Pusey Tells Chicago Group Faculty Free of Communists

President Pusey yesterday defended the University's policy on so-called "Fifth Amendment Communists" before an audience of 1,000 Midwestern business executives and declared it "extremely unlikely" that there are now any Communists on the Faculty.

"We at Harvard do not assume that when a man invokes the Fifth Amendment, he thereby shows that he was a Communist," President Pusey told a luncheon of the Executives Club in Chicago.

"We do not approve of the Amendment's use by Harvard professors," he added. "We do not think they should fail to testify, But we do feel the Amendment should be in the Constitution and we do not lend ourselves to the undermining of it."

Describing to the audience how the University reacted to the charges of Communist infiltration, President Pusey said that last spring the Corporation "made an intensive study" and "found four persons on whom suspicion had been cast" by the Jenner and Velde Congressional committees.

"In relation to 3,000 members of the Faculty, this was approximately one tenth of one percent," he declared.

Even though no one could prove that any of these four was at the time a member of the Communist Party, only one of them remained on the Faculty after the terms of the others expired, President Pusey said. He referred to Wendell H. Furry, associate professor of Physics.

Pre-War Cell

President Pusey admitted that Communist Party members did establish a Red cell at the University in 1938.

"It consisted of 14 young instructors, one of whom had a trusted position within the party," he explained. "They apparently were motivated by the United States depression and the rise of Fascism. By 1939, most of the 14 had left the party, and only one continued to teach at Harvard," President Pusey added.