Leontief Reports With U.N. Group

A Harvard economics professor was among the ten United Nations economists who yesterday stated that "general and complete disarmament" would lead to the "improvement of world economic and social conditions" if proper government action were taken.

The group, which included Wassily W. Leontief, Henry Lee Professor of Economics, released its report in the hope that it might influence the success of the 17-nation disarmament conference which opens in Geneva tomorrow. Their position refutes Soviet Premier Khrushchev's contention that the West refuses to disarm because of possible dangers to its economic stability.

Leontief served as one of the experts chosen by the late U.N. Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjold, to study "the consequences of disarmament in countries with different economic systems and at different stages of economic development." The U.N. conference, which met in New York for four weeks beginning Jan. 16, included representatives from East, West and the neutralist bloc.

The U.N. report cited studies by Leontief indicating that the United States could undertake complete disarmament without serious unemployment and misallocation of resources. Total government and private expenditures would have to be increased by one per cent during the process.

In a reply to the U.N. report, the United States also made use of Leontief's "input-output" analysis of the effects of American disarmament made last spring. At that time, Leontief suggested that disarmament could be undertaken with proper planning in the shift of certain industrial resources to civilian uses. The government yesterday expressed confidence that a recession like the one following the Korean War could be avoided if adequate monetary and fiscal measures were taken.

William P. Travis '54, professor of Industrial Management at M.I.T. and assistant to Professor Leontief at the conference, commented yesterday that he felt that the U.N. report would have "no specific influence" on the Geneva conference. However, "the report will help to dispel the notion that disarmament will inevitably have harmful economic consequences," he stressed.

Leontief is at present lecturing in the College duFrance in Paris.