I thought the famous story often retailed about Samuelson's thesis defense was that at the end of the session one of his committee members, I thought it may have been Arthur Smithies asked Samuelson, "Did WE [the faculty committee] pass?" This story which of course may well be apocryphal does suggest Harvard did have dissertation committees or at least that there were dissertation defense sessions in which faculty were present and rendered a verdict. Actually I would be interested in knowing what the answer is to Roy Weintraub's query. I would think that Harvard catalogues and announcements from the relevant time period might indicate what the official policy was of the degree granting body of Harvard, whether the Economics department or say the arts and sciences graduate faculty which may have set the policy regarding dissertation committees and dissertation defenses etc. David Mitch