Furry Is Silent on Radar Espionage

Wendell H. Furry, associate professor of Physics, yesterday refused to tell a closed session of Senator McCarthy's Senate permanent investigations sub-committee whether he had ever given secret radar data to the Communists.

Previously, Norman Levinson, an associate professor of mathematics at M.I.T., had told the committee that Furry "was and is a Communist Party member who worked in the radiation laboratories of the signal corps in the 1940's." Levinson's lawyer later denied that he had said Furry is now a Communist.

In yesterday's New York hearing, Furry declared that he is not now a Communist nor had he been one on March 1, 1951. But he refused to say whether he was a party member of Feb. 28, 1951.

Will Wire Pusey

According to the Boston Post, McCarthy stated after the hearing that he would send a wire to President Pusey asking why Furry was retained on the faculty after his repeated failures to answer questions under oath.

Although Furry refused to testify whether he had been a Communist before 1951, he told the Corporation last spring that he severed all his Party connections in 1947. The 1951 date was the same he gave the Velde committee in testimony at the same time.

McCarthy said he tried to get Furry to account for the four year time differential, but received no answer.

The Wisconsin senator then asked Furry if the President of Harvard had ever asked him if he were a Communist. The Physicist's reply was no. But Pusey had no need for such a question, for by the time of his inauguration, he of course had access to the Corporation's report.

Use of Fifth Amendment

Again citing the Fifth Amendment, Furry refused to answer whether he had ever attended a Communist Party meeting, whether he knew if Communists were working on secret radar projects when he did wartime research at the M.I.T. radation laboratories, and whether he had ever attempted to indoctrinate his students with communist philosophy.

However, the Corporation's report said, "Dr. Furry's teaching is of high quality and has reflected no Communist slant, nor has he ever engaged in recruiting students for the Communist Party, or in attempting to influence their political thinking."