As the Reagan administration carries out a rhetorical, and arguably an actual, war against Nicaragua, an group of Harvard faculty members who have visited the country is publicly challenging the Administration's portrayal of and policies towards the small Central American nation.

Far from being the totalitarian state depicted by State Department spokesmen, these professors and administrators describe Nicaragua as a beleaguered country engaged in a noble experiment but threatened by U.S. backed invaders. Should Nicaragua be forced to fight for its survival, the professors say, it may well become a military state--out of necessity, not out of ideological preference.

These Harvard personnel have visited Central America in the past year as members of a group called the Faculty for Human Rights in El Salvador and Central America. The non-profit, California-based organization consists of faculty members in universities across the country who are concerned with human rights and U.S. policy in the region. Among its directors are Thomas Professor of divinity Harvey G. Cox Jr. and Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics John Womack Jr. '59.

"The whole idea is to involve Americans who are of some influence, direct or indirect," says Professor of Law Henry J. Steiner '51, a participant in this June's trip. "The goal is to become more vocal."

The human rights organization has sent four fact-finding trips to Central America in the past two years. The trips include five-day stays in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras and a series of interviews with both pro and anti-government groups.

The visitors, who pay their own way, meet with members of the government, military, civil rights groups, political prisoners and members for the church and the opposition press.

Each trip drafts a report of its findings, which it sends to Congress, national newspapers and academics. The professors involved do no consulting for any government.

Almost all of the Harvard representatives have returned to the University from Central America voicing opposition to the Administration's policy of providing money and training to the "contras," who seek to overthrow the five-year-old Sandinista regime.

"We have no business telling a country how to run itself, what kind of government or economy to have,' says Dr. Barry M. Lester, assistant professor of pediatrics at the Medical School who travelled to Nicaragua on the same trip as Steiner.

Henry Steiner

Steiner, who teaches a course on international human rights, brims with indignation towards U.S. policy in Central America. After visiting the region this June, he describes. Nicaragua as a country "attempting a deep social transformation that could go in a number of directions. One is towards a humane, participatory and inventive society the other towards a one party, tightly controlled state.

"Our military support for the 'contras' is an abomination," Steiner says, adding that "not only does it violate the principles of international law but it is forcing the regime ever more in the direction we accuse it of taking."

Administration critics of the Sandinista regime have long concentrated on its repressive side Hardliners in Washington have pointed to the absence of election and the frequent silencing of dissidents in the press and the church.

While Steiner concedes that the Sandinistas have been oversensitive to domestic criticism he seeks to put it in perspective. He compares the invasion of Nicaragua by 10,000 rebels to an attack on the United States by a million hostile troops. Some suppression of civil liberties is inevitable, he says.

But if the Administration is truly concerned for human rights, Steiner adds, then it is backing the wrong guys. On the June trip, the faculty group amassed information on massacres and torture committed by the "contras" on the civilian population. "No one could ever blame the Sandinistas for some of the things the 'contras' have done," he says.