The Princeton faculty has become embroiled in controversy over President Kennedy's shelter program. One hundred faculty members have signed a letter opposing the Kennedy plan for mass shelters, and 120 have signed another which supports the program.

President Robert F. Goheen recently appointed a special committee to investigate the best locations for shelters on the Princeton campus. The committee selected the sites, but expressed no opinion concerning the wisdom of shelters.

The first letter, which was printed as an advertisement in the Washington Post two months ago, declared that shelters increase the possibility of nuclear war. "We may be more willing to go to the brink if we think survival is possible, and we are less likely to devise constructive steps which may ease tension and secure the peace."

Goheen led those who signed the subsequent letter in favor of the program. The group endorsed the building of shelters as a "shield which may mean the difference between an America that has enough skilled courageous people to keep it going and an America that has lost so large a portion of its people that the survivors are forced to surrender."

Another of the leaders of this group, called the Princeton shelter plans "an act of leadership."