's still in town. He gives only his home phone number, if he's there to talk to. He survived a severe illness. He was very supportive of Sewell, of course, and really quite opposed to federal (?) administration. In my student people, I used Bob Taylor. Have you talked with him? TB: I'm in touch with him. I'm waiting. He's in having an operation done. FH: Yes, he's just out, just back home. I haven't talked to him and stuff--he'll be laid up at home for some weeks. And he's supposedly coherent. He's been taping. TB: With Laura? FH: And having some differences with her as to how--he wants to prepare ahead of time and like to give her a statement and then have her ask questions about it. She loves statements. She wants to ask him questions. 00:23:00 She's not a very good question-asker, though, and I sympathize with him on that. But I talked with her, I didn't have anything written to prevent--I thought about a little bit in advance, and therefore had a fairly plan of escape of which I do not have here. In this case, Fisher then supported Sewell, and there was some conflict between Fisher, who was very positive, and particularly Taylor, who was by press ban, but also was on kind of a special assignment to handle this particular thing. Particularly handle it if had anything in reference to the frats. But we had two people really at federal administration. One of them, a law professor, was brought in to assist us, but I guess not. Bunn, George Bunn, who later became Dean of the Law School. He was brought in part-time for this, part-time as a professor of law, then he became a full-time professor of law. There was some conflict between he and Taylor, too, on you handle 00:24:00 this. And how you handle these things. Of course, this was more involved in it because not only did the general public still think of the president--you know, after all, Fleming, really a short time wasn't too well-known around the state and I was the one out making speeches, anyway--and Sewell wasn't known at all around the state. So that the regents, the public tends to think of me and therefore I had to have somebody there. TB: Were you getting heat right away over this? FH: Yes. TB: Where from? FH: Well, regents. TB: Did they call you? FH: No, when they came in, no, they didn't call me. TB: There was a meeting? FH: A monthly meeting. And I can--have to tell this about ??? period that interests you. But the regents were at this time changing from very supportive regents, and an extremely capable group of regents--in my early days as president I had an extraordinarily capable group of regents. Dr. DeBardeleben. Arthur DeBardelben. He'd just left the regents, probably. And Jake Friedrick, Jacob Friedrick, was a labor man. An uneducated labor man in my town. He had no formal education beyond the sixth grade, but one of the best regents I ever had. Those were two terrific regents. And some other good ones, too. But I had support from those regents, but the political thing changed. The Democrats lost. They won in '62, the year I became president. They lost in '64, and from then on, regents were all appointed by the governor, who was quite friendly to the University, quite friendly to me, but tended to appoint right-wing, Republican regents. TB: You're talking about Knowles. FH: Knowles, yes. Rather a liberal and certainly a friend to the University, and, in a way, quite a defender of me, but some of the regents he appointed were extreme right-wingers. This was why I had the difficulties. Now, actually, of course, regents change too. And regents are in touch with their friends. And the climate of opinion changed in the state, too. Not only that, but individual regents change, 00:25:00 because one regent comes from the old days--Charles Gelatt. G-E-L-L-A-T-T. Charles Gelatt was extraordinarily liberal for a Republican businessman and was a great supporter of mine, but shifted over in the course of this as the regents changed, in that he wanted to be a leader of the regents. Oh, I don't know, you can't give motives on these things. He was, after all, in touch with all of his friends, who were shocked by what was happening and what not. He certainly had ambitions in that he would have liked to become governor--although that's something I would just as soon have off the record. TB: O.K. FH: I'm not even sure I'll say it when I get to writing my own stuff. But, yes, Charles Gelatt is an indication of how things changed. They changed so much that the regents were in favor of a crackdown. They were a little perplexed by the Dow thing, and felt, well, alright, they made some mistakes. But they were, after that, kind of down on me. They were coming down on me anyway, because I was 00:26:00 understood to be a product of the liberal Democratic period. TB: Did they consider you too soft on the students? FH: Oh yes. TB: Had you been critical of the police role in Dow? FH: I wouldn't say I was altogether soft because I was sympathetic to the position of the police. And when we did reschedule Dow's examinations, we scheduled them in the Field House, and we had the police there. Only two people came to the interview, of course. I was out there some, and I talked to the police. I was sympathetic to the police. They had their problems too. Of course, it's true that police who tend to be not college-educated in a college town tend to be anti-student. Especially since they run into students when the students are in bars and most students are apt to be snippy to them and what not and the general feeling is that they're not part of it and looked down upon. So that I can understand that stuff, it's admirable and understandable, still. And it's a tiny force, and of course University police was very small and the city police was very small, as compared with, 00:27:00 say, New York. Where, they said in New York, that to handle something like the Columbia thing you needed four policemen for every sit-in person. ??? TB: So the ratio was reversed, I'm sure. FH: I'm sympathetic, except that I was known to be to the left. I was willing to join them, and especially for the regents, I was willing to join them in some criticism of the liberals. Because, I said, you know, I have a radical background myself. Not a liberal background. I'm very critical of the liberals. In one sentence I could tell the regents that But I come from a somewhat radical background, but, I said, I'm not in favor of violence. Now, so that the regents well this kind of... After all, I was a professor who turned out these new left diplomats, who turned out