Leaders of tonight's marathon discussion of the war in Vietnam say that they hope to fill Lowell Lecture Hall for the event.

Stanley H. Hoffmann, professor of Government and one of the program's speakers, and Ralph Balerlein, instructor in Physics and leader of the Faculty committee organizing the project, predicted yesterday that hundreds of students and teachers from Harvard and other colleges would attend the discussion.

The program, which will feature half-hour speeches by John Kenneth Galbraith Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics, Benjamin I. Schwartz ', professor of History and Government, and professors from other schools, will run from 7 p.m. until 2 a.m. A Shell Oil Co. film on the Mekong Delta will be shown during the evening

Leaders of the discussion say they aim for "a multipartisan sequence of lectures [including] Faculty members of all persuasions." A series of all-night "teach-ins" that have attracted thousands of students across the country were billed as protests against U.S. policy in Southeast Asia.

Hoffmann said yesterday that "it is invaluable, even for SDS types, to hear the Administration's position, because they think people in the Administration are either monsters or idiots."

"It is important to learn," he continued, "why people who are not either monsters or idiots--after all some of them are our former deans and professors--are pursuing such a policy."

"Very little has been said about how we got into the war." Hoffmann said "and students will be better able to support or criticize the Administration's position if they know what's going on."