THE HARVARD COLLEGE CLASS OF 1978 meets in Cambridge in three months to celebrate its 25th reunion. Among the events, lunches, panels, and dances, I hope time has been allocated to remember the most significant event of the 1978 ceremonies: a commencement address by Nobel Laureate Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn.

Solzhenitsyn delivered his remarks in Russian. There was an intermittent drizzle, and the odd dual delivery of speaker and translator made an overcast day even more gloomy. The speech the Russian gave did little to lift spirits. A day earlier Rodney Dangerfield had keynoted the Class Day festivities. We knew immediately that this speech would be different when, in his third sentence, Solzhenitsyn explained that “Harvard’s motto is ‘veritas.’ Many of you have already found out and others will find out in the course of their lives that truth eludes us as soon as our concentration begins to flag, all the while leaving the illusion that we are continuing to pursue it. This is the source of much discord. Also, truth seldom is sweet; it is almost invariably bitter. A measure of truth is included in my speech today, but I offer it as a friend, not as an adversary.”