The late Ambassador M. Larry Lawrence was a full-time college student in March 1945 - the same month the Democratic campaign contributor claimed he was a merchant marine on a ship torpedoed off the Russian coast, the New York Post reported Saturday.

Citing documents from Wilbur Wright Junior College in Chicago, the Post said Lawrence was taking at least 12 hours of classes per week between January and June 1945.

That would contradict the claims that helped land Lawrence a grave site in the Arlington National Cemetery.

The furor over Lawrence’s burial site erupted Thursday after Republican investigators were unable to find any records to document his claim of merchant marine service. Lawrence died in 1996 after three years as ambassador to Switzerland.

On Friday, White House spokesman Mike McCurry acknowledged that Arlington was “a place of sacred honor to all Americans, and no one should be buried there who has falsified records.”

But he turned away questions on whether someone’s remains should be removed if it turned out he lied about his record.

McCurry spoke after President Clinton ordered an investigation into whether Lawrence, a major Democratic donor, fabricated the World War II service that later was used to justify his burial at Arlington.

Last year, Patrick F. Kennedy, then-assistant secretary of state for administration, asked the Army to approve a waiver for Lawrence because his injury while in the service would have earned him a Purple Heart. The medal would entitle him to an Arlington burial.

Lawrence maintained that his merchant marine ship was torpedoed in March 1945 off the Russian coast, severely injuring his head and tossing him into icy Arctic waters. He would have been 18 at the time.

The chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs investigations subcommittee, Rep. Terry Everett, R-Ala., said military records did not show a Larry Lawrence on the SS Horace Bushnell or in the merchant marine.

In Saturday’s San Diego Union-Tribune, a former congressional aide claims that he personally delivered Lawrence’s wartime records to him two decades ago.

Rudy Murillo, an aide to former Democratic congressman Lionel Van Deerlin, told the paper that he hand-delivered a manila envelope from the U.S. Navy to Lawrence. According to Murillo, Lawrence had sought his war records for some time before a naval officer brought an envelope of documents to Van Deerlin’s office.