Professors from 80 Schools Ask: 'Mr. President, Stop the Bombings'

Approximately 2000 faculty members from more than 80 colleges and universities signed a full page advertisement in yesterday's New York Times, reading: "Mr. President, Stop the Bombing."

The ad was sponsored by the Ad Hoc Faculty Committee on Vietnam, under the chairmanship of Hilary W. Putnam, professor of Philosophy at Harvard. More than 250 members of the Harvard faculty signed the ad, which will appear again in next Sunday's Times with an additional 2000 signatures.

Professor Putnam, at a news conference Saturday would not comment upon their position except as stated in the ad. He said that the request to cease bombing, as a preliminary measure to any negotiated settlement, would receive general support from the opponents of the war.

Letters Encouraged

The committee is encouraging those who signed the petition to write the President and explain their objections to the Administration's policy in Vietnam in greater detail. Any more detailed statement by the leaders of the committee could not be representative of all the signers of the petition, according to Salvador E. Luria, professor of Biology at M.I.T.

The cost of the two ads, a total of $14,800, was met by the signers, who contributed an average four or five dollars each.

The Ad Hoc Faculty Committee was organized by the Boston Area Faculty Group on Public Issues, which has sponsored similar advertisements to protest exorbitant Civil Defense spending, to urge U.S. acceptance of the 1962 nuclear test ban treaty, and to seek a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Vietnam.

Future Plans

Luria said that the Group's future plans include circulation and publication of a petition in which academicians who voted for Johnson in 1964 could publicly disassociate themselves from the Administration's policy in Vietnam.