Files suggest elder Obama forced to leave Harvard

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110429/ap_on_re_us/us_obama_s_father_harvard

Files suggest elder Obama forced to leave Harvard

By BOB SALSBERG, Associated Press – Fri Apr 29, 7:09 pm ET

BOSTON – President Barack Obama's father was forced to leave Harvard University

before completing his Ph.D. in economics because the school was concerned about

his personal life and finances, according to newly public immigration records.

Harvard had asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service to delay a request

by Barack Hussein Obama Sr. to extend his stay in the U.S., " until they decided

what action they could take in order to get rid of him, " immigration official

M.F. McKeon wrote in a June 1964 memo.

Harvard administrators, the memo stated, " were having difficulty with his

financial arrangements and couldn't seem to figure out how many wives he had. "

An earlier INS memo from McKeon said that while the elder Obama had passed his

exams and was entitled on academic grounds to stay and complete his thesis, the

school was going to try and " cook something up to ease him out. "

" They are planning on telling him that they will not give him any money, and

that he had better return to Kenya and prepare his thesis at home, " the memo

stated.

In May 1964, D. Henry, director of Harvard's international office, wrote

to Obama to say that, while he had completed his formal course work, the

economics department and the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences didn't have the

money to support him.

" We have, therefore, come to the conclusion that you should terminate your stay

in the United States and return to Kenya to carry on your research and the

writing of your thesis, " Henry's letter stated.

Obama's request for an extended stay was denied by the INS. He left Harvard and

— divorced from the president's mother — returned to his native Kenya in July

1964. He did not complete his Ph.D.

The immigration memos, contained in the elder Obama's Immigration and

Naturalization file, were given to a Boston Globe reporter in 2009 through a

Freedom of Information request. The papers were first made public Wednesday by

The Arizona Independent, a weekly newspaper. The Associated Press obtained

copies of them on Friday.

Harvard issued a statement Friday saying that it could not find in its own

records anything to support the accounts given in the INS memos.

" While we cannot verify accounts of conversations that occurred nearly 50 years

ago, a review of our existing files did not find any support for either the

language or the implied intent described by the U.S. government official in the

government documents, " the statement read.

When Obama was attending Harvard, the school faced serious constraints in

financing research by international graduate students, the university also said.

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Matt Chandler declined to comment

Friday, saying the department does not comment on specific immigration cases.

Concerns about Obama's personal life while he had been studying in the U.S. had

been raised previously, according to the INS documents.

In 1961, while he was an undergraduate student at the University of Hawaii, the

school's foreign student adviser called an immigration official and said Obama

had recently married Stanley Ann Dunham — the president's mother — despite

already having a wife in Kenya.

According to a memo written by an INS official in Honolulu, the adviser said

Obama had been " running around with several girls since he first arrived here

and last summer she cautioned him about his playboy ways. "

Obama told the adviser that he had divorced his wife in Kenya. He told the

president's mother the same thing, though she would later learn it was a lie.

Obama worked for an oil company and as a government economist after returning to

Africa, but his personal and professional life would later deteriorate. He died

in a car crash in 1982, when the future president was 21 and a student at

Columbia University.

___

Associated Press writer Caldwell in Washington, D.C., contributed to this

report.