University Announces Contract Plan for CEA

University officials said yesterday that a final contract with the Atomic Energy Commission for the $5 million a year required to operate the Cambridge Electron Accelerator will probably be signed within two weeks.

The contract will require the University to furnish the AEC with background information on all aliens doing research at the accelerator and will require Harvard to notify the Commission whenever scientists from Soviet bloc nations plan visits to the CEA.

"Irritating" Limitations

Dean Ford characterized the restrictions which the contract will impose as "irritating," but stressed that the final settlement negotiated by the University is an improvement over the "intolerable limitations" originally proposed by the government.

President Pusey said that the contract with the AEC is one of the most complicated Harvard has yet negotiated with the government, but stressed that it is not the first over which the University has clashed with Washington.

"There will be little points of friction indefinitely in our relations with the government," Pusey said. "The only course the University can take is to remain eternally vigilant."

Pusey noted that the University has refused government contracts in recent years and will continue to do so if conditions cannot be arranged to leave Harvard's freedom of action unimpaired.

Some Provisions Changed

University officials have indicated that Harvard probably would have refused to sign the CEA contract too, if some of the more objectionable provisions had not been removed. Such action would have left the AEC with an $11-million electron accelerator and no one to operate it.

Ford indicated yesterday that all limitations on what scientists working at the CEA may publish will be removed from the final contract. The AEC had originally demanded that no technical information be released to Soviet bloc nations unless a Soviet scientist agreed in advance to release equally valuable information to the United States.

Although formal visits to the CEA by Soviet bloc scientists will have to be reported to the Commission in advance, no restrictions are planned for casual visits. Even if the University later learns that a casual visitor was from a Soviet bloc nation, it will not be necessary to file a report with the government.