Ferguson Blasts Center For University Policies

Senator Homer Ferguson's (Rep. Mich.) stab at the University and the Russian Research Center last June 24 belatedly brought a banner blast in the "Boston Post" yesterday.

According to Ferguson, in a hearing on Air Force expenditures before the Senate Appropriations Committee, the government's investment in the Center's current study of the Soviet System is "a form of insanity".

Ferguson did not attack the Center for lack or quality of data. He stated in his overall condemnation of Air Force spending: "Harvard has been outstanding. Their professors have been outstanding. They now say they will not discharge a man who has been a communist and a teacher. And you go to that very institution to determine how the mind of the Communist works.

"I think personally we are just becoming ridiculous," Ferguson continued, still not mentioning anything the Center has actually done or not done. "We are just so extravagant that it shows a form of insanity. I just cannot see it. I think it is one of the terrible examples of what the agencies are doing, to go to an institution, of all institutions Harvard, to find out a working model of Soviet thinking when they have criticized Congress for trying to get really at the roots of the thing under oath as to how a communist thinks."

The upper echelons of the Air Force have not agreed with Ferguson's "opinion." The Center is still a going concern, transmitting information to the government.

The Soviet Social System study is a Center program designed to provide a better understanding of how the Soviet mind works and to provide a basis for firmer predictions as to the probable behavior of the regime and its citizens under specified conditions.

The Center was opened in July, 1948 under a five year grant form the Carnegie Corporation. Last year the Carnegie Corporation extended the grant for another five years until 1958.

Two years after the study started the Air Force became interested in the interviews the Center was conducting with escaped refugees. Shortly afterwards, the Human Resources Research Institute of the Air Force, under Contract No. AF 33 (038)-12909, granted the Research Center $908,000 for study until June, 1954. So far the Research Center has spent $688,000 of that money. The contract will not be prolonged, since the work for the Air Force will soon be completed.