UN Council, HLU Attack State Dept. For Possible Student-Flyer Trade

The United Nations Council yesterday condemned any attempt to secure the return of Americans held captive in china by trading Chinese students restricted to the U.S. for them.

The State Department had earlier intimated that it would be willing to listen if communist China should propose swapping 35 Chinese students for 57 Americans, including the 11 imprisoned flyers.

Ex-Council President Bruce Selya '55 said, "The U.N. Council of Harvards decries the suggestion that Red China be allowed to use the captive American fliers in question as a bargaining point in her relations with the United States. Insofar as the U.N. has decided that the fliers were not spies and have not been legitimately imprisoned, it would be a grave policy error to allow China to capitalize on an action that has been so condemned."

The Harvard Liberal Union has also censured such a trade, Tuesday.

Terence S. Turner '55, vice-president of the H.L.U., said last night, "The sense of the motion was that the violation of international law (the Chinese illegally convicted soldiers in uniform of spying) was so cynical and flagrant that we could not afford to neglect our moral responsibility to deal with the situation as a matter of principle; which would mean going along with the U.N. to the farthest degree possible before we took a unilateral course such as is now contemplated."

Huang Welcomes News

Wef-yuan Huang, a research fellow in Chemistry, and the only Chinese student at the University to be affected, said last night such an exchange would be very good news to him.

The admission by the State Department that it might consider a deal with Red China marks a complete reversal of earlier government policy, Seyla said. The State Department had previously been adamant in refusing to listen to offers of trade.

The 35 Chinese students are being held in the United States because they have acquired scientific educations which might prove valuable to the Communists.

U.N. Secretary Dag Hammarskjold asked for a meeting with Communist China's Chou en Lie earlier this week, but as yet had not received any reply.