Polk Searches for Brother's Slayers

William R. Polk '51 applied for a leave of absence yesterday--to track down the killers of his brother, radio reporter George Polk. The 19 year old sophomore will soon fly to Greece, scene of the crime.

The corpse of the CBS correspondent, an outspoken opponent of the Greek Loyalist government, was found floating in the Gulf of Salonika on May 16, just a few days before he was to have returned home to accept a Nieman fellowship at Harvard. His hands and feet were bound and there was a bullet hole in the back of his head.

Through the aid of the Newsmens' Commission to Investigate the Murder of George Polk, William Polk has already raised $1,500 in cash and $6,000 in pledges of the $10,000 necessary to send himself and two others to Greece for a six-week investigation of the killing.

Local Groups Enlist

Three Harvard groups have already pitched in to help Polk raise the money he needs. Louis M. Lyons, curator of the Nieman Foundation, which awards a year's fellowship at Harvard to outstanding newsmen, yesterday sent a letter to all past and present Nieman Fellows urging them to support Polk's plea for funds.

In his letter, Lyons wrote that it was "evident of itself how important" the case is, and he said that the killing of a reporter should be of as great importance as a cop-killing is to policemen.

Meanwhile, the Harvard American Veterans Committee has unanimously voted to give $35 to the fund and the Liberal Union has unanimously agreed to subscribe $15.

Polk reports that the Newsmen's Commission has been promised substantial additional contributions if the Burean of Internal Revenue acts favorably on its application to have contributions declared deductable from taxable income.

His two co-workers in the investigation will be John Donovan. NBC Middle East correspondent and a close friend of George Polk, and Constantine Poulos, Overseas News Agency correspondent, who speaks Greek fluently and has just returned from a two-year assignment in Greece