Goldberg To Face 'Panel,' SDS Asserts

Debate continued yesterday about the procedure to be used at Sunday's general meeting here with Arthur J. Goldberg, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Representatives of Students for a Democratic Society announced after a meeting with John T. Dunlop, David A. Wells Professor of Political Economy, that he had agreed to give "preferential treatment" to "some kind of group." The meeting took place yesterday morning, and they issued the statement in the afternoon.

But Dunlop, informed of SDS' statement late yesterday evening, said he had "as yet made no decision." He said in an interview from New York that he would "continue his consultations today."

And Dean Ford, speaking before either side made their statements, said he would be "very surprised if Dunlop recommends that the meeting include a panel. SDS has insisted that there be some opportunity to follow up questions, and has suggested that a panel would be one means of achieving this.

The SDS general membership voted to make public yesterday conservation between Dunlop and SDS executive committee members.

According to SDS, Dunlop said that he had "not decided anything, but it will be within this range": there will be a group of people at the meeting with preferential treatment. "Preferential treatment" said SDS, was agreed to mean that the group would be allowed time to pursue questions and to rebut answers from Goldberg, the general audience, and the group itself.

"It is up in the air whether there will be a panel on the stage or a preferential group on the front row of the audience," said Ronald E. Yank, an SDS executive committee member. In either case, the group will contain four to six people and have access to microphones, he added.

The second undecided question, according to SDS, is who specifically will be in the preferential group. But Yank said, "We were told it will definitely contain two anti-war critics, a Faculty member and a student."

SDS emphasized the need, if discussion was to be meaningful at Sunday's meeting, for a group of people to be allowed to follow up questions and rebut Goldberg's answers. SDS feels that Goldberg made his offer to speak because of SDS pressure on the Kennedy Institute.

The Institute, whose guests speak only in off-the-record seminars, released the time from Goldberg's schedule here so that Dean Ford could arrange a general meeting. Ford asked Dunlop to arrange the "details of procedure."

"We told Dunlop that much of the SDS membership felt the University had been bargaining in bad faith by granting the form of a confrontation without the substance," said Yank. The SDS representatives according to Yank, then informed Dunlop that they had to take some definite statements about the meeting back to their general membership that night.

Dunlop then set forth the "range" of possibilities for the meeting with Goldberg, said Yank.

Ford said yesterday that he did not fell that Goldberg's letter left open the possibility of a panel.

"Mr. Goldberg said he would be willing to answer questions for two hours, and I took him literally," Ford said. "If I were in his [Dunlop's] place," he continued, "I would not count a panel among my options."

Ford added, however, that any decisions on arrangements were Dunlop's responsibility