Cambridge Police Chief John R. King may receive a request from City Manager John B. Atkinson today to initiate a City Council-sponsored drive to expose Cambridge Reds.

In a bitter debate at the Monday Council meeting. Councillor John R. Lynch proposed a motion last Atkinson request King to ask the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington for the names and identities of all Communists living and working in Cambridge. The motion was passed by a 5 to 4 vote. Mayor Edward A. Crane '35 said last night, however, that he did not expect what he termed the "witch hunt" measure to be pushed at all.

In defending the motion, former-Mayor Lynch stated that Harvard and M.I.T. professors have "been constantly associated with Communist movements and the time is at hand for the people to stand up and the counted." Lynch revealed last night that he had been asked several times to initiate the drive by the Cambridge Citizens' Committee, a newly-formed anti-Communist-group.

Supporting the measure were Councilors Lynch, John J. Foley, Thomas M. McNamara, Hyman Pill, and Edward J. Sullivan. Lined up in opposition were Mayor Crane, Joseph A. DeGugliemo '29, W. Donnison Swan '17, and Chestor A. Higley.

Crane and DeGugliemo both expressed the belief that the checking and controlling of Communists was strictly an F.B.I. job and that there is not reason to believe that the City Council will be given proference over a Congressional Committee in access to secret files. "One of the greatest perils if such lists were given out," the Mayor said yesterday, "would be the possibility for Communists to enter the names of their enemies and instigate the greatest witch-hunt in history."

Orders approved by the Council on Monday are not usually set up by the Clerk of Court to be distributed until Wednesday.