Competition from the jumbo jet aside, Shurcliff doubts that many passengers would want to pay the extra fare for a three-hour saving on a transatlantic flight. Improving the ground access to airports would accomplish the same time saving at much less cost, he feels. Oother investigators agree that consumer demand will be considerably less than current predictions. B. K. Lundbergh, a Swedish scientists, published a report last month on the problem of "dead time," the fact that the short flight time will make night flights to Europe extremely unpopular, since passengers would no longer be able to plan on getting a night's sleep during the crossing.

Shurcliff first read of the SST in a scientific article by Lundberg about four years ago. Lundberg listed several of the SST's defects. "I was so amazed I practically memorized the article," Shurcliff remembers, and began writing letters to find out more about the SST.

"The more I read, the more horrified I got," he recalls. "Somebody obviously had to form a group to oppose this thing, and I was hoping and praying someone else would do it. All I wanted to do was to give money and join." But it was not that easy, and Shurcliff feels his life has changed "terrifically" since he and his deputy director John T. Edsall, professor of Biological Chemistry, held the League's first meeting in March. From March until June, he spent about five hours every night writing letters to Congressmen and FAA officials and preparing news releases, which he sent to a selected list of 180 newspapers, 40 radio and television stations, and 30 "key individuals." He wrote to the mayors of cities which would be most directly affected by the SST, and mailed out application blanks which invite prospective members, "Do join this League! No dues."

The letter writing and advertising paid off, at least in volume, and by mid-summer Shurcliff had to hire two part-time secretaries. He has appeared on television and been written up in countless national publications; a clipping service sends him almost 20 clippings a day from newspapers and magazines, 95 per cent favorable.

Although he claims not to enjoy all the publicity, Shurcliff has developed a sure public relations touch. When Transportation Secretary Alan Boyd announced that transcontinental SST's might fly subsonic over the populated eastern half of the country and then supersonic from Chicago to Califor- nia, Shurcliff immediately wrote to western political leaders pointing out how little the SST's proponents seemed to care for the west's peace and quiet.

Obviously, grass roots organizational success, although impressive, will never be enough. The fact that the League hears regularly from a Chicago woman every time a military plane's boom damages her house means little; the SST's fate lies with Congress. The House recently voted SST appropriations for another year, and that bill is now in the Senate. Shurcliff is the first to admit that the chances of killing off the SST this fall in Congress look very slight. Only six Senators have expressed definite support for the League. And Shurcliff thinks many people have been confused by the Federal Aviation Agency, which continues to hedge on whether it would permit SST flights over land. Shurcliff himself considers that question purely academic. He is sure that even if the FAA starts with a policy of allowing supersonic flights only over the ocean, once the SST is operational the profit motive -- the more planes flying the more routes, the more money--will take over.

In the long run, though, he is optimistic. The Concorde project is in financial trouble, and there is a chance that either Britain or France will pull out, providing a reasonable excuse for the U.S. to drop its own version. And there is the boom itself. "More and more people are getting fed up with it," Shurcliff comments, referring to boom tests being conducted over selected cities. He has received only four letters in favor of sonic booms--one from a man who wrote that the loud noise "made him proud to be an American." League members are urged to write their Congressmen and local newspapers, and Shurcliff feels that "the tide will run more strongly in our favor." The problem is that the longer it takes for the tide to turn, the smaller the chances are that this particular tide will turn at all