During this conversation, the selected student would be told that there were certain aspects of the organization's dealings with the government which he did not know about, which it might be useful for him to know. He would be asked to sign a security oath. After he signed, he was told he was now an employee of the CIA, and if he revealed this he was subject to a 20-year jail sentence.

Brown called this the most "disgusting" aspect of the whole affair.

While the term "trapped" might apply to the most recent officers, there is some doubt whether it was true in the '50's. In an article in the Times a number of past presidents said they were not trapped at all. They were quite willing to cooperate with the CIA. Indeed, they considered it the patriotic thing to do.

The pressure, whatever it was, is off now. An unusually talkative CIA spokesman said earlier this week that there is no possibility of any action being taken against the students who revealed the relationship.

NSA officers, therefore, do not have to worry about their personal futures. But the future of the organization is more dubious.

The immediate problem which, is no less serious than it was when it baffled Wood, is finances. The break with the CIA is not as financially serious now as it would have been in years when the Agency provided 80 per cent of the budget, but even $50,000 is proving difficult to replace. In addition, NSA would like to expand its programs.

Brown hopes that "untainted" national foundations, like Ford and Rockefeller, will support NSA. A number of large foundations, including these two, met in New York Tuesday to discuss the matter, and Brown thinks the attitude was "favorable."

The second problem as, Rachael Radlo '68, a member of NSB, pointed out earlier this week, is rebuilding confidence. Before this could be accomplished nationally or internationally, it had to happen within NSA itself. Last week, permanent staff members were visibly embittered by the idea that so many secrets had been and were being kept from them. And NSB members were angry that the officers had no desire to call the board, and only did so under pressure. But after last Friday's statement, she believes, there was a new sense of unity among the NSA people in Washington.

The next step, as Brown sees it, is a convincing Congressional investigation. Once people are sure that the NSA and the CIA have nothing more to do with each other, he wants to see a "dialogue" on the role of students and a student union in America.

A week ago, Sam Brown--with perhaps a half-dozen hours of sleep in three days--had to stand before television lights and cameras and a labyrinth of microphones, and tell the nation that an organization to which he was committed had been perpetrating a grandiose, 15-year lie. Today, this congenial -- if somewhat idealistic -- young man is talking about the opportunity the whole affair may have provided for a new era in national student involvement.

In the process, he and other NSA leaders may have shifted more blame for this particular relationship to the CIA than the Agency deserves. But the students are not going to worry about that.