Bill Williams, who was in trouble with the FBI. [1] Yes, and you know I turned out a good many of these others, there's quite a batch of these new leftist- orienteds who were my students--Lloyd Gardner, Bob Fursta, for example, and ??? from Cornell, as well as Bill Williams and ???, and it was known that I was associated with Harvey Goldberg. To what extent the regents knew all that I don't 00:28:00 know, but Goldberg was a prominent person and I was a defender of Goldberg I brought--so that I was looked upon with some doubt anyway. Naturally I would be, I was the president of the DeBardeleben and Friedrick kind of people. I had not been associated with Elvehjem's position, which Elvehjem had told the regents privately--if a person had not been a member of the communist party--was a member of the communist party they couldn't be on our--shouldn't be on our faculty. E. B. Fred, predecessor but one before me had signed a statement by the Association of American Universities that Communists should not be on the faculty. TB: Really? FH: He was one of the hold-ups. But it was a unanimous statement pushed by the--was it Harvard parliament? ???, I don't know, in any case, he was a fighter, a little reluctant. Not reluctant because he was doubtful about denouncing communism, but doubtful because he never wanted to say anything, he always wanted to keep from saying anything about anything. He always wanted to keep himself out. And he had a very tough right-wing board of regents. Well, we had a question of, a problem came up of a former communist on the Milwaukee faculty and this went to the regents while Elvehjem was president. I was vice-president. And we had a discussion in the Educational Committee in which, well we agreed in favor of firing him 00:29:00 if he was still a communist, and both Elvehjem and Klotsche, the chancellor in Milwaukee said "Oh yes"--they would want to fire him. I didn't say anything. But if I said anything I was cautious, ??? Yes, I think you should keep him. But I didn't say that, but some of the people that I was associated with, and DeBardeleben was the person I was most associated with, because he was head of the regents when I was president and he was very supportive of me, in fact he, at every point would support me. He'd round up the regents to support me even when he didn't quite agree. And he publicly would say, "Sure, we've got a communist on the board, on the faculty". TB: No kidding? FH: Oh, yes, he was really way out. He objected--in fact he objected to a great many things--he objected to affirmative action when it first came because he said you can't have -- it would be favoritism - stuff. TB: Yes. FH: Which puts it in an anti-black thing, but his own vision was vitally against any religion in the university for example that may touch on a religious department. He didn't want to have a meditation room in the hospital until one of the regents offered money for it. Then you would have it only if it was non-religious--no crosses 00:30:00 and stuff. And he went to court up in his hometown, to prevent the Baptists from having a meeting in the courthouse when they're building burned down-- TB: Is he still around DeBardeleben? FH: Yes, he's up there. TB: In what town? FH: In Park Falls. He's one of the ablest lawyers I ever ran into, he's a defense lawyer, won't serve--up there you know big accounts would be with the utility companies and they often would give him a retainer. To take that retainer is against--that is of some interest, because he was a known--he'd left the regents about `67--but he was a known close associate with me, and one of the right-wing regents told me, well, troubles with me because of too much DeBardeleben. But I retained connections with DeBardeleben. DeBardeleben had supported me vigorously, and I was to ??? however I don't complain about that, it's the proper relationship anyway. I was certainly going to be against the right wing. Now, there was a tricky thing here. I did take the position that as a university president I should not take stands on public questions, and I would not then take a personal stand against the Vietnam War, which I now look back on and think was a mistake. I should have said--I should have made a great point, "I'll not separate myself personally from my position as president and I'm against the 00:31:00 Vietnam War. Because I was of course, very much so, and I guess generally known although the students really didn't know. But I was several times involved, for example when it came to make peace and what-not. TB: Make peace with whom? FH: The students, and uh hold it down a little bit. Some of the faculty members wanted older students down a little bit, and Bill Williamson was one of them. TB: I remember he discouraged them on one occasion, I remember. FH: He on one occasion called me in to talk to him. Saying he knew he did that at some risk to himself. It was to some extent-- TB: He called you in to talk to his class? FH: No, to talk to a group of 68 or less ??? And he said--at some 00:32:00 risk to himself and, he knew, some risk to me. But I talked to them. They said they were willing to accept me to some extent. Well, you know, I like the Madison public. I was regarded as a better president than one of the regents was regarded as a regent. [2] But this got out of hand, of course, because he wouldn't be--the liberals or the moderate radicals in the administration were denounced by the people that began to take over of the student troubles. After all, ??? I told you that once. The attack came to me--the liberal campuses were the ones that were attacked. Harvard, Columbia, Berkeley, Madison. TB: Liberals themselves were in disfavor with the radicals. It became unfashionable to be a liberal. FH: Well, I thought rather poorly of most liberals too, 00:33:00 as far as I'm concerned. Though ulitmately I don't know. Some of my friends said, "Well, why didn't the faculty stand up for you more, when it looked like you might be going?" I didn't like that stand at all. I did have one telegram sent to the regents from a faculty member saying, "Force Harrington to reconsider his resignation." But as my friends on the faculty said, "Well, I resign." If not had not resigned, I would have had some support. How much? I don't know. How much? I* don't know? Probably not all that much. Because--- TB: Were you under pressure to resign? FH: That's another--let's get to that--- TB: That's later on, yes. FH: First of all, after the Dow thing, I was in some disfavor with the board, but not all that disfavor