Strider, now retired and living in Boston, remembers the time as one marked by social change: the Sexual Revolution, the civil rights movement, experimentation with drugs–and the anti-war movement. "We had kind of a general revolt against authority," he said. "I had four children in college at that time. We were coping with problems at home as well as with the children of 1,600 other families. It was not a happy time. There's a great line in Gilbert and Sullivan: ‘A policeman's lot is not a happy one.' And that was true of the president of a college."

For about three years, Strider was often pitted against student activists who were demanding more resources for African-American students, an overhaul of the College governance structure and abolishment of the Air Force ROTC program on campus. Strider, who says he felt the anger about the war was justified, argued publicly that ROTC had nothing to do with the Vietnam War, "and it would be nice if some of the high command in the military had read a poem or listened to some music." He was asked what he would do if he were drafted, and he said he would go to Vietnam if so ordered. While Strider says he was opposed to the war, he says he could not say so then because he was in a position of authority.

Strider said that in the early years of the war he relied on the advice of Robert Anthony '38, a Colby trustee, Harvard Business School professor and from 1965 to 1968 an assistant secretary of defense under Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. "The fact that Bob Anthony was working for the Pentagon in a position of high responsibility gave me, in the early stages of the war, some feeling of confidence that they knew what they were doing," Strider said. "I discussed the matter with Bob and he would say things like, ‘God, I hope we're doing the right thing. This seems to be the proper course of action to take.' . . . I had great respect for Bob Anthony. I thought ‘they must know what they're doing.'"

Anthony, now retired and living in Hanover, N.H., attributes many of the difficulties surrounding the Vietnam War at that time to disagreement between civilians in the Defense Department and the military. McNamara did not want to enlarge the war beyond what he thought necessary, Anthony says. Military strategists did want to expand the war, and "there was this constant friction between the civilian people on the one side and the military people on the other."

And at Colby? Anthony said his immediate recollection was of the March 1970 occupation of Lorimer Chapel and its effect on Strider. "It was a real tough time for him," Anthony said.

Strider said he recalls "a great deal of rudeness and incivility" during those years, including being hissed and booed. There was nothing in his background as a specialist in 17th-century English literature to prepare him for picket lines, occupation of the administration building or a Molotov cocktail thrown at the ROTC office by a former student. The bomb fizzled and there was no fire. "Psychological damage . . . but no real physical damage," Strider said.

He says he is proud that the College maintained some principles and did not simply shut down. Colby did not cancel commencement, even after the student strike. It did not abolish the language requirement, which fell at other colleges during that time. In light of the war, special consideration was given to male students who were struggling academically, according to Dean Smith. College officials were painfully aware that men who flunked out were certain to be drafted.

Many at Colby had some idea of what that could mean. A few knew firsthand.

Joseph A. "Tony" Burkart '71 came to Colby after serving a tour in Vietnam as a gunner on a patrol boat on the Mekong River in 1965 and 1966. Now a psychotherapist, and for many years a Congregational minister, Burkart says he left the war disgusted by the experience. The information being given the public had little to do with the reality in Vietnam, Burkart says. And while he was quick to point out that the war escalated after he left, he was involved in enough combat to be disturbed by what he saw and by his own reaction to it.

"There were incidents that I was not prepared for," Burkart said. "Seeing people die and coming close to being killed. Some of the manglement of people that occurs in war–even movies don't convey how it feels to be part of that in the flesh."