Lash to the Mast?

"American youth does not intend to lay down its life in shell holes around Shanghai or Timbuktu. The program of the American Student Union states that 'we will not support any war which the United States Government may undertake' for we recognize that such a war would be imperialist in character."

These words, written in 1937, came back last week to roost on their writer, apostolic Joseph P. Lash, onetime boss of the left-wing student union. They also brought uneasiness to the U.S. Navy. For 31 -year-old Joe Lash, having split with his pinko friends, had shucked his antipathy for war. He had applied for a commission in the Naval Reserve.

Joe Lash had been a great fomenter of student anti-war strikes, a burning critic of the R.O.T.C. ("What is the R.O.T.C. but a vast propaganda effort to make the war system . . . colorful and appealing . . . ?"). He had written for the Commu nist New Masses, had been a May Day parade speaker. And, of course, he always religiously denied that he was actually a Communist.

What flabbergasted the Navy most about Joe Lash's attempt to get into its officer body was what they read about his sponsorship. His application, according to the New York World-Telegram, was backed by his No. 1 patroness: Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt.

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