In the department of cloaks and daggers, the HYRC, like the NKVD and OGPU, stops at nothing. The latest trick in its Saturday-thriller series was a wire recorder concealed under a pile of innocent, if dirty, laundry. The "embarrassing conversation" secretly recorded in an Eliot House room became a key item in the Young Republicans' intramural politics.

Two years ago an HYRC official accused his colleagues of running a "Cloak and Dagger Department" in a "Machiavellian atmosphere." He hinted that the C & D Dept. had considered such things as wrecking the NSA, packing the Student Council, smearing political candidates as Communists, and infiltrating the Liberal Union. Months later there were more charges of skulduggery; this time the GOPpers were alleged to have set up a string of "vassal clubs."

It could be that the HYRC boys have visions of themselves as Central Intelligence men--the kind that sip cognacs in little Bulgarian cafes. The thought of agents around the College infecting piles of dirty laundry with wire recorders is terrifying. From this it is only a short step to Steve Roper buttonhole-cameras, boutonnieres that squirt poison, and two-way wrist radios.

Some sort of identification--perhaps shoulder patches reading "C & D"--is a necessity for the protection of the college community. Dirty laundry will have to be recognized as a menace to public security.

The alternative is frightening. It is a future of phones that go dead when you answer them, of footsteps that echo yours and stop when you stop, of letters that disappear silently from your desk. The very napkin-holders will have ears, and even the maid will be tight-lipped and shifty-eyed as she goes over your room in the morning.