members and sponsors of the Committee for a Sane Nuclear last night vigorously defended organization against the charges of infiltration that Sen. James (D-Miss.) levelled against the in a press release Saturday.

organization, whose members most part are honestly its aims, has been victimized by communist method of " the chairman of the Senate Security sub-Committee based his charges on given by 24 witnesses in secret committee hearings. Nine of the witnesses were chairman of local New York Sane groups, who pleaded the Fifth Amendment "in refusing to answer questions about communist membership and activity."

The situation that the Senate committee referred to was cleared up last November, Sanford Gottlieb, national political action director of Sane, reported. The National Sane Committee terminated the charters of the New York groups, and set up new neighborhood committees in their places.

Norman Cousins Protests

"Sane bans from membership not only communists but anyone not free to apply the same standards of independent criticism to other countries that they apply to the USA." Norman Cousins, national chairman, declared.

Responding to the Eastland charges, H. Stuart Hughes, professor of History and national sponsor of Sane, said the committee's motive "is to discredit the whole peace and disarmament movement by linking it to communism."

David Riesman, Henry Ford II Professor of Social Sciences stated that the actual management of Sane was completely free of communists. He indicated the difficulty involved in preventing communists or ex-communists from doing the legwork for local Sane committees.

Sane's supporters stressed that the organization's program was completely in line with the official U.S. position on disarmament. When asked whether the Senate sub-committee's charges were timed to coincide with the resumption of test ban negotiations in Geneva, Hughes replied. "I wouldn't be surprised."