Daily hansan
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
59th Year, No. 59
Wednesday, Dec. 13, 1961
Crises Plag Officials Clarify Fomin's Role
By Arthur Miller
Questions were raised today about the nature of Alexander Fomin's appearance in KU classrooms.
Klaus Pringsheim, instructor of political science and one of the faculty members on the Crisis Day steering committee, said Fomin will not give addresses in classes. He will be used as a "resource person" for answering questions.
IN A STATEMENT received today from the offices of the chancellor, three classes are listed which Mr. Fomin is scheduled to visit. They are Current American Foreign Policy, Soviet Foreign Policy and American Diplomatic History.
In yesterday's Kansan, under the headline "Russian May Talk to Classes," an article, based on information given to the Kansan by the Crisis Day committee, said:
"Although plans for Mr. Fomin on the extra day have not been announced, it was learned last week that a letter had been sent to the Russian Embassy suggesting the possibility of having him speak to several history and political science classes Friday."
JAMES E. GUNN, administrative assistant to the chancellor, called the Kansan today to say Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe wished a correction or clarification of the procedure to be followed during Fomin's appearance in classrooms, as was reported yesterday in the Kansan.
Mr. Gunn said:
"The headline and the statement in the story regarding 'the possibility of having him speak to several history and political science classes' give the impression that we are offering our classes to him to indoctrinate our students.
Mr. Gunn said he was speaking for the chancellor, who was in a meeting at the time.
He said the procedure for Mr. Fomin's appearance in classes is in line with university policy.
"The policy, as I understand it, is that we do not provide captive audiences for non-academic personnel," Gunn said.
It is known that Schwarz Liebermann, former political director for European and Berlin Affairs for NATO, spoke to at least one class, Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union while he was at KU last week.
A WRITTEN SCHEDULE for the Crisis Day speakers, which Patricia Coutt, Lawrence sophomore and co-chairman of the steering committee, said came from Mr. Pringsheim, says in part:
"Friday arrangements are indefinite except that the speakers have been invited to speak at various classes, and are to be conducted about the University by students in the afternoon."
When asked about the written statement that Mrs. Coutts said came from him, Mr. Pringsheim said, "If this is her impression she apparently has the wrong impression. It didn't come from me."
HE SAID that the decision to limit Mr. Fomin in answering questions was made earlier between himself, Chancellor Wescoe, Mrs. Coutts, Brian O'Heron, Lawrence senior, the other co-chairman, and Oswald Backus, professor of history.
When contacted this morning, O'Heron said he was not at the meeting Mr. Pringsheim said he attended.
He said, "The only meeting I have been to about limiting Fomin was one at the very first when the chancellor said that we couldn't have the Russian unless we had an American of equal stature. We were only considering Fomin's activities during World Crisis Day.
Mr. Pringsheim explained that the limitation on Fomin's appearance was not made because of what the Russian might say, but because of what some people in the state might say about letting a "Communist teach in our classes."
HE ADDED," We all (the members of the Crisis Day committee) felt that the reservation to limit him was a matter of course."
It was learned this morning that Mr. Fomin will speak to the combined Presidential and Minority Opinion forums at 7 p.m. Friday in the Forum Room of the Kansas Union. He will probably speak with a faculty member since the forums are conducted by two
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World Crisis Focus On Page 2 Today
A Kansan focus on the World Crisis Day appears on pages two and three of this issue of the Kansan.
The Kansan has attempted to present brief background articles on major crisis areas that will be discussed in forums held after the convocation speeches tomorrow morning.
A schedule of World Crisis Day events appears on page 4.
"Would the management of Kansas University have sanctioned a similar invitation to an important Nazi or Fascist propagandist of Hitler or Muscolini after forces under their sponsorship had killed tens of thousands of Americans?
Crisis Day A Legion Post Wants Inquiry
Editor's Note: The following statement is from Kenneth Myers, chairman of the American Legion Post No. 174 in Wichita. His statement, a protest of KU's arrangements for World Crisis Day tomorrow, was broadcast this afternoon by radio station KLWN.
"The issue in the case at hano has nothing to do with academic freedom. It has to do with academic irresponsibility and national survival.
Text of Protest
"This convocation and the World Crisis Day program has been arranged so as to know both sides. The communism side and the Freedom-under-God side. J. Edgar Hoover said before the 1960 American Legion national convention;
"We have noticed that Alexander Fomin, counselor to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., is to be one of the keynote speakers at an all-University convocation at the tax-supported University of Kansas.
"WOULD THE OFFICIALS of the University of Kansas sanction the employment of a typhoid carrier in the University cafeteria on the grounds that the pros and cons of typhoid be experienced.
"Because of these facts we deem it an un-American act of betrayal to our interests and our national security to invite an important official of the Communist conspiracy to present the propaganda of the enemy to thousands of young Americans.
"WE ARE AT WAR with the Communists and the sooner each red-blooded American realizes that the better and safer we will be.'
