LONDON, Aug. 11 1970—The Great American Disaster has struck London. Berkeley co eds, Boston hippies and even the British stand on Fulham Road to push into the tiny, wood‐paneled restaurant that offers Great American Milkshakes, Great American Apple Pie and, of course, the Great American Hamburger.

Mia Farrow, Andre Previn, Warren Beatty, Roman Polanski and Twiggy have bitten into the hamburgers with relish. So has Peter Morton, a 22‐year‐old business administration graduate from the University of Denver, who tasted hamburgers for seven months, morning and night, adding salt and spice, removing fat, beefing up, cutting down, peppering, garlicking until voila!—the Great American Hamburger.

“I tasted 2,000 hamburgers until I perfected this one,” said Mr. Morton, one of the owners of the 52‐seat restaurant in the heart of South Kensington. “I can't taste them anymore. Not for a while. Fish and chips even taste better.”

The one‐quarter‐pound hamburger (90 cents) and one‐half‐pound hamburger ($1.38) are served in a straw basket, American style, with the sesame seed bun, lettuce and tomato, and french‐fried potatoes.

‘As Good as Home’

“It's as good as home,” said the fast talking, fast‐stepping Mr. Morton. “Better!”

Some Londoners and Americans agree. Lines form along Fulham Road outside The Great American Disaster each evening. Crowds wait more than an hour, some times longer. Nearly 600 hamburgers are sold daily.

In a city where Americans, desperate for a hamburger, have wound up at Wimpy's, The Great American Disaster offers meals that stir poignant memories of Hamburger Heaven.

(Unfortunately; the memories linger on other foods that Americans in Britain yearn to taste. Some Americans plan elaborate trips, at startling expense to obtain a sour pickle, southern fried chicken, a baked potato, shrimp cocktail sauce, clams, bagels, cantaloupe.)

Besides the hamburgers, however, The Great American Disaster offers a taste of home that may, or may not, keep Americans in Britain.

The English waiters, trained by Mr. Mor ton, are cooly aggressive. The sounds of Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry engulf the brick‐walled restaurant and make conver sations exhausting. The young tourist lines outside—and the customers inside—stare, whisper and put‐down. The mood is a blend of 59th Street and Third Avenue on a Saturday night and a Fire Island “six ish.”

“The English aren't used to a typically New York hamburger joint,” Mr. Morton said, stepping nervously near the kitchen where cooks charcoal‐broiled dozens of hamburgers. “They're amused by it.”

Mr. Morton—who is now planning a second hamburger restaurant in Chelsea in October—developed the Disaster last summer during a vacation in Israel, Italy, Morocco, Spain and, finally, London.

“My first trip to London and not a decent hamburger,” he said. “I had my business degree and nothing to do. Add two and two and you get The Great American Disaster.”

Mr. Morton's addition was helped, how ever, by his father, Arnold J. Morton, executive vice president of Playboy Club International, and Victor A. Lownes, director of the Playboy Club in London. Both invested heavily in the $50,000 hamburger spot at 335 Fulham Road, where the Ham ish antique store had been.

“Let's face it, I would never have been this lucky in the States,” Mr. Morton said. “It was being in the right place at the right time. It was getting a first‐class hamburger that cost somewhere between the Wimpy hamburger and the very ex pensive kind you get at fancy restaurants.

“Frankly I stole off other menus,” he went on, while Arethra Franklin engulfed the restaurant with the song, “Satisfactions.”

“I went to butchers and began tasting hamburgers every day, taking a little fat out, adding a little spice, trying to get the right taste. The British never knew what the hell a good hamburger was.”

Now they do.