Harvard will try to salvage a disappointing swimming season with a good showing in the Eastern Seaboard Championships starting today at Penn, but the chances for a spirited team performance appear dim as a result of some personal conflicts.

The coaches and captain Mike Cahalan have decided not to take freestylers Henry Watson and Al Ackermann, and most of the squad has taken sides in the issue. Tim Chetin, who sympathizes with the two, said yesterday before departing for the subway that he would not swim on the medley relay with Cahalan.

Irregular, Unprepared

Cahalan has been unhappy for a couple of months with the approach Watson and Ackermann have taken to swimming. He felt that they had been too irregular in their practice attendance and had been physically, and psychologically unprepared to swim in meets.

Cahalan was worried that they were hurting team morale, and as a result, they did not compete in the three meets before the Yale contest last weekend.

Watson and Ackermann had thought they'd be going to the Easterns, but were told early this week that they were not. Wednesday night, at head coach Bill Brooks's suggestion, Watson, Ackermann, Chetin, and Dave Powlison went to discuss the matter for many hours with Cahalan.

'Mike's Decision'

"I think I'm through with Harvard swimming," Watson a sophomore, said last night. "If the coaches had decided it. It's one thing, but it was 100 per cent Mike's decision. He's letting his own personal morality into this." Watson's times qualified him for the Easterns.

The Crimson's chances to equal last year's sixth-place finish seem slime. But the team will have an opportunity to rack up points tonight in the finals of the 50 free and 500 free. Cahalan was the 50-free champion in 1969 and is among the favorites tonight, while Steve Kranse will be a top contender in an exceptional 500 field.