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want to say: “You can't even find out where it is.” The overseers was just one, one branch of government. Obviously, academic, the academe, had its own form of government. And then there was a thing called the corporation, which is always--which seemed to be practically like a secret society, or seemed--from the oversees vantage point, it met much more often and appeared to deal with much more substantive matters.

One of the reasons why the oversees where really in rather a mess is that they--a great number of them considered that they were really the representative of a special interest be it women, or of the church, or, whatever. So, instead of talking and thinking in terms of what's good for Harvard, they tended to talk and think in terms of “the woman issue at Harvard” or “the minority issue at Harvard” or what have you. So there was absolutely no cohesiveness whatsoever. They were rather unruly; they were very indiscreet. And indeed Derek Bok hated to address them, because he knew if he told them all the truth, that it would immediately leak out; and on the other hand, he also realized that if he didn't tell them the truth, they'd know that. So it was quite a dilemma for him, and he was always trying to avoid coming to any meetings.

After I'd been there two years, I became chairman of the committee that supervises all the visiting committees, and Harvard has got an incredibly large, complex organization of visiting committees.

This was as a member, as a board of overseer, as an overseer, rather.