20 Ecuadorans Admit Attacking Researchers

At least 20 Ecuadorans have been arrested and have confessed their role in the machete attack on three Harvard ornithologists in the jungle near Cuenca Saturday, according to a spokesman for the American Embassy in Quito.

The natives said they thought Raymond A. Paynter, curator of birds at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, his wife Elizabeth, and David W. Norton '66 were government officials trying to take their and away. They had intended to kill the three, and the Paynters are alive only because the natives, who had apparently been drinking heavily, thought they were dead and left the tent.

Study Will End

The Paynters are recovering in a hospital in Cuenca; Norton has already been e'eased. All three are expected to return to the United States before the end of the month.

Norton raced six miles barefoot through he fung'e to secure help, after his pistol charged with birdshot, failed to fend on the assailants. In a 4000-mile ham radio lookup with the CRIMSON yesterday Norton said "I had so much adrenalin in me could have run on my head."

Leaving Country

It took four hours to remove the victims by bus to Cuenca, and Norton said the Paynters would probably not be able to finish their work in Ecuador. "The royal manner in which we have been treated". Norton continued, "has made them reconsider."

James M. Jacobs, president of J. August Co., made the ham radio connection to Cuenca. He has done so every morning since the incident. Jacobs also connected Norton to his home phone in Wellesley, where his entire family had gathered to talk to him.