Foul Ball

Harlow Shapley and Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., two lifelong liberals and strong advocates of intellectual freedom, managed to come to grips over the weekend in a fashion which was admirably calculated to throw both a confusing and misleading light on the matter in question--the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace in New York.

The unjustified attacks on the Conference--picketing by veterans' groups, State Department refusal of visas to many delegates, and generally hostile press coverage--will necessarily obscure any valid reasons that Schlesinger may have had for opposing the meetings, and will certainly lump him with these other forces in the public mind. It is his mistake to have made his objections under the aegis of such a false front as the Americans for Intellectual Freedom. This group, hastily and temporarily organized, scheduled its "counter-rally" on the same evening as the climax of the Conference--an obvious and ineffective way of hitting the Conference.

It is ineffective because the key to negating any "communist propaganda" is influencing Europe (the region considered so crucial in the Atlantic Pact), and not the United States, where anti-Russian and anti-communist feeling is already much too intense. If Schlesinger wished to announce his disapproval of the Conference, he had far better have done so as an individual than through the dubious medium of Professor Hook's dummy organization.

There is no more intent here to connect Schlesinger in any way with the American Legion than there is to deny the Shapley group the right to hold a meeting. Schlesinger did not deny that right; but his hasty action and his choice of associates made it look that way. His arguments must lose strength proportionately.

Schlesinger apparently objected to the Conference on the grounds that it was useless to attempt any dealings with "the picked agents of despotism." But if scientists, teachers, and musicians are shut out, peaceful contact is no longer possible.

The opposition of the Legion to the Conference was inevitable and in keeping with its tradition of shortsighted reaction; the action of the State Department, if not expected, was not a great shock; but the alliance of Schlesinger with the bogus A.I.F. was certainly a surprise in his own community, which has come to think of him as a sober and considered political thinker. The Conference he chose to attack probably won't accomplish anything, thanks to the opposition to it. His opposition is justified on the grounds of personal belief; but more reasoned and more careful disapproval might have carried more weight and would certainly have been a wiser way of attacking a subject which has received and will receive so much public attention.

Intelligent criticism of communism--or even suspected communism--requires more than a hasty attack under the name of a temporary group. Any affirmation of the advantages of democratic government must rest on positive ideas, not on random shots at the other side--and the Soviets will certainly make propaganda grist--of this weekend. We must use propaganda ourselves, and use it well, which is something that neither Schlesinger nor the State Department apparently considered when they went after the Reds in the Waldorf-Astoria woodpile.