Harvard University's student newspaper The Harvard Crimson features retired Simpson Thacher partner Conrad Harper in its "Year in Review" issue. Calling him a "Man of Letters", it describes him not only as an expert on 18th-century English poet Samuel Johnson and an active member of the Jane Austen Society of North America, but also as an effective author of "two letters that are destined for the historical archives". The story describes those two letters, in part, as follows:
"The first, dated May 20, 1994, while Harper was the U.S. State Department's top lawyer, concluded that then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher should authorize American diplomats to back United Nations resolutions stating that 'genocide has occurred' in Rwanda. Three other senior State Department officials signed the letter as well.
The letter warned that American diplomats would undermine the country's credibility if they did not attach the 'genocide label' to the slaughter of Tutsis.
The second letter, dated July 14, 2005, dealt with an issue far less lethal than the Hutu-Tutsi strife. But again, Harper's words would resound long after the ink had dried.
'I believe that Harvard's best interests require your resignation,' Harper, now 65, wrote to University President Lawrence H. Summers, after he himself resigned from the Corporation, the University's highest governing body."
The glowing article further notes that Conrad Harper will go down in Harvard's history books "as the first African-American member of the Corporation and for his commitment to civil rights".
To read the full article, see:
Guehenno, Claire M., A Man of Two Letters: His 1994 Memo Warned of Rwandan Genocide; Precipitated Summers' Demise, The Harvard Crimson, Jun. 7, 2006.