Students, Staff Criticize AFROTC Termination

The staff and students of Harvard's AFROTC bitterly criticized the Air Force yesterday for its decision to disband the unit in 1957.

Calling the move "one of the stupidest things the Air Force has ever done," an officer who refused to be named said the disbanding will harm the service in the long run. "The Air Force needs and wants to have a many people as possible conscious of air power. The dissolvement of the units, however, can only cause graduates of schools like Harvard to be more Army and Navy conscious and less Air Force conscious," the officer said.

One of the student leaders of the group, Cadet Captain John W. Sands '56, issued a statement attacking Air Force policy and at the same time asking to have the unit reestablished.

"I feel that there is a place in Ivy League schools for the Air Force," Sands said. "Perhaps the program needs academic revision to meet the potentialities of Ivy League schools, but we must try to do all that is in our power to continue the unit at Harvard."

Cadets Discuss Situation

Sands said he will discuss the situation at a meeting of the Cadet staff Monday. If the Staff agrees to try to have the unit reinstated, they will probably meet with the University's administration to sound out its views, he added.

Most of the staff were both bewildered and bitter at the sudden action. "We had been warned last year of dissolvement," one officer said, "but after we raised our enrollment substantially this year, we thought we were safe."

In this year's freshman class, all 37 students have expressed a desire to fly, one office pointed out, a seeming contradiction of one of the reasons the Air Force gave for disbanding the unit--a need for more aviators.

Moreover, the unit had instituted a program of interviews for prospective students when they visited the College in an effort to enlarge the program. Most AFROTC men believed the unit was steadily growing both in size as well as in morale.