Rusk Attack on Academic Criticism Answered By 200 Faculty Members

Two hundred faculty members signed statement advertised yesterday in the New York Times protesting Secretary of the Dean Rusk's criticism of academic position to the government's Vietnam easy.

The statement, sponsored by the Great-Boston Faculty Committee on Vietnam, started that "the academic community both a right and an obligation to put out hazards and inconsistencies in military and diplomatic policy."

As a nation we hold immense power," statement continued. "To permit it to used in reckless and barbarous ways in imperil the entire basis of American leadership." The statement demanded of the Johnson administration "make arrest attempt to obtain a negotiated peace."

Approximately 300 professors from Boston-area colleges signed the statement. Among the Harvard signatories were H. Stuart Hughes, professor of History, Everett I. Mendelsohn, assistant professor of the History of Science, and Laurence Whylie, C. Dougias Dillon Professor of the Civilization of France.

'Plain Facts'

In the advertisement, the faculty members specifically charged the United States with violating the 1954 Geneva agreement over Indo-China. They asserted that it is the government, and not faculty critics, that disregards the "plain facts" of the Vietnam war.

Mendelsohn, who helped solicit many of the signatures, said last night the statement clarified the academic community's criticisms of U.S. policy in Vietnam. The faculty group plans similar advertisements, he said.