Education, Security Conferences Mark Week

We must refute the Soviet propaganda claims that the West opposes Asian and African nationalism, stated Norman Burns, Deputy Regional Director of the International Co-operation Administration, at the final public meeting of the conference on "Balance in Our National Security Policy" held Tuesday night in Sanders Theatre.

Presiding over the meeting, which was televised live of WGBH-TV, was James Phinney Baxter III, President of Williams College.

In his introduction, Baxter stated that since "the Russians have a full quiver of weapons," and are "extraordinarily well-versed in propaganda," the American position becomes "a problem of multiple defense, difficult to fit into a forty-two billion dollar budget."

Economic Aid Policies

On a different note, Burns, examining "A Balanced Policy Toward Uncommitted Areas," discussed the disparity between the U. S. and Soviet economic aid policies toward the nations of Africa and Asia. Burns explained that while America's criterion is stimulation of economic growth, Russia's is persuasion.

Consequently, though overall Soviet aid is but a fraction of American aid, Russia creates favorable political over-tones by concentrating assistance in seven crucial nations, employing "show-piece" aid, and sending culturally and linguistically prepared technicians. Considering the outlook for the future, Burns affirmed that "the problem is difficult--it has no guides."

His suggestions included "raising our sights" in pouring more needed capital into the uncommitted areas; improving inflexible ICA administrative procedures; upgrading technical and educational training through the ICA and UN; and reducing trade barriers.

Policial Warfare

William Yandell Elliot, Leroy B. Williams Professor of Political Science, cited political warfare as "the fourth dimension of communist strategy."

Since nuclear conflict is entirely impractical, Elliott stated, political warfare assumes paramount significance. Under these conditions, he declared, courage and faith are requisite, since they provide a "fundamental talisman against malice and treachery."

The final speaker, Commentator Charles B. Marshall, visiting scholar of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, urged that in her relations with the "teen-age states" the U. S. employ a doctrine to overcome "self-inflicted abuses."

Among Marshall's demands were reducing free entry privileges for U. S. "missionaries" in the East, omitting propaganda exalting ourselves, and finally "repealing Parkinson's law."