Professors Sign Statement, Favor Aid to El Salvador

Seven Harvard faculty members gave their support to U.S. policy in El Salvador by co-signing a full-page advertisement which appeared in The New York Times yesterday.

The advertisement signed by 175 members of the Committee for the Free World stated that the government of El Salvador needs U.S. aid to hold back Soviet expansion and to help the Salvadoran government strengthen its democratic institutions.

Responsibility

Willard V. Quine, Pierce Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, said yesterday he signed because "the entire free world has a responsibility to resist Russian imperialism."

The Salvadoran Communist Party controls the guerrillas in El Salvador, who depend on weapons indirectly supplied by the Soviet Union, the advertisement stated.

Some Harvard professors who signed the advertisement criticized supporters of the guerrillas.

Oscar Handlin, Pfotzheimer University Professor, said yesterday, "The same people who opposed the U.S. participation in the Vietnam War are against the current American policy." He added that these peoples' efforts helped the communists take control of the government and that he did not want the communists to succeed in El Salvador.

All of the signers are members of the committee, the organization which sponsored the advertisement.

Christopher C. De Muth '68, lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government and a signer, yesterday characterized the committee as "a group of intellectuals worried about Soviet expansion, who think the U.S. should do something about it."

The group was organized only a few months ago, and this advertisement was its first major statement, De Muth added.