because I was taking the stand of, "We made a mistake. We should make sure that Dow continues to come to campus. We should stand up for people coming to campus and defend them." But if I took the 00:34:00 stand very much against the position of the radicals after all they hooted down Ted Kennedy. And of that was unutterable, and when you had a president come here--as you see from the ??? no president hasn't come here at all since Truman. But Mrs. Johnson was going to come here, and she sat out of ??? She was, I don't getting rid of automobile ??? or defending the landscape or something. I talked with her advance agent, and said, "We'll defend her to the--We'll defend her." That's what we must do. I felt that ???? That's one of the reasons regents were satisfied to some extent on that measure, but of course she decided not to go, and went to Spring Green instead, where she wouldn't have any trouble. Of course Frank Lloyd Wright was kind of a wild one too, but not around anymore, and so that they didn't come. But when they wanted to come, they were willing to come, they did, and we had Hubert Humphrey here and he wasn't shouted down. He was put in hell in the crowd and he talked for hours. And we had Jobbets (??) here, and he was a supporter of the Vietnam 00:35:00 War. We had Humphrey here because we wanted him to support us for getting the Midwest accelerator which might have went to Illinois. But--that was another kind of politics. But we had Jobbets (?) here, some student group brought him in, and Jobbets (?) was supporting the war. And he supported it in the Wisconsin Union with all these people against. He was brilliant, brilliant. I introduced him. Just terrific. He'd get a question--I helped some, saying "We're going to have questions, we're not going to have speeches." So we got speeches anyway, of course, a little bit, from the people that specialized in that. But lots of questions, and they could question him then he would restate the question. And he came off extremely well. There was some solemn feeling about it. Well, the fact that had withdrawn a little from it, and the fact that when we had the University Faculty meeting it was Sewell that was often talked on. Me, I attended the meeting--? The first meeting we had after the Dow thing, Sewell was in charge. I was in the audience, but I didn't speak. And the second one--we had another one--I did speak to support Sewell, but in a way I was pulling out of it. I didn't want to blame Sewell, you know I supported the very point. But to some extent Sewell needed support with reference to Heck, we're going to have these interviews and what not. He was willing to do that, although he was really very anxious to be friendly with the students. He cared a lot more about the students than most professors, maybe more than Ed Young, who was always an administrator--partly because of his bad eyesight. Oh, I knew of--he had big classes and graduate students who didn't get to know him. He was a law person, and neither I or Ed Young--- TB: Is 00:36:00 Sewell still around here? [3] FH: Yes, yes. He's had health troubles, too. He's had a neck or back problem, so he couldn't go to Hawaii which he would normally do at this time of year. Because after he retired, he went to ?? Center every winter. But he stayed here and I've seen him lately so he's around. Very good person to talk to. He tried to get involved with the students. When Martin Luther King was killed, he wanted to take charge of this but let the blacks take charge of this and 00:37:00 made a speech. He felt for the students, I think, more than I. In any case, that was the situation, but Sewell wasn't thought of very well by the regents. He was blamed a little more than I was blamed. They didn't want to fire him, although Sewell had taken the job on a one year basis. He had said he wanted to be--he didn't know that he wanted to be an administrator. He wanted to be for a year and see how he liked it. Because he was, after all, a very distinguished sociologist and was on his way to being president of the American Sociology Association. And at the end of the year, because it was understood with the regents that he wanted it for a year, the regents didn't want him to continue. And [unclear] I didn't either. Although if he had felt he wanted to, I suppose I would have fought for him--I don't know what the regents would have done, he had set up the appointment for a year. But he and I had a talk, in which he said, well, I guess he was willing to continue, but I said "well, you know 00:38:00 there's a good question here with the regents quite hostile, as to whether you should". And the way you feel about things [unclear] about whether I should continue - how long I should stay -- this was '68. Well, he said, "In any case, I must continue, I must continue, because," he said, "I was needed." But given the fact that he didn't feel he had regent support--and he certainly didn't--he quit. You talk with him about this. TB: I will. FH: In fact, he's put on tape on this, I think, and he'd be willing to read a tape from. You'd get permission to read a tape, I've seen it. And then we had to select somebody. So we put it to committee and got a lot of names. And here, of course, the regents can decide and make appointments without consulting the committee if they want to, and when they appointed my successor they didn't take anybody who was supported by the faculty. They took John Weaver, who'd been thrown out by the faculty Search-and-Screen. But the Search-and-Screen came up with a committee, the committee 00:39:00 selected -- the Search-and-Screen come up - and this was Faculty-Administration-Student one student representative. They came up with a slate which had some pretty good people on it. I mean, Leon Epstein, for example, who was ??? involved these days but still around. Leon Epstein, was dean for a long time, and was political science--and still is in political science. Distinguished professor. He was in administration for a while, then left... Epstein was one of the people suggested. I don't know who it was, but there were several people but Ed Young was left off. Ed Young had been, for a long time, the Dean of Letters and Science. Right into the student difficulties. But he had gone to the University of Maine. And at University of Maine--he got in some trouble because Maine was made into a system. He was the head of the University of Maine-Orono. And maybe he'd been made head of the system, but he didn't want to be. He felt the campus job was better--he didn't even