3 Professors Stand Behind Oppenheimer

Professors in three departments have defended J. Robert Oppenheimer in reaction to the protest of his appointment as William James Lecturer by Edwin Ginn '18 a Boston financier. One called Ginn "a fool."

Ginn resigned from the Harvard Fund Council, calling the noted physicist "a know Communist sympathizer and confessed liar in a matter of espionage." David McCord '21, executive secretary of the Council reported yesterday that Ginn's was the only letter attacking the appointment among many he received about it.

"Ginn is a fool," said Perry G.E. Miller, professor of American Literature. "It is obvious that he has not read the proceedings of Oppenheimer's hearing or understood anything that has happened," he added.

Morton White, professor of Philosophy and chairman of the department which is jointly sponsoring Oppenheimer, said, "The appointment of Dr. Oppenheimer should be seriously evaluated only by those who can distinguish scholarly achievement, loyalty, and security as deflued by a notoriously defective system.

"As for scholarship," he continued, "Oppenheimer is one of our great physicists and a distinguished philosopher of science. He was declared loyal moreover, not only by the Atomic Energy Commission, but also by Mr. Conant, who presided over this University in the good old days which Mr. Ginn is said to prefer.

"A university should be grateful to those who support it, but it should not be fazed by the attacks of one who not only does not distinguish between academic freedom and military security, but who can so easily call fellows "felons" when he disagrees with them."

Statement Overemotional

Edwin G. Boring, professor of Psychology, the other department which is sponsoring Oppenheimer, said that Ginn's statement was "so emontionally over-determined that it is best to ignore it. I know Oppenheimer fairly well. He is a very responsible and loyal citizen of the United States."