Cohn Links Furry To N.J. Espionage

A possible tie between the war-time work done at M.I.T. by Wendell H. Furry, associate professor of Physics, and recently-uncovered espionage activities in the Signal Corps is one of the reasons for the projected summons of Furry before a Senate investigating committee, it was learned yesterday.

Roy M. Cohn, chief counsel for Senator Joseph R. McCarthy's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said the committee had decided to call Furry for two main reasons:

First, because of a "direct connection" between the M.I.T. radiation laboratory, at which Furry worked during the war, and work done at the Signal Corps laboratories in Fort Monmouth, N.J. The committee has been conducting hearings during the past two weeks on what McCarthy has termed "extremely dangerous espionage" at the Ft. Monmouth research center.

Second, because of Furry's "knowledge of and acquaintance with people in the investigation."

Cohn said Furry would probably be called before an executive session of the committee in New York some time next week.

Asked whether the committee considered Furry as a "suspect" or a "friendly witness"--the two categories in which witnesses are usually placed--Cohn said this would depend on the way the professor testifies.

Declined to Answer

Earlier this week Furry refused to comment on how he would answer the committee's questions. When summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee last spring, Furry declined to answer questions about past membership in the Communist Party beyond saying that he had not been a member "for the past two years."

The exact connection between the M.I.T. radiation laboratory and the Ft. Monmouth center is not clear.

Unlike the Ft. Monmouth project, the M.I.T. lab, which was discontinued at the war's end, was not run directly by the Signal Corps. Although they did similar work, the M.I.T. labs were under the direction of the National Defense Research Council, set up at the war's start by the Office of Scientific Research and Development.

But information gathered yesterday from Signal Corps and M.I.T. sources indicates that the radiation lab worked for all the armed forces and unquestionably did work for the Signal Corps which was related to research done at Ft. Monmouth.