want to be head of the campus because of somebody's mother, so he wanted to leave. So I brought him back as a vice-president, and had in mind that he would do all state stuff. He'd do help with politics--Ed was a political person--that he would do Milwaukee stuff and handle the Green Bay and Parkside stuff and be helpful to Madison. TB: Were you grooming him for chancellor? FH: Well, I didn't know--but what Sewell might succeed. In fact, I think Sewell was one of the best people we ever had for the job. TB: Yeah, just the 00:40:00 wrong time. FH: Wrong time. Yes. One of the people whom I admire. He was the guy who started this social science stuff that ended with me becoming president. But he got tired of it, and got tired of President Fred not being willing to support him, defeating a possibility of him getting a big plumb (?). So, I was always a great supporter of his--and he'd been of mine, I guess. Well, in any case, the list did not have Ed Young on it, although Ed Young had just become a vice-president. In a way, I obviously wanted Ed Young, also in support in connection with the student troubles, because I knew that Ed Young was even stronger. Uh tended to be a little stronger than I was in terms of position with reference to be against the students. I didn't want to be all out against the students. TB: He was going to be the hard guy. FH: That was not as clear then. I thought he might be a little harder than I, but--and I might very well have him be handling that matter with Bob Taylor, with whom he got along very well. TB: Ed's a feisty kind of guy. FH: Yes. And as chancellor, he did take that position, and that was fine. One of the results of it, though, was that that cast me in the soft position with regents. You can understand it. So the regents began beating me then. This came to 00:41:00 a crisis a little while later, after Ed had become chancellor at a regents' meeting. I don't know if you've heard about this. It happened in Green Bay, it was out of town in Green Bay. There was a meeting towards the end, when, and actually Lucey--who was going to be later governor--was there. He was running for [unclear] And the regents were trying to take over, were trying--they said they wanted me to run the--I'd run it with him. TB: Dillon was, wasn't he the Green Bay Packers ??? position? FH: Yes, and an orthopedic surgeon. TB: And he was a real rabid right-winger, wasn't he? FH: Yes, quite right wing, yes, but the particular case was the case of regent Pelisek. Pelisek was the regent--P-e-l-i-s-e k--a Milwaukee regent who headed a 00:42:00 regent committee. The regents appointed a committee on bull horns, you see they were trying to take over. And Pelisek came in with a report to the regents saying, bull horns should not be used, because these radicals were using them, and all the protesters were using them. Bull horns should not be used, said this committee, except before football games and for homecoming and things like this. And I then said, "Regent Pelisek, do you really mean that we should use bull horns for fun and games, but not for the great social discussions of the great social issues of the day?"--the way I was accepting my position they were putting me in. It was at that point he said, "You know, Mr. President, people of the state are getting sick and tired of you". TB: Pelisek said that? FH: Pelisek said that. In the regent meeting. In a public regent meeting, with the future governor there. TB: Wow. FH: This must have been l970, early l970. TB: Was that the time of the Cambodia and Kent State riots. FH: Well, it doesn't seem to be. It certainly wasn't before I resigned, I resigned in May. And it may well have been even before I decided to resign, even before some of the regents suggested I should. TB: Did you have anything to say back to them at that point. FH: Well, it was--I'd said 00:43:00 it. TB: Yes, yes. FH: In fact I thought it was a pretty good statement, "Should you not discuss the great social issues of the day..". TB: Are those minutes of those meetings available? FH: Those were regent meetings, public regent meetings, it'd be out. You should -- you could probably look it up. I guess I can't date it exactly, if I could I could tell you whether it was after I decided to resign or not. It wasn't any earlier than 1970, because in l969-70 I went away, I went away for most of the Fall 69-70 term. I was given a tired president grant. Dan Forth foundation gave presidents--all presidents were having trouble in those days--and they gave us a tired president granted we were kept on salary. They would give us our travel expenses and our wife's expenses, if you'd go away and think things over and so on. Actually, my wife and I did go away, and we went over to India and what not. That was at the point 00:44:00 that I pretty well decided, "Well, what the devil, at some point or other, I'm going to pull out of here". But when I came back I found that several of the regents were determined that I should be thrown out--specifically Nellen, and Pelisek, and Gelatt, and Zeiglar, those four, and had a private meeting during the period when I was away, when ??? was acting president, in which they pretty well decided I should go, and that the proper approach was the approach of the Madison chancellor, rather than the approach of what they thought the president was. And this to me, I wasn't all that unwilling to leave, in any case, although when I look back on it, probably what I should have done is to get fired. But, it seemed to me, since Ed Young was so favored by the regents, I guess crack down politics were favored by them, that he very well would be made president, because the thought was that the president was the guy that would run things - thought he would be. And that would have been alright with me, because while Ed was a crackdown type who used secret agents among the radicals and what not, still, I thought he'd be a very respectful president. I wanted him to be president. He on the other hand was supporting me, when he knew that I was on the run. He came to me and he said he knew he was the white haired boy, he said this to me. TB: The fair-haired boy? FH: The fair haired boy, fair-haired boy, yes, fair-haired boy. He knew he was the 00:45:00 fair-haired boy and anything he could do to support me he would be glad to do. That was between the time when I decided to resign and the time when I did resign in May. So that we`re friends and have continued to be friends, and I never felt quite that he was taking this strong position because he wanted