Schlesinger, Viereck, Wilder Assail Techniques of Controversy in U.S.

The American Committee for Cultural Freedom, an organization of which Professor Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. '38 is a vice-chairman, and whose executive committee includes three University alumni, issued a statement today deploring the trend of political discussion in the United States.

The statement reads: "It is shocking to see how persons in positions of trust have abandoned logical persuasion as a form of discourse and have instead resorted to demagogic talents for the spreading of calumny and confusion."

According to the Committee, current techniques of controversy "are dangerously similar to the techniques long used by the Communists to confuse and control their subject peoples."

One of ten points made by the committee as standards of ethical controversy was, "Nothing and no one can be immune from criticism."

Defining the rules for criticism, committee members stressed that anyone involved in a controversy is responsible for knowing all available facts.

"Criticism should not be directed against persons unless they are directly responsible for policies in question," the added.

Thornton Wilder, who gave the Charles Eliot Norton lectures in 1950-51, is a member of the committee that issued the statement. Peter R. Viereck '37, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, was among the writers who drafted it.

Other University alumni on the Cultural Freedom executive committee are Robert G. Davis '29 and David Riesman '31.