University 'Satisfied' With HSA; Charter Books to Be Kept Secret

Close study of a Harvard Student Agencies report on European charter flights has left the University "entirely satisfied with the HSA operation," Dean Watson said yesterday.

"We don't feel that it is necessary to release figures on this. If important University officials have looked them over and been satisfied, that should be enough," he said.

Watson and other members of the Administration ruled that the HSA had not violated any U.S. laws or industry regulations on administrative expeuses and found charter-flight prices "indeed reasonable and proper."

They rejected the application of two students who challenged the seven-year-old HSA monopoly and whose charges led to the investigation. But they decided to establish a committee that would meet once or twice yearly to review the HSA's charter-flight accounts.

Members of the committee, according to Watson, will be "impartial people who are not familiar with HSA" and who not on its board of directors. Watson himself and Deans Monro, Glimp, and von State are among those disqualified by being directors.

The Administration's verdict on charter flights followed a 90-minute meeting yesterday morning at which Watson and others questioned HSA officials on a report by Dustin M. Burke '52, the general manager.

Burke's report, which was filed earlier this month, gave a complete financial summary of charter operations last summer. Watson said the administration had studied the report "very, very, carefully" and had asked "many, many questions."

He doclined to discuss details of the report "because if you release figures there are questions, and if you release more figure to answer the questions there are more questions, and soon all the figures are out." "They're meaningless unless you have someone to explain them," he added.

L. Gard Wiggins, administrative vice-president and chairman of the committee to review charter-flight accounts, said that his group would declare them satisfactory or unsatisfactory without disclosing their content.

Members of the new committee will be announced at "about this time next year" because there will be nothing for them to study until this summer's charter flights have been completed. Wiggins said that three or four people 'with some financial background-possibly the comptroller"--would be on the committee.