to be president, because actually it turned out that he didn't really want to be president. Madison campus was really what he wanted. TB: I see. Did he ever become president? FH: He became president TB: He did become president. FH: He became president of the system, he was never president of the University. I was really the last president of the University, because after I resigned, and they appointed Weaver to succeed me as president of the University, they immediately then merged things and had a system, and Weaver was then made president of the system, so he was only briefly president of the University and then was president of the system. And it was a weak appointment after I left, and it was--the appointment of Weaver, who was the president of Missouri, Missouri system--he was appointed because the regents thought they could run him. Regent Gelatt was the guy that picked him, regent Gelatt had known him on the governing boards committees, and they wanted Weaver because they thought they could run him, as I guess they put it. He was a little unfortunate because I resigned in May and in November Lucey was elected governor. Lucey was not only 00:46:00 present at that regents meeting, early l970, but he was friendly with me, reasonably friendly with me, and indeed had me out to house, had my wife and me out to his house with the speaker of the assembly during the campaign, so that--no not during the campaign, before I resigned. Before I resigned, before I resigned, before the campaign. So that if I'd stayed on, if I'd managed to stay on and were still president in November of l970--meanwhile the bombing had occurred and Lucey had been elected--it would have been very difficult for them to have fired me, and I probably would not have resigned because the first Lucey appointment to the board of regents system was Arthur De Barteleben. However, the reason I resigned and was therefore not, I was therefore a resigned president when the troubles came, the reason I resigned was partly because of this--the conflict on the student business, and partly because in any case I was no longer able to get what I wanted. I was no longer able to run the University, by the time these troubles came along l970, by the time I went off and thought about this. TB: Unable because of the obstruction of the regents, or because of things being out of hand generally? FH: A great variety of things. The student question was such that it had absorbed almost everything. Second, by that time the federal support which was a great thing for our building the University was dying out, even before the Nixon - the big Nixon cuts and whatnot in '67. It began to die off in the end of the `60s. And the state was turning more difficult so far as getting things done was concerned. And 00:47:00 although the democrats came in again with Lucey, Lucey was as difficult as anybody. If I'd been in it he'd have cut the University although he probably would have protected me. I don't know, maybe I say I should have stayed because if I`d been president when Lucey was governor, probably I could have handled it. He said to me later that he would not have merged, he would not have brought the merger if I'd have been here. But that was because of friendship? Probably not, because He didn't think I was a very friendly person. Or because he thought maybe I could have beaten the legislature? Probably couldn't, because I was losing my legislative support because the general feeling of the state was very strong in the legislature in the early `60s, and began to decline, and as the student troubles came we began to lose our state support, which was just incredible, incredible, in the `60s. TB: The extent of the support was incredible. FH: Well, yes. TB: You had a lot of support. FH: From the `20s 00:48:00 on--`30s, `40s. Yes, it was enormous, it was incredible, on both political parties. A politician wouldn't dare be against the University. And they wanted these new branches of the University and all that. TB: Was this was one of the great `world universities', right? FH: Right, right, and it still is, of course. But it was recognized as one of the great universities, and you took pride in it, and this was a great thing. But as soon as the student troubles began, support began to ebb, and along with the ebbing of general support because of the student troubles, came a lot of stuff about sex on the campus and drugs on the campus, and some of the regents and some of the people around the state were very much taken by this drug business. And all of this came together as a result of the publicity around the state. One of the regents for example was tremendously excited about the sex stuff. This was Walter Rank who wanted a curfew on the girl students at five o'clock--incredible. And people around the state began to say this, they'd write in saying, well the big thing--one guy came up to my office and said, "The big thing is that it's a dress code you've got to have in order to keep these people in line". It was the student trouble mainly, but along with it was the sex trouble and the drug trouble. And this is the period when you're beginning to move to co-ed dorms it's the beginning--its drugs everywhere. So that some of the legislatures who never liked the University much but didn't dare oppose it began to talk about drugs, and they forced us to have meetings on drugs and what not--should marijuana be legalized and so on. I generally 00:49:00 was--brought in to help us--medical people had felt that marijuana should be legalized. So again you see, I was in this box, in this general box. So we lost a lot of support, and among the areas that we lost or probably never had control of was the alumnae association. Now in some places the alumnae association is a part of the University. Here it isn't, it's outside, different from some places like Ohio State, for example where it's inside. And at New York University they've had a big fight now, which the new president Bratimus, who is a great guy in my mind, has taken it over, from being out. It's his, It's his. That's very important with a state university, because you'd expect the alumnae association to help you in the legislature when you're in trouble, help you always in anything--student trouble came, no help at all, none. And the head of the regents, Arlie Mucks, was doggedly 00:50:00 against this. TB: Arlie Mucks? FH: Arlie Mucks, yes, you want to remember him, because he's around at the time of the bombing. A-r-l-i-e - Arlie Mucks - M-u-c-k-s. Entirely an athletic supporter