"The United States is doing very little to encourage a political settlement in El Salvador," Rep. James Shannon (D-Mass,) said yesterday to an audience of about 300 at an Institute of Politics panel discussion at the Kennedy School.

Shannon and other panelists, including Bianca Jagger; George Wald, Higgins Professor of Biology Emeritus; and Harvey G. Cox, Thomas Professor of Divinity, criticized U.S. involvement in El Salvador.

Jagger, recently returned from a tour of Salvadoran refugee camps in Honduras and Costa Rica, said she witnessed the forcible abduction of refugees by Salvadoran troops on Honduran soil. Plans to relocate the refugees 35 miles inland from the border would not guarantee their safety because of Honduran military collaboration with the Salvadoran Junta, Jagger added.

Alfred Mongo, who represents the official position of the Salvadoran insurgents in the United States, said the insurgent strength "day by day is strengthened and developed to the point where we know that the Junta is losing in the war."

But he said he would prefer a political solution to the problem in order to bring about "real peace" in El Salvador and prevent regionalization of the conflict.