Harvard Travel Service Owner Held by Czechs

The president of the Harvard Travel Service, Vladimir J. Kazan-Komarek, has been arrested in Czechoslovakia on charges of treason, espionage, and attempted murder.

Kazan-Komerak was returning from a Soviet-sponsored conference of travel agents in Moscow when he was arrested.

He was a passenger on a plane operated by Aeroflot, the Soviet government airline, when the plane made an unscheduled landing in Prague. The arrest took place there on October 31.

United States sources hint at the possibility of an agreement between Russian and Czech officials to permit the plane to land in Prague.

John Leddy, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs has also notified the Czech ambassador of the serious ness with which the United States views the arrest. The U.S. embassy in Prague has asked for consular access to Kazan-Komerak.

Kazen-Komarek was born in Czechoslovakia in 1924 and became a naturalized American citizen in 1960. He left in 1948, the year of the Communist takeover, and lived in France before coming to the united States ten years ago.

Czechoslovakia has had a warrant for Kazen-Komerak's arrest since 1963. The charge claims that he "had established in 1948 a treasonable organization in connection with foreign agents aimed at the subversion of the government."