Conference Studies U.S. Cultural Aid

A re-examination of American policy towards underdeveloped areas is necessary, speakers at the annual Summer School conference agreed this week.

Meeting in two public and five closed sessions, seventy representatives of private foundations, government, and educational institutions discussed "Cultural Aid to Underdeveloped Areas: Education and Training."

In Tuesday's televised session, William Y. Elliott, Leroy B. Williams Professor of History and Political Science and chairman of the three-day conference, suggested governmental reorganization. Quoting vice-President Nixon's remark--"We must weld together executive agencies into an economic, political, and ideological whole"--he emphasized that interested private foundations accept public administration.

Denouncing "premature nationhood," Elliott outlined a three-point program for cultural aid. A nation, he noted, first must be educated to discharge its international responsibilities and to develop its own resources. The United States then should combat Communist "pug-washing," fostering open forum discussion to develop responsible opinion. As the third objective, this nation should act "to better create a middle class power" of technicians and administrators in backward areas.

Call for Humaniam

Charles Malik, professor of Philosophy at the American University at Beirut and former President of the United Nations General Assembly, concluded the Tuesday night program. In calling for a new universal humanism, he stressed the responsibility of American educational institutions here and abroad to give "a leisurely taste of the virtues of a liberal mind."

Without imposing intellectual imperialism, the United States should sponsor, through the medium of the English language, the development of national cultures. Technicians are not enough, Malik claimed; liberal thinking provides the only answer to Communism.

The United States government has not fully assumed its responsibilities toward underdeveloped countries, Robert H. Thayer, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State, said in Monday night's open session. Congress should de-emphasize immediately tangible goals, he urged; rather it should "persuade citizens of recently-formed independent countries to take the soundest route to financial and cultural security, not necessarily the shortest route."

Don K. Price, professor of Government and Dean of the Faculty of Public Administration, closed the Monday session with a definition of government objectives. Foreign aid is not charity, he emphasized