Wald Withdraws From Conference; Fears CIA Present

A Nobel Prize-winning Harvard biologist withdrew his name from the sponsor list of an international revolutionary conference saying he feared the meeting "might be infiltrated with FBI and CIA agents."

George Wald, Higgins Professor of Biology, said yesterday he felt the conference "might be a net to catch left-wing subversives," because it was unclear who directed the conference, held Saturday in New York City.

The gathering, titled "Conference on the International Situation, War & Revolution & the Tasks of the American People," included speeches and workshops protesting American foreign policy and capitalistic exploitation.

Wald said he was skeptical about the broad nature of the conference's title. "That's one hell of a subject to cover in one Saturday afternoon," he said.

Another academic, Richard A. Falk, an international law professor at Princeton University, was a sponsor of the conference until he discovered that his co-sponsors included such groups as the Revolutionary Student Brigade and the Revolutionary Communist Party.

"At first I didn't understand the exact purpose of this conference," Falk said. "Then I found out the conference was a vehicle for certain groups espousing views which weren't exactly similar to my own--like overthrowing the government."