Sigmund Asks College Organizations To Refuse Official Participation In 8th World Youth Festival

Paul E. Sigmund, Jr., Allston Burr Senior Tutor of Quincy House, yesterday urged student organizations and their leaders not to participate officially in the Eighth World Youth Festival in Helsinki, Finland, this summer.

"It will be a controlled meeting to exploit the current line of Soviet foreign policy," Sigmund warned. The names of non-Communist student groups will be used by the sponsors to give the Festival the appearance of being representative although it will actually be dominated by the Communists, he contended.

"An Interesting Experience"

However, individual American students might find the Festival an "interesting experience," Sigmund suggested, "provided they are well informed and don't expect too much." The eight-day festival will begin Aug. 27.

Recalling his experience at the Seventh World Youth Festival in Vienna in 1959, Sigmund said that anti-Communist Americans should expect an "intensely hostile" atmosphere. Propaganda against the United States will probably be very prominent, and "if you criticize Soviet policies, you will be labelled a Fascist, a NATO tool, or an FBI spy," he continued.

But Americans may make interesting contacts with students from the under-developed countries, Sigmund said. They may also take advantage of some situations to express the American view.

Sigmund is the executive officer of the Independent Research Service, a non-profit New York organization, which is distributing information about Communist Domination of the Festival. The group may continue its information activities in Helsinki.

Meanwhile, Norman Berkowitz, treasurer of the United States Festival Committee, which is recruiting Americans for the Festival, admitted that the event "probably is Communist."

Reached by telephone at the Committee's New York Office, Berkowitz, told the CRIMSON "one-third of the world is Communist and there's nothing you can do about it."

But he claimed his group was not political and was "just making arrangements for Americans to attend."