Bundy, Bowie Discuss Foreign Policy

For a moment the scene in Lowell Lecture Hall yesterday reminded one of the old Government 185. There were the course's two professors: Dean Bundy, with his familiar, sleek, winding sentences, and Robert R. Bowie, Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs, quiet, precise, well-organized.

"A reunion," remarked Robert L. Wolff '36, professor of History, who seemed somehow to be moderating Gov 185, "is an extraordinary business." And so it was, the only sure signs that it was a reunion being the presence of a guest lecturer (Robert Amory, Jr. '36, Deputy Director of the C.I.A.) and the audience's funny red hats.

So Dean Bundy became McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, and compared the University Administration to the U.S. Government. In Washington, he said, there is "less complaint about attending committees," but otherwise the two institutions actually differ very little.

Somewhat more seriously, Bundy described the great problem of government as "coordinating the activity of the whole." Diplomats, military men, and intelligence men, he said, cannot make policy from one point of view alone.

Continuing his comparisons, he asserted that "what counts in the end is quality . . . what has made Harvard magnificent is not sleight-of-hand . . . but action, convictions. This is true also of the country." He added wryly that if "this were World War III, we would not be here today, we would be working on the war. Some people think this is what we should be doing now; I think them wrong."

Bowie, who once headed the State Department's Policy Planning staff, emphasized the importance of long-term, world-wide, and "operational" planning. Besides a responsibility for defense, he said, the West has a "creative task which we have not adequately grasped as yet."

On the same theme as Bundy, Bowie called it "vitally important that parts of the government really understand their respective roles." The Secretary of State, he stressed, must be the key adviser of the President in foreign affairs.

Amory spoke of U.S. intelligence effort in general--of which his own C.I.A. is "only a small part"--and concluded that its "batting average" since the war has actually been high. Although he took some satisfaction in the fact that Intelligence Board chief Allen Dulles sits at the National Security Council himself, instead of acting through a political minister, Amory insisted that intelligence is not supposed to "take sides . . . it must be comprehensive; it must be objective, even when it makes our enemies look good and our own policy look bad."

None of the speakers referred to specific recent events except in passing. As Bundy put it, he would be called a "White House apologist" for speaking favorably about government affairs; if he spoke unfavorably, he would "have to find a place here again."