(no students) and powerless. Professor Alan Westin, who along with law professor Michael Sovern '53, was selected as co-chairman of the Executive Committee, came into particularly heavy criticism. After Westin blasted "powerbrokers" Kirk and Truman in a Wednesday afternoon speech at the Sidney Hillman Foundation Awards luncheon, he was assailed by some of his colleagues as a self-righteous, ambitious, and naive critic. Eric Bentley, Brander Matthews Professor of Dramatic Literature and a strong strike supporter, accused Westin the next day at a news conference of wanting "to become president" of Columbia. Another faculty colleague of Westin's said: "Westin's moxie is incredible. Here's a guy who is known for his lack of interest in teaching and students. His students complain that their term papers come back without a mark on them. Here's a guy who shuns University committees that help govern Columbia. Here's a guy whose Civil Liberties Center is almost a scandal. Here's a guy who has demanded a non-sabbatical leave next year, and only a one-third teaching load when he returns. Here's a guy who knows very little about Columbia or the student left. And yet he comes on suddenly like King Solomon and Job combined." Others, however, defended Westin's "brilliant mind" and his "capacity for work." The Trustees, after consultation with the Faculty's Executive Committee, and a five-hour meeting at the Men's Faculty Club on the campus on Wednesday evening, May 1, appointed a special Committee of the Board, headed by Trustee Alan Temple '17, "to study and recommend changes in the basic structure of the University." New alumni groups, such as the radical Alumni for a New Columbia and the moderate Alumni for the Preservation of Columbia University, sprang up. And numerous academic departments gave birth to new committees to study and reform their operations. The strikers set up their own "counter-university" holding "liberation classes" with their own insb'uctors on South Field or in apartments near the campus. One revolutionary student said to us: "Look at this place. Columbia's jumping. It's moving and thinking about new and better forms. It's beautiful!
78
And we did it. We brought change to Morningside. It wouldn't have happened without our strike. We deserve honorary doctorates, and Kirk wants to hang us. Isn't amnesty a fair compromise between the two?" But another student nearby said: "Yes, but what about the hatred, bitterness, and disb'ust you guys have also brought? What about your lies about the gym and LD.A.? What about the 10 or 20 million dollars you have probably cost the University in the $200 million campaign? What about the admissions losses? And the disgust of some professors who may resign to go elsewhere? What about the destruction of Dave Truman, one of the best scholaradministra tors around? You bastards ought to be locked up for years!" A constant source of discussion during the aftermath, as before the police action, was President Grayson Louis Kirk. Not only was he vilified, as most persons in positions of authority are these days. (As Kenneth Keniston has pointed out in his recent book, Young Radicals, many persons, especially young people and intellectuals, have trouble relating to authority of any kind these days. The noted French political writer Raymond Aron has said of the present moment: "Radical criticism has abandoned the attempt to rethink the world or change it. It is simply content to condemn it.") But Kirk's special weaknesses were meticulously documented and bared. President Kirk's shortcomings have three sources: personal, organizational, cultural. Personally, Dr. Kirk is, and always has been, a rather shy person. His public appearances and encounters are seldom eager, natural, or memorable, although he can be relaxed and charming in small groups of intimate acquaintances. He is unfailingly cordial, but often restrained and mechanical. He has been hampered since boyhood by a stutter, which is revealed whenever he is under heavy pressure or in great speed. This causes him to speak very deliberately to avoid embarrassment or loss of articulateness, a manner that adds to his impression of stiffness and lack of spontaneity. Despite his many intellectual attainments, he is not at ease with blazing intellectuals or daring artists, but prefers the company of sound, judicious, cooly rational,
broad-thinking persons. A politE; and dignified man, he cannot abide those who are rude, coarse, or vociferously ignorant or mendacious. A dedicated and loyal person, he has given most of his productive years to Columbia, a place he loves and has worked unceasingly for, but whose special brashness, eagerness, intense intellectuality, bold artistry, and scientific assaults he has never quite understood or fully encouraged-though he has supported them because many of the scholars he respects have pushed for it. As a onetime farm boy in Ohio, he is very conscious of being president of one of the world's great universities in one of the world's greatest cities. The license plate on his black Cadillac is GK-l. President Kirk is urbane without being an urban lover. He is a passionate democrat, but of the Woodrow Wilson sort rather than the Abraham Lincoln or Franklin Roosevelt variety. He is without racial or religious prejudices, but he is, like former Columbia President Nicholas Murray Butler, not without a certain class consciousness. He dresses well, speaks excellent French, and has refined tastes. In recent years, as his work load has become crushing, he has tended to drive to his country place on weekends to refresh himself and read. This practice has removed him further from the informal dinner parties and bull sessions with faculty and students that he was already too loath to give, but which are so necessary to keep abreast of current sentiments and to keep up morale. He has been bothered in recent years by an aching back that has put him in terrible pain sometimes. A rather modest person, he shuns publicity. (Columbia is the only major American university without a high public relations official and adequate staff.) A slightly unsure person, he tends to waver on key decisions and finds it hard to admit errors or inadequacies with candor, wit, and grace. Like a fleet admiral, he has almost no close friends. He is very close to his wife Marion only, who, being a rather formal, aloof, aesthetically-oriented person, is said by some to have had a considerable influence on his life style. As for organization, Dr. Kirk prefers to put his faith in a small band of trusted colleagues. "He simply does not think as an organization man," said one COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY