Gaitskell to Speak Tonight In Opening Godkin Lecture

Hugh Gaitskell, leader of the British Labor Party, will deliver three Godkin Lectures on "The Challenge of Co-Existence" tonight, tomorrow, and Thursday at 8 p.m. in Sanders Theatre.

The lectures are under the auspices of the Graduate School of Public Administration. Edward S. Mason, dean of the school, said that he expects Sanders Theatre to be filled to its 1400-seat capacity, although the lectures will be broadcast by WGBH-TV and FM and WHRB. Overflow crowds will be able to hear the address in Memorial Hall over a public address system.

Gaitskell was elected to head the Labor opposition in 1955, succeeding Clement Attlee. He entered Parliament in 1945, and rose quickly to become Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Fuel and Power in 1947, Minister of State for Economic Affairs in 1950, and Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1950-51.

A strong supporter of N.A.T.O. and the Atlantic Treaty, Gaitskell sharply attacked Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden in a speech in the House of Commons for the British-French intervention in Egypt, calling the government's move an "assault on the free principles which have governed British foreign policy for at least the last ten years." He called the Anglo-American alliance "the basis for maintaining the peace."

Gaitskell entered the government in 1940, when he gave up a Readership in Political Economics at the University of London to join the staff of the Minister of Economic Welfare. A graduate of New College, Oxford, he headed the Department of Political Economy at University College, London, for several years.

The Godkin Lecture fund was established in 1903 in memory of Edwin L. Godkin, founder of "The Nation" and editor of the New York Evening Post, to provide yearly lectures on "The Essentials of Free Government and the Duties of the Citizen." Recent Godkin lecturers have included Adlai E. Stevenson, John J. McCloy, former U.S. High Commissioner in Germany, Senators Paul Douglas of Illinois and Ralph Flanders of Vermont; Harold E. Stassen, and last year, Chester W. Bowles, former U.S. Ambassador to India.