"The whole thing sounds like a third-rate spy story," Benjamin I. Schewartz '38, assistant professor of Far Eastern history, said yesterday.
He was amending his previous remarks concerning a Central Intelligence Agency plan to use him, John K. Fairbank '29, professor of Far Eastern history, and Fairbank's wife, as unsuspecting participants in a scheme to ferret out Communists.
Schwartz, in clarification of a statement made Tuesday, said that he doubts if he would have participated in the scheme. "I would have assisted only if I felt the plan was of service to the government." Had he known the true "spy story" implications, Schwartz said he would not have participated.
Schwartz reasserted that he never had been approached concerning the plan, and had read about it in the press only as a presumed Chinese project. General Walter Bedell Smith revealed part of the nature of the plan in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relation Committee last week.
A Washington source told the CRIMSON Tuesday that the censored transcript of the testimony inferred that Schwartz, Fairbank, and Fairbank's wife were to be used only as decoys.
Deletions in the transcript made the actual administration of the plan unclear.
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