Goodman '52 Infiltrates Red's Festival at Berlin

Posing as a fellow traveller, a College senior crashed the Communist youth convention behind the Iron Curtain and escaped Tuesday with the inside story of the American delegation.

G. Jerome W. Goodman '52, an editor of the CRIMSON, spent one week in Red Berlin at the much-ballyhooed World Peace Festival. He worked his way into the closely-guarded American delegation of 65 students.

Before leaving Free Berlin he wrote the CRIMSON, "Tomorrow I pad over to the Weltjugendfestspiel and see what I can see. Maybe I'll get shot. There are more Folk Police per square foot of ground than I've ever seen in my life."

Fears Justified

Goodman's fears were right. On Tuesday night he was routed from bed at 1 a.m. and brought before German officials. He was expelled from the delegation and, hearing that more drastic steps were planned, escaped by subway to the American sector.

With him he brought notes and pictures of the American delegation that will appear soon in two national magazines.

Goodman said the American delegation was practically isolated from the others. "We could meet them only on special occasions. Then we all went together in a bus. We went by bus from our quarters to our meals and then were brought back again in the bus."

There was a lot of food, he said, but it was mostly cold cuts, potatoes, and cheese. When he made remarks about it, one of his fellow delegates said, "We can't complain, you know."

Goodman got into the Festival after a half-hour interview with the titular chief of the American delegation, Joy Silver. Goodman told Miss Silver he was not a Communist but was in favor of peace.

"What have you done for peace?" she asked him.

"Nothing," said Goodman, "but I'm still young." After the talk he was accepted as a full-fledged member, and was put in a room with 13 other American boys.