Last Word

In the case of Maurice Halperin, chairman of the department of Latin American regional studies, Boston University has all but fallen over backwards trying to be fair. In the past few years, ex-Communist Nathaniel Weyl has accused Halperin of attending Communist meetings in 1936; and ex-Communist Courier Elizabeth Bentley has testified that Halperin, while in the OSS, passed secret documents to her to be sent on to Moscow. But when Halperin took refuge behind the Fifth Amendment before the Jenner Committee last March, the university refused to fire him. Reason for its decision: lack of "definite evidence." Not until Attorney General Herbert Brownell brought the Harry Dexter White case out in the open did B.U. finally decide to suspend Halperin.

Reason: he was listed in the FBI's 1945 warning to President Truman, and B.U. wanted a "restudy."

Last week B.U. announced that the restudy never took place. A committee of review, and another of trustees, were all set to go, but when they went looking for Halperin, he was not to be found. Neighbors of the Halperins in suburban Brighton reported that they had seen the professor and his wife loading up their car at 3 a.m. Thanksgiving morning, and the two "had enough luggage in their car to outfit a large family for a year." The next thing B.U. knew, Maurice Halperin was in Mexico City.

For six weeks President Harold Case tried to get Halperin to face the committees. Case even offered to pay his fare up to Boston, but Halperin, pleading that his wife was ill, refused to come back. Last week the trustees of B.U. made their final decision: "For the good of Boston University, the services of Maurice Halperin are hereby terminated."

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