A broad investigation of alleged subversive influences in American colleges, including Harvard, appeared imminent last night, after Senator Pat McCarran (D-Nev) announced that the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee believed "nests of Communists exist not only in secondary schools but also in many colleges."

McCarran, chairman of the Senate Committee, would not comment on whether his group would conduct new extensive investigations, although two Boston newspapers reported last night plans were now being made for special "Red-seeking" committees to go directly to colleges throughout the country early this January.

At the same time, however, Representative Harold B. Velde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, said in a telephone interview his group would go through with its plans to investigate the field of education "regardless of what happens."

Velde also indicated that his group would pay particular attention to the Rhodes Scholarship program. "In previous work for the Un-American Activities Committee, we've had several testi-monies that indicate there is a need to investigate how the Rhodes Scholarships are given out and what happens to the students after they get over there," the Representative explained.

"We're not going after any--particular school or institution," Velde continued, "but it's virtually certain that professors and individuals from Harvard will come up before the committee sometime after we begin our investigations in January."

McCarran, in releasing a 412-page volume containing the transcript of hearings held by his subcommittee, referred specifically of to the testimony of Dr. Bella V. Dodd of New York City, a former Communist leader, in which she had said that Communist party units operate don the campuses of Harvard, Columbia, Long Island, Vassar, Smith, Wellesley, M.I.T., New York, Michigan, Chicago, North-wester, Minnesota and Howard universities.

"Dr. Dodd has testified that there have been as many as 1,5000 Communists teaching in schools and colleges," McCarran stated. "Though this number may not seem large in comparison with the million teachers employed in the schools, the nature of Communist Party operations makes them as dangerous as a lighted match in a powder magazine."

MCCarran ended his statement by saying the subcommittee had no intention of trying to dictate to state or college authorities how they shall run their schools or whom they shall hire.

"Nor do we desire," he said, "to dictate the thinking of any person, but we can show what course that thinking takes and we must war against the leadership of subversives."

Miss Margaret Clapp, president of Wellesley, issued the following statement yesterday concerning McCarran's report: "We know of us Communist unit on the campus . . . and we are satisfied that us member of the Wellesler faculty has used his classroom or his opportunity to know students for the purposes of indoctrinating Communist Party principles.