CFIA Declines Offer To Debate With SDS

The Center for International Affairs has declined an SDS challenge to debate "the Center's right to exist."

"In the past," SDS and University Action Group charged yesterday, "administration spokesmen parroted old saws about the need for 'rational discussion' .... What they fear is that the CFIA will be exposed before a large audience as a supporter of repressive dictatorships, [and] as an agent for the penetration of U.S. capital ... in the Third World."

In a letter dated Nov. 25, CFIA director Robert R. Bowie told SDS and UAG- both of which advocate abolition of the CFIA- that "in the view of past experience, there is no reason to expect that an SDS forum would be conducted in a manner conducive to serious and rational discussion."

The SDS forum on the CFIA is now scheduled for 8 p.m. Thursday in Lowell Lecture Hall.