John Nason, an American educator who as a college president helped release more than 3,000 Japanese-American students interned during World War II, died Nov. 16 in Kennett Square, Pa., a newspaper reported Thursday. He was 96.

Nason was president of Swarthmore College from 1940 to 1953. He led a group supporting students sent to internment camps and negotiated with federal authorities for their release from 1942 to 1945, the New York Times said.

About 160,000 Japanese-Americans, including some 4,000 students, were sent to the camps during wartime.

Nason's work to secure the students' release gave them the chance to continue pursuing higher education, the paper said.

Nason, a native of St. Paul, Minn., attended Carleton College and Harvard University as well as Britain's Oxford University, the paper said.

After his stint as president of Swarthmore, he headed the Foreign Policy Association, a nonprofit educational organization that provides a forum for debate on policy and international issues for greater public awareness.