as most of the big people in the alumnae association are, it's a rah-rah alumnae association, and a right wing alumnae association. It did support us, when everybody was supporting us in the early `60s, but didn't support us. And the fact was, I suppose our major critic when we had alumnae meetings here--I attended alumnae meetings. Maybe I shouldn't have, maybe I should've turned those over to the chancellor, but I felt I should because that was the firing line--`67, `68, `69, Whew! The alumnae came in! Then the ones that were officers of the association were violently against the--students. I often took the [unclear] position of defending the students, you see, which again tended to put me in that pattern. TB: I heard that Elroy Hirsch blamed the losing season of the football team on the protest movement. FH: 00:51:00 I don't think so, I don't think so. That losing season we'd brought Elroy in--we had some very bad seasons, a terribly bad season. Boone's(?) last seasons were bad and finally Boone resigned, which is what he did, not fired, resigned. And with Williamson dying--had an accident, going down the stairs I think--then the question was who should we get and there was a lot of feeling among the alumnae and the regents that we should get a name like Mucks on to revive the spirit. But I was very much in favor of that, and in fact, with the regents urged that they give him a very high salary. But the regents were reluctant, they were in favor of low salaries. We did give him a very high salary for then, but it was not a high salary for now. TB: Gave who a big salary? FH: Hirsch, Hirsch. Did I say Mucks? TB: Yes. FH: I meant Hirsch. So we brought Hirsch 00:52:00 in--in other words I was involved in bringing him in. And he was certainly, he seemed friendly. I went to the first football banquet after that losing season. They lost all the games except one time. And we were friendly at that time, I don't know if he was blaming, maybe he thought I was one of the victims of it. In any case he seemed quite friendly to me at that time, although I was already being cast as the villain, indeed the fellow that introduced me at that athletic meeting was the former boxing coach who was very active in the alumnae association and a real right-winger, Johnny Walsh, still around too. And he denounced me in introducing me. TB: Oh my God. FH: And then I spoke and I said, "What do you say to a group of boys--a group of young 00:53:00 men--that have lost all their games but tied one?". But I said, "Well I'll say the same thing that Babe Ruth said when they asked him how he got a bigger salary than Herbert Hoover". I said, "Babe Ruth said he had a better season than Herbert did, and you had a better season than I did". That was very successful, and I was congratulated for that. The governor was there and Hirsch there. Both spoke supportively of me, whereas the representative for the regents--oh, well, he wasn't a regent--representative of the alumnae association, and the athletic crowd and so on spoke against me. So I wouldn't say that of Hirsch. Hirsch is a likable guy, and whereas he might when among his right-wing people say that that was why they lost the season, I don't think he said that. Toctall would have. He was around when the ??? came. He's retired now, great guy. Now about the [coughing] we're near the end of the time I guess. Can we wind it up with something that would hit the point of the real troubles? TB: We could come up to the spring of l970. Of course, you were 00:54:00 back at that time, right? FH: Yes. TB: So you were aware that there was something called a "New Year`s Gang" that began operations on New Year's Eve l969, and that a series of bombings on campus, fire bombings, burned The Old Gym, The Red Gym, hit the Primate Lab by mistake--nobody knew it was a mistake at the time but-- FH: South Hall. TB: --T16. FH: Yes. TB: So there was a series-- FH: I guess I don't, the name doesn't come back to me as the New Year's Gang, but in any case, yes, I knew what was happening. TB: Anyway, then you had the GE strike which was Dow all over again, then you had the TAA strike in March, in April you had major demonstrations and riots, the trashing of State Street, then in May you have--early in May, the first week of May--you have Cambodia, then Kent State. All Hell breaks loose--that had to be an 00:55:00 incredible time, a terrible time to be president of this University. FH: Yes, although I was already pulling back and I had discussions with this particular group of regents that at some time I should resign, I said I don't want to do anything until May, but that would seem to be the right time for me to resign. So I guess right-wing regents knew that I was planning to resign. This would be, April? No this would be February, January or February when that was known to them. No it was not known--it did not leak. Maybe I didn't quite say--it was positive. So that I was kind of out of things, and after I resigned in May of course I was out completely and they were looking to Ed all the time to plead. And the bombing, when the bombing occurred and when head of the regents Zeigler came in he went to see Ed [unclear]. Oh I was involved in that, and again, as I insisted on a high salary for Hirsch, I also insisted on a large reward. The FBI said it would like a large reward, the regents didn't want to give a large reward. I said "Well you better come up with it, you better give the whole thing". So that I was--I pushed it. I did that for the regents. And in the end they had to put up the money, personally I guess. TB: They never had to pay it all. FH: Not 00:56:00 all, but some of it. By this time Ed was chancellor and I should say one thing about that. In `68 when Sewell said he wanted to resign, wanted to go back to his department, we accepted his resignation. Then we had this committee that didn't have Ed's name on it, and we really didn't have a person who would be a good candidate. I thought Leon Epstein might be a possibility. It seems like it had Mike Curl on it, is the name. Mike Curl was not acceptable to the regents--in any sense he wouldn't have been. Nor to me, he wouldn't be one of the persons I would ever put on anything. I would have distrusted him. But the list was not a list that seemed awfully promising. And Epstein said well he had wanted it, he was the guy that should have had 00:57:00 his name on it, but he wasn't on the list. What can you do? So what I did, I went back to the committee, and I said I'll talk to several of these possibilities on the