Officials of an American Legion post in Wichita asked yesterday that KU's World Crisis Day be canceled and an investigation be opened to learn who was responsible for the program.
"The Communists are the sworn enemies of every value of Western civilization. They are waging mind warfare for the purpose of brainwashing the American public into a paralysis of confusion and wishful thinking.
"We are at war with the Communists in every sector of the globe. And the war has already cost us tens of thousands of lives, as in Korea and so forth and untold material resources.
"The invitation to this enemy propagandist reveals the tragic and amoral double standards which is applied in dealing with our Communist enemies.
"Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. is hardly qualified to present the case of free enterprise versus communism. On Dec. 11, 1945, on page three of the New York Times, he was reported to have said I happen to believe that the Communist party should be granted freedom of political action and the Communists should be allowed to teach at universities so long as they do not disqualify themselves by intellectual distortions in the classrooms.
Making the request is Patrick Henry Post No. 174, a new organization headed by C. Winston Sage, adjutant of the post, according to a news story in the Wichita Eagle.
"NOW THIS IS exactly like saving that a wolf should run with sheep so long as he eats grass, not meat. The Congressional Record of July 27, 1953 quotes a speech by Congressman Reece of Tennessee. He quotes Schlesinger as writing in 1946 that the present system in the United States 'makes even freedom loving Americans look wistfully at Russia.'
"Now quoting again from Congressman Reece: 'On Aug. 18, 1946, on a University of Chicago round-table broadcast entitled 'What Is Communism?' Schlesinger said:
"SURELY THE class struggle is going on in America. I would agree with the Communists in that!" Schlesinger was then asked 'Do you mean that Capitalism is dead everywhere except in the United States?' He replied, 'It is dead.'
"In answer to the question, 'What did it die of?' he said. 'It died of itself. There is much to what the Marxists used to say about capitalism containing the seeds of its own destruction.'
"Is Schlesinger qualified to present a proper defense of the American way of life? The American Legion magazine for September, 1961, features an article entitled 'What We Have Lost in Latin America.'
"WE THINK THIS article sheds light on Schlesinger's current views. The article says. 'The administration's white paper on Cuba said to have been written by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., former Harvard professor, not only declines to admit that Castro is or ever was a Communist, but completely disregards the huge economic losses of U.S. citizens as a result of Cuban revolution.'
"Why couldn't a forthright American spokesman such as Sen. Thomas Dodd (Democrat) or Sen. Barry Goldwater (Republican) have been selected?
"We hereby publically inform the Kansas Board of Regents that as citizens and taxpayers we;
- Deplore a Communist subversive propagandist on the campus.
- We request that the scheduled appearance of the advocate of the criminal Communist conspiracy be canceled.
- We request that the Board of Regents make formal investigation to fix Kansas University's staff and faculty responsibility for the invitation extended to the propagandist subversivist of the enemy which is at war against our civilization."
The foregoing statement has the unanimous approval of the executive committee of the Patrick Henry Post No. 174 in Wichita, Kansas.
Weather
Fair with a slow warming trend today through tomorrow. Highs today around 20. Lows tonight near zero.
(THE PROTEST of the new legion post said that it was formed because its members found they were "unable to promote their Americanism program at Wichita's older Thomas Hopkins post.)
Sage's primary objection is to one of the speakers, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., special assistant to President Kennedy. He said Schlesinger "could hardly present the other side" in the debate and quoted several statements allegedly made by Schlesinger in recent years which showed sympathy toward Russia and criticized the United States and capitalism.
(Editor's note; The program does not provide for a debate between Schlesinger and the Russian speaker,
A protest statement from the chairman of the post's Americanism Committee is printed elsewhere on this page.
Alexander Fomin, counselor to the Russian ambassador in Washington. Each will deliver a speech to the convocation, but not in planned opposition to each other.)
THE POST asked why a "forthright American spokesman such as Senator Thomas Dodd or Sen. Barry Goldwater couldn't have been selected to speak at KU."
A statement issued by the post said "we deem it an un-American act of betrayal to our interest and our national security to invite an important official of the Communist conspiracy (Fomin) to present propaganda to thousands of young Americans."
WHITLEY AUSTIN, Chairman of the KU Board of Regents, was con-
Two KU faculty members have expressed reservations as to the need for World Crisis Day scheduled for tomorrow.
(Continued on page 6)
Vaclav Mudroch, assistant professor of history, and Clifford Griffin, assistant professor of history, expressed their doubts on the need and purpose of Crisis Day in a written statement to the Daily Kansan.
Two Disapprove Of Crisis Day
THE STATEMENT SAYS:
"Optimism has undoubtedly been a powerful force in human affairs, but the view that all of the world's evils can be cured by education of the individual is a form of eighteenth-century optimism that has yet to be proved true.
"We look in vain for a set of philosophical reasons which would explain and justify staging a World Crisis Day.
"OBVIUOSLY, we have to assume that the organizers operate on the basis of certain major premises. These premises are that everyone
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