To the Editor of the Harvard Crimson:

The advertisement of the Harvard Committee against Military Intervention is a final and valuable exhibit of isolationist logic.

It urges that we take "all measures necessary to defeat Japan"--and follows this with

1. An attack on the competence of our government and its leaders (who are, it is implied, to blame for the Japanese assault!).

Is this a measure that helps defeat Japan?

2. An attack on "decadent Anglophiles" and other people who think the United States and Britain have any common interest.

Is this a measure that helps defeat Japan? Where does the Committee think Singapore and Java are located? How does the Committee propose that the United States defeat Japan without the fullest aid by Britain, China, and the Netherlands--and perhaps Russia?

3. An invitation to us to get back into our hemisphere as quickly as possible (after defeating Japan).

But why wait to defeat Japan? Japan is concentrating attack on territories in Asia and Malaysia. It will let Honolulu alone if we don't intervene. Why not, on the Committee's premises, let Japan run amok and simply withdraw to the eastern Pacific?

4. A suggestion that Germany has nothing to do with the Japanese war, and can safely be forgotten--along with (presumably) lease-lend aid, Britain, Russia, and Dakar.

This is the logical climax of all those earlier isolationist judgments that began with Senator Borah's dictum: "This is a phoney war."

5. A conclusion: "We shall continue to obstruct . . . every move in the direction of further involvement in European military affairs."

And if Hitler declares war on us? The place to obstruct our involvement in war was Berlin, Tokyo, and Rome. Unfortunately, the Committee has decided to obstruct here.

We do not believe that the "obstructionists" will be able to hamper our successful prosecution of a war which Hitler has brought on us. We are glad that they have given us notice of their aims. Charles H. Taylor,   Associate Professor of History.