Nearly 400 students from M.I.T. and B.U. occupied a room in the M.I.T. student center at noon yesterday and established a sanctuary for an AWOL soldier.

Led by the M.I.T. branch of the Resistance, the students held a meeting late yesterday afternoon and resolved not to leave the hall until federal agents came to take the sodier away.

The soldier, Jack M. O'Connor, claims to have been AWOL from Fort Eustis, Va., since September 14. He also swore not to leave the hall until federal agents came.

Administration Neutral

The M.I.T. administration, according to an assistant dean, has taken a position of "complete neutrality" on the sanctuary. Richard A. Sorenson, assistant to the Dean of Students Affairs, said that the administration would not interfere with the sanctuary and that the conflict lay only in the differences between the soldier and the government.

Students spent much of the afternoon in a tactical discussion of how they would respond when the expected "bust" came. Although almost all agreed that they should resist nonviolently, the students held a lengthy and inconclusive debate over whether or not they should actually obstruct the agents.

A novel proposition in which everyone would wear a mask in order to express the idea "all of us are Jack" was also discussed without reaching any definite conclusion.

In a statement released to the press, the M.I.T. resistance said it created the sanctuary in order to "establish a forum for O'Connor to express the reasons why he is resisting. We are expressing our solidarity with him and all of those who are taking similar stands. We all lack the basic control of our own lives, that is the essence of true democracy. The only difference is that the soldier knows he is being controlled and manipulated, while we are given the illusion of self-control," the statement said.

Feared FBI

Gerry Stein, a member of the Sanctuary Community, said that the New England Draft Resistance Group (NEDRG) put O'Connor in touch with the M.I.T. Resistance. Stein explained that the M.I.T. Resistance had been planning a sanctuary for over three weeks. However, the NEDRG, fearing interference from the F.B.I., did not release the name of the AWOL until a few minutes before the sanctuary began.

O'Conner said that he sought sanctuary in order to "unite the people in our common cause against the government takeover in this country. I feel that for each person that joins our cause by the stand I am taking, ten more will get involved. To me this is worth every day behind their fences and bars. They can lock up my body, but not my soul," he said.

O'Connor said that he himself first became interested in seeking sanctuary after attending B.U.'s Marsh Chapel last October during the vigil for AWOL Army private Ray Kroll. He had gone AWOL last spring for 50 days "purely for selfish reasons--just to get out of it myself."

'For Everyone Else'

In September he decided to leave camp again after some guards "beat the hell out of me and falsely accused me of trying to start a riot in the camp." This time he went AWOL, he added, "not just for myself, but for everyone else."

O'Connor's biography, prepared by the M.I.T. Resistance, stated that he was forced to enlist in the Army in order to avoid prison for possession of marijuana.