Secretary Benson Urged to Apologize to Ladejinsky, or Resign

San, Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota demanded yesterday that Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson either apologize to Wolf Ladejinsky for what the Senator called “cruel and inhuman treatment” of the government agronomist, or resign from office.

Sen. Humphrey, in a statement issued here, demanded that President Eisenhower “put his official house in order” and protect Mr. Ladejinsky and other civil servants from “this kind of capricious action.” He was referring to Mr. Ladejinsky’s dismissal by the Agriculture Department on the grounds that he was a “security risk.” Mr. Ladejinsky has subsequently been hired by the Foreign Operations Administration to work on land reform in South Viet Nam.

Revealing that he has written to President Eisenhower directly about the case, Sen. Humphrey declared that Mr. Ladejinsky “is being persecuted he is being abused, and he is being asked to take a very important assignment in a critical area of the world while a Cabinet officer of this government continues to harass him and question his loyalty and fitness.”

Meanwhile, George N, Vitt, the release of whose anti-Semitic letter to the Agriculture Department attacking Mr. Ladejinsky created a fur or which helped Mr. Ladejinsky win reconsideration and vindication by another government department, resigned this week-end from his job as editor of a New York trade magazine.

Mr. Vitt, who denied that he was anti-Semitic although his letter had impugned the loyalty of American Jews of Russian origin, said that the release of his letter by Milan D. Smith, executive assistant to Secretary Benson, had resulted in a wave of publicity which had “upset” him.