list. And they say, "Ed's the guy that ought to have this job and why isn't he on the list", or "should he not be put on the list". Well it did develop that there was one person on the committee that didn't want Ed. He was a professor of music that felt that Ed hadn't been favorable to music. And Ed's predecessor Ingraham was tone deaf and wasn't very supportive of music either, but in any case Ed was off the list although most people would have thought he was alright. So they agreed to put him on the list. But Dean Wendt who was also on that committee was supporting, was working with me on this to get Ed put back, thought Ed 00:58:00 would be fine, that Ed was tough guy--tougher than him. Wendt said well, "We're having a little trouble in the committee, because they say well here's President Harrington dictating to us". And later on the student regent reported to the student Cardinal on all of this, and it was in the student Cardinal how this had happened--"Harrington came in and said we're going to have Young". And so Wendt suggested we put another name on, and the new suggestion was two names for Ed Young and Professor Berg in chemistry, chemical engineering. A very great man, Berg has gotten all kinds of honors and he was a chemical engineer who could lecture in Japanese in Japan and in Dutch in the Netherlands--great man, great man. But, oddly enough, an advisor to Dow Chemical. Although it was not known by the ??? and Wendt--Known to me, but not known to the students. That would have really been something. In any case Wendt knew that it would be that would get it. So Ed was appointed. And I was enthusiastic. So actually with Ed being appointed in`68, it looked like with the regents, my feeling well this is mainly a matter for the Madison campus to run and Milwaukee campus was having a little trouble--and the Milwaukee campus to handle its' support from the regents and from the central administration. So it looked 00:59:00 like I might survive in this connection except that if things got more difficult, and the feelings against me became greater. Then this desire to get rid of me mounted to such that probably in December of `69 they decided they wanted to get rid of me. Probably in January or February of `70, about the time of this conflict in the regents, it was clear that the regents weren't going to look to me, the public wasn't going to look to me and I would be denounced pretty generally by almost anybody. Some of the press was for crack-down, but not supportive of me, not supportive of him. Some of the press were rather sympathetic to the students, like the Capital times Nat Palmer got an award for reporting the stuff--and again not very supportive of me. So in a way I suppose I was caught between. I found a great many of my friends out in India--when I was out in India for six years, they were caught the same way. And it's not a matter my defending myself, I thought I handled it manly, but, that's about the size of it, so that after May of l970 I wasn't awfully involved. I was called to Washington with a half-dozen other University presidents to talk to Nixon at the time of the Cambodian troubles, and was one of those who told the president he had all kinds of trouble on campus and it isn't just trouble from the left-wing students it's right-wing students too. We had a group of right-wing students who wanted to go see Mel 01:00:00 Laird, a Defense Secretary who was from Wisconsin. Nixon saw the point there, and an indicator he had egged it but of course he was lying all the time. And he said one of us could come in and sit with him and have access to him. So Alex Heard of Vanderbilt who was the guy that did that and of course he got the run-around too. In fact, Kissinger was at the meeting with Nixon who met with us, and they were already bombing Cambodia and lying about it. But that was nothing much, but it happened that we went to the Whitehouse and right after that came the main meeting of the regents, to which I came back and resigned. So at least one of the periodicals, Newsweek then sent a person out that's -- having troubles, said that I went to this meeting with the president and came back, and when I came into town there was the smell of tear gas and I then resigned. Well, of course, I had decided to do it sort of a month in advance. And the Newsweek analyst--kind of a dope--in any case, he got it mostly wrong. A black man, so I shouldn't say that it was against him, I suppose. He wasn't a very good person. We did have some good people here on some of the things. So that, from then on, I'd really didn't fiddle very much, except for this one time on the FBI--on 01:01:00 the reward. TB: Speaking of the FBI, there had been a point where the FBI--you'd had to call in the FBI to do some work on campus, I think, going back to the black strike--remember the black students strike? FH: I guess Ed was in touch with the FBI. I guess I wasn't. I wasn't favored by the FBI, anyway. There was a lot of derogatory information about me. There was one fellow in town--Captain Bollenbeck--who is a professional patriot. Professor Bollenbeck told me--no, not professor, Captain Bollenbeck. He was one of those way-out patriots, you know. The Cap Times always used him as a whipping boy--kind of pathetic, because he wasn't very effective. Captain Bollenbeck told me that every week he wrote a letter to the FBI denouncing me. See, for one thing I signed at least one petition for releasing people during the war. Releasing the people who were put in jail under the Smith Act. TB: Is that right. Japanese, you mean? Japanese-Americans? FH: No, no. The Smith Act was the radicals. Socialist workers and stuff. And that was held against me. Hiring Paul Link, who was a left-wing campus person--and I was one of the signers--so I got some publicity on that, too. We did that when I was a professor. It was surprising I got to be president, maybe, I don't know. But in any case, all that stuff was brought back, Captain Bollenbeck having put all the stuff in the FBI files. That guy never liked me much. They always were a little 01:02:00 doubtful about me. And Bollenbeck kept it up into this period, and there was at least member of the legislature who made a special of this--Senator Roseliep, who was the great whipping boy of the Cardinal as Bollenbeck was of the--but he was a clown and didn't have any strength downtown anyway. But Captain Bollenbeck had denounced me to the FBI, and meanwhile Senator Roseliep attacked me. Where he could make a speech he'd make a speech--hooray for motherhood