Bok Attacks United States Foreign Policy

In an unusual entrance into the political arena, President Derek C. Bok made a wide ranging attack yesterday on United States foreign policy.

In his Baccalaureate Address to seniors gathered in Memorial Church, Bok said that future leaders of America must work to end America's growing trend toward isolationism.

Unlike Harvard, which has attempted to be an international institution over the past 50 years, Bok said the United States has "failed to evolve" its foreign policy to deal with the increasing links between nations.

"The international spirit of America has steadily waned," Bok said of the last 15 years.

"We shouldn't delude ourselves that such a foreign policy is wise," Bok said of a current, non-cooperative international attitude by the United States. "We must learn to coexist in a modern world."

Bok called current American foreign policy one of "global unilaterism," which ignores the problems and viewpoints of other nations.

Pointing to recent actions by the Reagan administration such as pulling out of the World Court and UNESCO and threatening to curtail American financial support of the United Nations, Bok said the United States needs to alter its way of dealing with other nations.

"Our foreign economic aid has dropped significantly to the point where just two countries get aid, Egypt and Israel," Bok said.

Bok said the United States' reduced control over the results of its foreign policy decisions in other countries is the primary reason for U.S. isolationism. He contrasted the present situation with the United States' dominant world position after World War II.

"As our ability to control world events declined our interest in cooperation began to crode," Bok said.

Few comments in the speech were directed to the graduating seniors, although Bok said they were key to changing America's attitude toward the rest of the world.

"To learn to coexist requires the long term involvement of many people like your self," Bok said.

"Above all we need the influence of a tough minded citizenry, which is the best bulwark against the belief that America is endowed with some superior virtue," Bok told the seniors.

Traditionally the Baccalaureate Address urges graduating seniors to use their education to help others in the future. Last year, Bok encouraged the Class of 1985 to increase its public service involvement.

Radcliffe President Matina S. Horner, who spoke before Bok, told students they needed to become more involved in their communities. Horner said that the individualism of Americans has become a "dead end of narcissism."

Horner said that the seniors need "to develop new perspectives and new ways ofthinking," about the increasingly "interdependent"world.

Horner told the graduating seniors to "workfirst to to comfort the afflicted," who are thoseconfused by their quickly changing position in theworld. Then, she told them, "to afflict thecomfortable," who Horner said were thosecomplacent with the way the world is