A search committee's top choice for the newly created Luce Professorship of Applied Ethics and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government turned down the offer this week.

Dennis F. Thompson, the chairman of the Princeton University politics department, "has decided not to leave Princeton," a spokesman for Graham T. Allison Jr. '62, dean of the Kennedy School, said yesterday. "We will probably have to start another search," the spokesman added.

Thompson, on vacation in California, was unavailable for comment yesterday.

Edith Stokey, coordinator of academic appointments at the Kennedy School, said Thompson may have decided to remain at Princeton because his wife holds a position there. "That would have a bearing on it, I'm sure," Stokey said.

"Presumably the search committee must go back and take another look," Stokey said, but she added that no decision had been made about whether to start the process from scratch.

"I'm sure we'll ask the faculty for guidance--we have several options, including a visiting professor or simply beginning the search again," Stokey said.

The Luce Professorship, funded from a $50,000 Luce Foundation Grant, is one of fifteen established at American universities.

The search committee, headed by Don K. Price, professor of Government, worked six months and considered several dozen candidates for the post. "I think we were primarily looking for someone who could serve as a bridge between political science, philosophy and ethics," Stokey said.

"It is important to emphasize that we already have an ethics course in place," Stokey said. Whoever is picked for the new post might take over that course or might revise it, Stokey added.

Stokey refused to say whether there were other candidates left over from the last search that the school might turn to. She added that "the time bind is not as bad as it might seem. Even if Professor Thompson had accepted, he might not have been able to come for next September."