The Cambridge City Council sidestepped specifics in the Inner Belt controversy yesterday and decided instead to take a trip to Washington.

Urged to recommend an alternative to the Brookline-Elm St. route, the council unanimously voted to ask the state for another delay in selecting a path for the eight-lane highway. It questioned the need of any Inner Belt and pledged to travel to the capital to seek the support of the state's Congressional delegation against the road.

State Department of Public Works had given the Council until today to offer an alternative to the Brookline-Elm St. location, and yesterday a number of major participants in the controversy were disappointed that no recommendation had been made.

Frequently mentioned as alternatives to Brookline-Elm, which would pass several blocks of Central Square and uproot between 3000-5000 people, two alignments further to the east. Both of these lie on the fringe of the campus and are opposed by the Institute.

The Cambridge Committee on the Inner Belt, a group of private planners, said the "Council's action was neither as strong as clear as we would like." However, the Committee, which had recommended one of the routes near M.I.T., pledged its continued support in the City's campaign against the Belt. Mrs. Michael Benfield, a local leader in the Brookline-Elm area, said she would have liked the Council to make a recommendation.

In asking the state for a delay, the Council was joined yesterday by Edward J. McCormack, former attorney general and now a candidate for governor. Barney Frank '61, assistant senior tutor in Winthrop House, read the Council telegrams that McCormack sent to Gov. John A. Volpe and DPW commissioner Francis W. Sargent.

"Unless all sides can be fully heard in a climate of anger, fear and an atmosphere of calm rather than in. frustration, the future of all such public programs may suffer from the contagion of community suspicion and hostility." McCormack is the first gubernatorial candidate to enter the controversy, and though he took on position on the location or need of the road, some of his advisors are known to oppose the highway altogether.

The Council met in executive session before taking its public stand. In that closed meeting, at least two councillors favored recommending an alternative to the Brookline-Elm St. alignment. It was decided, however, to present only the general motion-asking for the delay-in order to have complete unity among the nine councillors.

A number of organizations, besides the Committee on the Inner Belt and residents of the Brookline-Elm area, had urged that the Council accept the committee's recommended route along Portland and Albany Streets in East Cambridge. A group of six M.I.T. planners, opposing the Institute's position, supported the Portland-Albany route yesterday, and the Cambridge League of Women Voters reiterated a stand it had made earlier