Recognition by the Kennedy School is viewed
as an honor. But this honor has often gone to
controversial figures. The Institute of Politics
that disinvited Manning welcomed as its first
“honorary associate” in 1966 the sitting de-
fense secretary, Robert McNamara. That visit
sparked campus protests against McNamara’s
management of the Vietnam War. Harvard of-
ficials apologized to the defense secretary for the
student outburst, but McNamara would eventu-
ally acknowledge that he and his Pentagon team
“were wrong, terribly wrong” about the war that
the students had protested. McNamara would
also admit to filmmaker Errol Morris that when
he and Army Air Forces Gen. Curtis LeMay plot-
ted the firebombing of Tokyo during World War
II, they “were behaving as war criminals.” Yet
McNamara returned frequently to Harvard in
his later “apology tour” years, even as the Times
editorialized with regard to his role in Vietnam
that “Mr. McNamara must not escape the lasting
moral condemnation of his countrymen. Surely
he must in every quiet and prosperous moment
hear the ceaseless whispers of those poor boys
in the infantry, dying in the tall grass, platoon
by platoon, for no purpose. What he took from
them cannot be repaid by prime-time apology
and stale tears, three decades late.”
This year, while Manning has been deemed
unacceptable, former White House press secre-
tary Sean Spicer—whose blundering prevarica-
tions on behalf of the Trump administration made
him a national laughingstock—is being welcomed
as an Institute of Politics fellow. So, too, is Corey
Lewandowski, whom Boston Globe columnist Joan
Vennochi accurately identified as “the Donald
Trump acolyte known for bullying the press and
selling influence on behalf of the president.”
When he announced this year’s fellows, In-
stitute of Politics interim director Bill Delahunt
claimed that the “diverse group of policymakers,
journalists, political advisers and activists pro-
vides a robust platform for dynamic interaction
with our students and the larger Harvard com-
munity.” But now, the fellow who risked and
then endured imprisonment in order to let the
American people know what was being done in
their name in Iraq—the fellow who has emerged
as an outspoken dissenter from the Washington
consensus regarding military policy, intelligence
gathering, and official secrecy—has been re-
jected. That didn’t happen because of new revela-
tions regarding Chelsea Manning. It happened
because of the objections raised most loudly and
prominently by Pompeo, a secretive and con-
flicted Trump administration appointee whose
attacks on Manning confirm his determination to
silence open and honest debate about intelligence
gathering. When Harvard took its marching
orders from Mike Pompeo, the university was
wrong, terribly wrong. JOHN NICHOLSprogram at New York University.
Manning offered another harsh assessment of
Harvard when she wrote that the revocation of her
fellowship illustrated “what a military/police/intel
state looks like—the @cia determines what is and
is not taught at @harvard.” But the facts were just
as harsh: The CIA director raised an objection to
Harvard’s invitation to a sharp critic of the agency,
and within hours that invitation was rescinded.
It is true that Manning was sent to prison for
her actions, and it is true that she’s a controversial
figure. But President Obama commuted Man-
ning’s sentence in January—cutting decades off
her 35-year sentence. The 29-year-old analyst
turned activist walked free in May. Upon her
release, Sarah Harrison, the acting director of the
Courage Foundation and a former WikiLeaks
editor, said: “Chelsea deserves her freedom, and
the world’s respect, for her courageous, inspir-
ing actions in 2010. Chelsea’s releases through
WikiLeaks helped bring an end to the US war on
Iraq, galvanized Arab Spring protesters and in-
spired subsequent truthtellers.” Daniel Ellsberg,
of Pentagon Papers fame, has spoken of Manning
as a “hero” and suggested that she was the victim
of “an unprecedented campaign to crack down
on public servants who reveal information that
Congress and American citizens have a need to
know.” Manning has been honored as a whistle-
blower by the German section of the Internation-
al Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms
and by the Federation of German Scientists, and
she has been awarded the Sean MacBride Peace
Prize by the International Peace Bureau and the
Sam Adams Award by the Sam Adams Associates
for Integrity in Intelligence.
In other words, Manning’s selection for a
Kennedy School fellowship made perfect sense
if the university intended to foster a serious dia-
logue about war and peace, intelligence gather-
ing, and the public’s right to know. Yet there was
no serious dialogue about maintaining Manning’s
fellowship after Pompeo objected and former
CIA deputy director Michael Morell resigned
his Kennedy School fellowship in protest. There
was barely enough time for Wyoming Congress-
woman Liz Cheney—the daughter of the for-
mer vice president who famously obtained five
deferments to avoid military service during the
Vietnam War—to label Manning a “spy/traitor”
and call for cutting federal funds for Harvard to
protest its association with someone who actually
served in the Iraq War.
Cheney made noise. But Pompeo, as a key
player in the Trump administration, shook Har-
vard officials with a letter that growled: “Ms.
Manning swore an oath to the United States
Constitution, promised to protect her fellow
soldiers, and signed a commitment to abide by
the law. She did none of that and yet Harvard has
placed her in a position of honor.”October 9, 2017 The Nation.WIKIMEDIA
IMMIGRATIONCold as ICE
O
n September 13,
Phoenix New Times
revealed that two
Motel 6 locations in predomi-
nantly Latino areas of the city
had been sharing their guest
lists with Immigration and Cus-
toms Enforcement, leading to at
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ruary and August of this year.
Across the country, ICE agents
have been arresting undocu-
mented immigrants in locations
where they’re most vulnerable:
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who fled his abusive family in
Mexico as a minor, was arrested
by ICE at a children’s shelter
on the day he turned 18.
i Immigration agents ar-
rested Diego Ismael Puma
Macancela, a 19-year-old
Ecuadoran immigrant, at his
cousin’s house on the day of
his senior prom and the day
after they arrested his mother.
i Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez, a
father of four, was pulled over
and arrested by ICE after drop-
ping off his youngest daughter
at school in Los Angeles. His
wife and another daughter
were in the car with him.
i ICE agents have repeatedly
arrested undocumented im-
migrants at courthouses, even
when they were there to seek
protection from domestic abuse.
i ICE agents ate breakfast at
Sava’s Restaurant in Ann Arbor,
Michigan, and then proceeded
to arrest the kitchen staff.
i Sara Beltrán Hernández, an un-
documented immigrant from El
Salvador and mother of two, was
removed by ICE agents from a
hospital where she was undergo-
ing treatment for a brain tumor.
—Jake Bittle