DEFVAR

["Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>]

    CLtL (p68) is not explicit on its intent about whether (DEFVAR FOO) is
    allowed to or intended to intialize FOO.

I believe that everyone's intent was that (DEFVAR FOO) should leave FOO
unbound.  I would have sworn that the manual said this, but I guess it
doesn't.  

Given that and the current syntax, there is the question of how the user
is supposed to supply a doc string for the variable if no initial
value is wanted.  This was discussed in the past on one or two
occasions.  I think the general feeling was that SETF of DOCUMENTAITON
was good enough in the rare case where this functionality is needed.

-- Scott