FAR-EASTERN STUDIES

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Your editorial of January 21, noting that research on the underdeveloped non-Western areas in underdeveloped, suggests that some of Harvard's new Ford Foundation funds for "International affairs" should be used for "non-Western studies to rectify this imbalance. While "non-Western" area specialists like myself can only applaud this innately statesmanlike view, it does overlook the basic fact that the three "non-Western" programs in Russian, are now receiving support from a Ford Middle Eastern, and East Asian studies Foundation grant of 1960 which was set up to run for ten years and so is only half-way through.

Your editorial also perhaps underrates the forethought of Harvard administrators. They seldom receive funds unexpectedly, least of all in large amounts from foundations. Years of committee meetings, memoranda, plans and consultations lie behind this latest development in "international studies," and these new funds have long since been allocated to meet specific needs. The "bread line" you mention operated long ago. Meanwhile all of us supporters of "non-Western" studies can view the future with confidence and take heart from the fact that chairman Mao and his associates are basically on our side. J.K. Fairbank   Professor of History and   Director of the East Asian   Research Center