With the failure of Alan Gottlieb's referendum for an A.S.U. condemnation of Stalin's Finnish rape comes a crisis in the affairs of the Harvard Student Union. Will it cling to the coattails of discredited fellow members in the Communist-dominated American Student Union? Or will it cut loose from the national body and steer by its own star?

The answer would appear obvious. Yet the H.S.U. hesitates to take the step which last fall it implied it would take should the Gottlieb referendum fail to go through. The advantages of national unity seem to have influenced yesterday's decision to remain within the Red pale. But these organizational "advantages" consist principally of Communist selected literature and speakers--a negligible return for the fifty cents out of every dues dollar, which the H.S.U. annually pays its national affiliate. And the disadvantages of continued A.S.U. connections are enormous. Intangible but still real is the question of lost prestige on the Harvard campus. There is also the probability of disintegration within the H.S.U.; already its membership is beginning to dwindle. Halfway measures will avail nothing. Here is the liberal H.S.U.'s chance to get out from under before it is too late.