Editor's Note: In 1969, Harvard University kicked the ROTC program off campus, forcing Harvard students who wanted to participate in it to do so through MIT's Army, Air Force, and Navy/Marine Corps ROTC units.

Nonetheless, every June, on the day before graduation, Harvard seniors in ROTC are commissioned in a ceremony in Harvard Yard. When he became president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers raised controversy by choosing to attend this annual ceremony, wanting to show his respect for those students who had chosen ROTC, and became the first Harvard president to speak at the commissioning ceremony since ROTC was removed from campus.

As Summers departs Harvard, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sent him the following letter of gratitude, which The Weekly Standard has obtained a copy of.

-JVL