Moscow's Youth Festival Called Propaganda Move

State Department officials yesterday joined leaders of the National Student Association in condemning the World Youth Festival, to be held this summer in Moscow, as "another Communist propaganda gimmick."

One Department official declared that the Festival was part of a campaign to offset the losses in the "propaganda war" incurred by the Soviet Union during its suppression of the Hungarian revolt. The Department will not, however, deny passports to American students wishing to attend the Festival.

Barbara Perry, Executive Secretary of the United States branch of the Festival Committee, admitted the plausibility of the State Department allegations, but thought the chance to meet and influence students from Iron Curtain countries "too good to pass up."

Miss Perry yesterday explained that she herself was not a Communist. She defined her own political position and that of most of the members of the U.S. committee as "sort of pacifist-liberal."

She said that plans for the Festival included sports, cultural activities, vodka, tea parties with Khrushchev and Bulganin, and travel. "You name it, they've got it," she concluded.

She expressed the hope that increased contact between Western and Iron Curtain countries on the student level might eventually lead to greater international cooperation since people of "our age group are the leaders of tomorrow."

Bruce D. Larkin, vice-president of NSA's international committee, acknowleged that "no one throws a party like the Festival," but said that the central concern of the sponsors is politics rather than student affairs. The NSA recently broke with one of the sponsoring organizations, the International Union of Students, when the IUS became Communist-dominated.

Miss Perry said that "three or four students at Harvard" had expressed interest in attending the Festival.

The $695 charge for the trip to the Festival covers airplane travel and all expenses while in Moscow.