HARVARD BACKS DOWN

The New York Post reports:

May 5, 2006 -- HARVARD University has abruptly scrubbed plans for a luxury alumni tour to Stalinist North Korea complete with instructions for Harvard grads to bow down to the rogue nation's paranoid rulers to show proper "respect."

The Harvard Alumni Association tour memo told travelers that it's "important" to show respect and "you will be expected to bow as a gesture of respect" at a statue and mausoleum for notorious human rights violator Kim Il Sung.

The trip got cancelled a week after The Post revealed the $636-a-night totalitarian tourism. But Harvard alumni spokeswoman Sarah Friedell said it wasn't because the university was embarrassed - rather, Harvard simply couldn't arrange satisfactory insurance and medical evacuation, she said.

Former Harvard graduates Alger Hiss and John Reed understood how important it is to respect socialism.