The new president of Albright College appears to have included misleading statements about his academic credentials and publishing record on the resume he submitted to the college.

Col. Henry A. Zimon had an impressive military career that had culminated in a high-profile strategic-planning job at the Pentagon before he became Albright's president this summer. But some faculty members at the Methodist liberal-arts college have questioned the veracity of several claims on his resume in faculty meetings and in letters to the college's Board of Trustees. Evidence obtained by The Chronicle supports the faculty members' suspicions. Colonel Zimon, who retired from the Army just before assuming the Albright presidency, this week denied misrepresenting his credentials to the college. "I have no reason to shade any stories or change anything," he said. The questions began when some Albright professors tried to obtain copies of a book Colonel Zimon had said was forthcoming from Praeger, a division of the Greenwood Publishing Group.

Colonel Zimon had listed the book, Reshaping U.S. National Security Strategy: Peacetime Engagement, Regional Stability, and Global Security, on his resume under the heading "Selected Professional Publications and Presentations," noting that it was due to be published in 1998-99.

But Peter Kracht, the publisher at Praeger, said this month that his company had not published the book and does not plan to do so. "We've carefully checked all of our records, and I have not been able to find any record of a contract or publishing agreement with Colonel Zimon," Mr. Kracht said. Colonel Zimon said this week that he does have a publishing contract. In an interview in his office, he quickly showed a reporter the corner of a page with some signatures on it, but he declined to let the reporter see the full page or the entire document.

"That's my personal business," he said. He added that the contract was with Auburn House, another division of Greenwood, although the book itself was to be published by Praeger. He said that the agreement had been signed by John T. Harney, a freelance acquisitions editor for Praeger. Mr. Harney said this month that in 1992, he had discussed the publication of a book that had been written by Colonel Zimon and an Air Force officer, Chuck Gagnon, while they were National Security Fellows at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. But Mr. Harney said he had no record of any contract with either Auburn or Praeger. "We never offered a contract because it never got that far," Mr. Harney said. "They dropped the ball on me in the sense that they never delivered a completed manuscript." Colonel Zimon's resume also did not list Colonel Gagnon, who has since retired from the Air Force, as a co-author of the book described as forthcoming. Colonel Gagnon this month confirmed that he and Colonel Zimon had nearly published their work in 1992. "We came within a whisker of having it published," Colonel Gagnon said. But the book never came out, he said, because of "policy concerns" related to their status as active-duty military officers. "We got wrapped around in a bureaucracy."

Colonel Gagnon said that he and Colonel Zimon had not talked recently about publishing the book. "It was leading edge in 1992," he said. "Now, it would require us to re-edit it almost into a historical document." He added: "We haven't talked about doing that."

Colonel Zimon also said on his resume that he was editing a book, a compilation of essays called CFE: The Making of the Treaty and Its Implications for the Future, with R. James Woolsey, who directed the Central Intelligence Agency from 1993 to 1995. Mr. Woolsey was the ambassador who led the U.S. delegation that negotiated the 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, and Colonel Zimon was his assistant during those talks. Colonel Zimon, on his resume, described the book as "forthcoming/in-progress." But Mr. Woolsey said this month that he was not working on a book with Colonel Zimon. "I don't know anything about the book," Mr. Woolsey said, adding that while he had spoken occasionally by telephone with Colonel Zimon, he had not "kept close track" of him since 1991. Colonel Zimon this week said that he had discussed the idea for the book with Mr. Woolsey in the summer of 1991. "I talked to Ambassador Woolsey about he and I doing kind of a summary chapter," Colonel Zimon said. "Once I confirmed to him that I was willing to do by far the majority of the work, he said to me that it sounded like a very interesting project." Colonel Zimon added, however, that he had not worked on the project since 1991, nor spoken about it with Mr. Woolsey since then. "He will be a co-editor of the book if we finish this project, and I fully intend to finish this project at some point," he said.

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