and wave the flag and so on, and he'd said, "What better flag is there to wrap yourself than this one, and what better person is there to support than your mother, and what better thing to support than butter." Because he was against margarine, you know. He failed the margarine test--he couldn't tell the difference between margarine and butter. Somehow, one of this fellows like Obey tricked him into it. But he would denounce me, and that's what Dyke did, too. Dyke supported--as mayor, he was mayor then--Dyke supported Ed Young publicly and denounced me publicly. And so did Senator Roseliep. But it wasn't that bad to handle. One time I was down at a hearing and Roseliep opened up. He said, "What about this signing a petition against the Smith Act?" I made a speech, because I won this one--I made a speech in which I said, "Senator Roseliep, are you accusing me of being a security risk? Are you accusing me of being a communist or something?" and said, "Did you know I had security clearance from the State Department? I had security clearance from the Defense Department, that I had security clearance from the FBI? And I can use classified documents and so on." He didn't say anything. But this was put on tape, and the state station played this all around the state. TB: Was that true that you had all those clearances? FH: Oh, sure, 01:03:00 you have to have--you see, the president had to sign things. But it's also true that I was against classified documents, and I would not let the--and when I became president, I stopped the permission of security agencies looking at our files, like the psychiatric files. They had been permitted to look at them by our Dean of Students, Roy Luberg, and by previous presidents, had been permitted to see these things. And I stopped them right there. Well, that didn't please them. I had some visitations on this. So, see, in some respects I suppose I had a reputation around of being a bad person all the way through. But not a public, not too much of a public one. TB: I better call Laura Smail, just to let her know I'm on my way...what was the attraction to being president of this place? FH: Oh, tremendous in 1962. And 1970. In 1962 it was the best job in the country because it was a great university and yet it had a problem of 01:04:00 bringing social sciences and humanities back, and it looked like we were on the way because we had a favorable Board of Regents. TB: And you did bring it back. FH: Did OK, yes. Very successful, extremely successful. TB: By the late '60s, your History Department was top-ranked. Sociology, top-ranked. FH: Political Science. TB: Political Science. FH: Economics. TB: Economics. FH: Yes, right, we did bring it back. It was successful. And we broke the WARF monopoly. We built the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee--that is, we satisfied the urban need for a university. That was very much in my mind. We developed extensions. We got into all these "New Frontier" programs--established the Institute for Research on Poverty. We got going 01:05:00 on Affirmative Action a little bit. [unclear] So that it was a great place. In fact, there's not no reason for being for a president unless you can promote something and move something. I've always been a promoter rather than an administrator. And that was the reason why one wanted to be president. Would one want to be president now? It wouldn't seem as attractive, although I suppose if you're coming up you might want to be. TB: So you had reason to feel that you had accomplished perhaps most of what you set out to by the end of decade. FH: Oh, yes. Well, I thought we should have accomplished more. TB: Ironically, in strengthening the humanities--I mean, the University had become a magnet to grad students from all over the country. They were coming in in droves, especially from back east. And ironically, this brought on the accusation that you had all these outside agitators. All these East Coast kids were causing all this trouble. FH: Yes, except that that's a theme that goes way back to the 1920s. That is, the Ivy League wouldn't let Jews in. We allowed Jews in, '20s and '30s, so we got very good Jewish students--some of them right-wing and a good some of them left-wing. So we had this reputation. And a proper reputation of getting bright East Coast students who weren't admitted to the Ivy League--the Ivy League simply wouldn't let them in, and the registrar at Swarthmore told me that they only let a very few, very bright Jewish student in, and the word around Swarthmore became that just bright Jews--all the brightest students around campus were Jews. So I said they admitted some stupid Jews, to make it look like Jews weren't any brighter than the rest of the students. TB: This happened at Swarthmore? FH: Swarthmore. Believe it. TB: That's interesting. FH: Actually there are books now on the Jews at Yale and Harvard, that exclusion, and that's what built the University. That's one 01:06:00 of the things that built the University as a liberal university, as a left-wing university. As a cosmopolitan university, as well as, our success on the extension. You know, "The boundaries of the campus are the boundaries of the state," which comes from Agriculture Extension, the general extension, and that's before the big influx of those people. But it's quite true. The building up of the social sciences and humanities--or the recapture of them, because they were very strong before World War I, with Commons and Ely, and Turner and Ross, all those people. They were strong but they slipped in the '30s and '40s, whereas the sciences grew because they had the WARF money and they were the first ones into federal money. So that we recaptured the social sciences and humanities. And it is true, but that has ? one way or the other. It isn't just a matter of these, as a magnet for all these peculiar people, because it's also a fact of matter of size. And I must say we didn't handle the size 01:07:00 question very well. We probably should have done something to keep the university from growing quite as fast as it did. TB: Did it grow a lot while you were president? FH: Oh, yes. TB: It was around 35,000 when I got here in '66, I think. FH: Well, that was the period of growth. It had doubled in the '60s. TB: I see. FH: And you know, double up something--hasn't changed much since. Of course, there's been in a specialist. TB: Well, very good. I probably should get going. [1]Jennifer Carpenter March 29, 1988 [2]Continuation of Tape 22, Side A Kyle Binder March 29, 1988 [3]More