Professors Sign Petition Backing Manifesto of 121

Twelve members of the University, including professors H. Stuart Hughes, Paul Tillich, and David Riesman, have signed a statement of faith supporting their French colleagues responsible for the controversial Manifesto of 121.

The manifesto, published two months ago, affirmed the right of Frenchmen to refuse to cooperate in the prosecution of the six-year-old war in Algeria. Among the signers of the manifesto were Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Francois Sagan, and Florence Malraux, daughter of author Andre Malraux, who is Minister of Culture under de Gaulie.

The American message, which was signed by 52 professors from Brandeis, Boston University, and M.I.T., as well as Harvard, particularly cited the measures taken against the signers of the manifesto by the French government. The government took action against those of the signers engaged in government educational and artistic enterprises, including the theater, films, radio, television, and school and university posts.

Hoffman Attacks Statement

Meanwhile, Stanley H. Hoffman, associate professor of Government, sharply attacked his colleagues for their sympathetic stand in a Winthrop House talk Thursday night. Hoffman, just in from Paris, where he is on a year's leave from the University, argued that the manifesto was a treasonable document and thus it was normal and justifiable for the French government to punish its signers.

In this position Hoffman was affirming the view taken by Raymond Aron, the French scholar and journalist currently at the University as Ford research professor in Government.

Among other Faculty members signing the statement of faith were: Gordon W. Allport '19, professor of Psychology; Herbert Dieckmann, Smith Professor of the French and Spanish Languages; Franklin L. Ford, professor of History; Harry T. Levin '33, professor of English and Comparative Literature; Perry G. E. Miller; professor of American Literature; and Barrington Moore, Jr., lecturer on Sociology.