Mumma Resolution Hits CIA Covert Fund Web

The World University Service has passed a resolution drafted by the Rev. Richard E. Mumma, Presbyterian member of the United Ministry at Harvard and WUS trustee, expressing "outrage" at the Central Intelligence Agency for "providing covert funds to voluntary organizations."

The resolution, passed Wednesday in Washington by the policy-making committee of WUS, also "recognizes" that its own executive director, John Simon, as well as past and present officers, "have been publicly named as possibly guilty of complicity in the acts which the committee thoroughly deplores."

Simon is former assistant director of the Foundation for Youth and Student Affairs, a WUS-affiliated organization recently exposed by Ramparts magazine as a conduit for CIA funds. WUS is a church-related federation of campus and service organizations, many of which, including the National Student Association, have admitted receiving CIA monies.

The resolution also calls on President Johnson to release "from their oaths" student leaders and others who, it said, were "sworn to silence" about financial relationships with the CIA.

The plea to the President was proposed as an amendment to Mumma's original eight point resolution by Gerhard Elston, an official of the National Council of Churches. In what Mumma calls a "good and powerful statement," Elston asked President Johnson to "recognize the dilemma of conscience of persons sworn to silence" about dealings with the intelligence agency, by releasing them from their oaths.

The resolution points out, however, that the available evidence is "circumstantial, not particular or substantive," and that the accused members "have categorically denied any knowledge" of CIA involvement with WUS.

The resolution also recognized that WUS and some of its affiliates are "alleged charged as being used, without the knowledge of the majority of their members, for clandestine operations" and proposes the formation of a committee to investigate any link with the CIA.

Affiliates of the World University Service include the National Student Association, the National Newman Club, the University Christian Movement, and the Hillel Foundation, all of which have been cited as receiving funds from the CIA.