By Matt Viser, Globe Correspondent, 6/6/2004

Debating which Harvard class is the greatest is a bit like trying to determine who was best: Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, or Willie Mays. None of them is too shabby. But still, which one is the best?

Ultimately, of course, there's no definitive answer. But a pretty good case could be made for the class of 1954, which celebrates its 50th reunion in Cambridge this week.

At the group's 25th reunion, the Harvard Crimson ran a headline: 25 YEARS OF OVERACHIEVING, and the university's president at the time, Derek Bok, called them ''the most distinguished class" in memory.

Among its ranks are such heavy hitters as Edward Kennedy, John Updike, and F. Lee Bailey. The class also includes Louis Begley, the author of ''About Schmidt," historian Christopher Lasch, and former Globe publisher William O. Taylor. But not everyone in the class has a household name. There are also two farmers, a grocery store deliveryman, and an airport shuttle driver.

There are people you've likely never heard of, but no doubt have been affected by their work.

William Weber developed the foil package that holds jams, jellies, and syrup (its official name is the aluminum portion control package). Robert S. Schwarz directed the ''Ed Sullivan Show," ''The Electric Company," and ''Sesame Street." Miller Day Malcom helped extend the Red Line past Harvard Square and worked on the Alewife, Central, and Kendall stations.

The 1,221 members of the class went to school at a time of relative calm, squeezed between World War II and the Vietnam War. Most remember watching the McCarthy hearings on television and reading about Brown v. Board of Education. On campus, it was considered a major protest when veterans of the Korean War decided not to wear ties in the dining hall.

''The super-serious veterans [of World War II and the Korean War] have left and you begin to get the hijinx back again, that undergraduate adolescence," said Morton Keller, who was a graduate student in the 1950s and recently wrote ''Making Harvard Modern: the Rise of America's University." ''Their families had been through a lot, and generally speaking it was a time to live as normal a life as possible."

The student body was growing more affluent and, with a boom in applications, the university was growing more selective, Keller says. Students took great pride in wearing the Crimson, and they truly were Harvard Men, right down to the coat and tie. (And indeed, they were all men; women didn't receive Harvard diplomas until 1963.)

''I think we had a kind of quality about us that makes us have this melodrama. Everything is so beautiful; things go on, but it's not all that bad," said Louis Begley, who has written seven books, including ''About Schmidt," which the movie starring Jack Nicholson was based on.

''I can't think of anybody who smoked pot," he added. ''However, we drank like fish. We'd drink martinis the way people now drink beer."

In a published class poll, one in five said they've divorced at least once. Three out of four say they are having sex less often, although 4 percent report an increase. On average, they watch 15 hours of TV each week and read 17 books a year. Eighty percent don't care if their alma mater's football team wins or loses. Nearly half say their income is still at least six figures a year.

The typical graduate drives a Toyota and has a cellphone. He loved Harry Truman, hates President Bush, and reads the New Yorker each week.

''I suspect that every class thinks they were the best," said Robert H. Mundheim, who helped lead negotiations during the Iranian hostage crisis. ''But we can probably marshal some pretty good evidence for our class."

Many, though, struggle in explaining the success of the class. ''It was the water," Begley joked, ''that Harvard water."

One reason, though, may be that many members of the class have had a long life -- nearly 80 percent are still living, which is a higher success rate than previous classes. While many joined the military, few served in war. They were born at a time when immunizations were on the rise, and they grew old as medical technology advanced.

Indeed, 90 percent rated their health good or better. Only five people said their health was poor.

Many are still working. Two-thirds of the class said they don't ''feel like an oldster." When asked what the best thing about growing older was, one classmate responded, ''I wouldn't know."

''We're not a bunch of fat cats or old farts," said John Bethell, the class secretary and former editor of Harvard Magazine. ''But we're old, there's no doubt about it."

Many continue to take pride in Harvard, and memories will abound this week as they walk past Winthrop House, Widener Library, and the statue of John Harvard. One thing they wish they could change: Harvard Square.

''It used to have unpretentious cafeterias and more bookstores," Bethell said. ''It's more gentrified now and doesn't feel like Harvard."

''For many of us, it's been a lovely half-century," wrote Updike in the massive reunion memoir, ''and to the world of our college years can be traced, I think, much that is good and worth preserving in the world now."

Matt Viser can be reached at viser@globe.com.

This story ran on page S10 of the Boston Globe on 6/6/2004. © Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

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