Students should have the opportunity to decide for themselves whether to apply for a National Defense Education Act loan under the loyalty provision, Arthur S. Flemming, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, told the CRIMSON yesterday.

"I cannot bring myself to the view," he said, "that institutions should withdraw from the loan program and not allow each applicant to decide the matter for himself."

In addition to the moral issue of depriving needy students of loan money, said the Secretary, it is difficult to assess the political effect of a given institution withdrawing from the program, for the action "might affect some people in a manner not intended."

As the Administration's spokesman, Flemming went on record last May as opposing the loyalty provision and favoring the loyalty provision and favoring the Kennedy-Clark bill to remove it from the Act. In a letter to the Senats Subcommittee on Education, and in personal testimony, he protested that the provision was unnecessary, ineffective, and discriminatory.

Calls for Nationwide Protest

The Secretary yesterday called for an organized, nationwide protest against the provision, noting that, when the Subcommittee last summer held hearings on the Kennedy-Clark bill, only six college presidents--all from the East coast--appeared to testify. "It would be very helpful," he said, "for college presidents from all over the country to offer to testify before the Subcommittee in person."

When the N.D.E.A. was originally passed, Flemming noted, educators were not "up on their toes to the very last minute," and the loyalty provision applying to the loan program was allowed to "slip by unnoticed."

Last month, before President Pusey decided to freeze all Harvard N.D.E.A. loan money, pending a "fresh look" at policy, the University's position had agreed with Flemming's.