President Johnson yesterday named Richard E. Neustadt, director of the Kennedy Institute to a three-man emergency board to make recommendations on a threatened strike against five major airlines.

By appointing the three-man committee, Johnson was able to avert the strike, which the International Association of Machinists called for 12:01 a.m. Saturday, to run 60 days.

Under the Railway Labor Act, the board will hear the positions of both parties and within 30 days make a recommendation for an agreement to the President. The two parties are then expected to attempt a settlement during the next 30 days on the basis of the recommendation, after which the union is again, free to strike.

Neustadt, who has been a presidential advisor during both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, has had relatively little experience in the labor relations field. He was a general assistant during one of the large United Mine Workers strikes in 1949-50, but his most famous work is a series of three private reports he prepared for President Kennedy on the problems of starting a new administration.

Other Business

Reportedly, Neustadt was in Washington on other business yesterday when he was invited over to the White House for lunch, at which time Johnson asked him to join the panel.

The other two members of the board are Sen. Wayne Morse (D-Ore.), who will be its chairman, and David Ginsburg, a Washington lawyer who served in the government during World War II and who is a close friend of Neustadt's

The three men will investigate a dispute over wages and fringe benefits between the Association of Machinists and Eastern, National, Northwest, Trans World, and United Air Lines. The role of the President's 3.2 per cent non-inflationary guidelines is a major issue in the dispute, which involves machinists and other employees of the five airlines.

Neustadt is currently teaching Government 254, "The President and Public Policy," and working on plans for the construction and curriculum of the Kennedy Institute, which will be a part of the Graduate School of Public Administration related to the Kennedy Library center.

He was unavailable yesterday for comment on the appointment, and it is not yet known to what extent the new job will take him outside of Cambridge during the remainder of the term.