No Room for the Hawk

Most universities would jump at the chance of getting a top presidential aide on their faculty, especially when his academic credentials are as lustrous as those of Walt Whitman Rostow. But when Rostow sought to reclaim his post as a professor of economic history at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which he left eight years ago to join John Kennedy, he was turned down. The most obvious explanation, that Rostow was blackballed for his hard line on Viet Nam, caused the New York Times's James Reston to write last week: "Is a man to be punished for beliefs sincerely held in public service if those beliefs happen to be unpopular in some university circles?"

M.I.T. claims that Rostow's hawkish advice to Lyndon Johnson had nothing to do with the rejection. In 1964, after a four-year leave of absence, Rostow told the university he would stay in government, thereby offering his resignation. Now M.I.T.'s economics department does not want him back for three rea sons. First, Rostow has been away too long and his courses are being taught differently. Second, Rostow's own interests have changed from economics to world politics. Lastly, there is a deep-running hostility to Rostow as a scholar. Indeed, when Rostow published his celebrated book, The Stages of Economic Growth (1960), from which Kennedy borrowed the phrase "New Frontier," the reviews by his fellow economists challenged his conclusions as superficial.

And where to now? Last week the University of Texas announced that Rostow and his wife, a professor of government, will be on its faculty as of February. Also slated to join them is another new prof: Lyndon B. Johnson.