Sputnik Called Proof Of Russian Advances

Nicholas DeWitt '52 of the Russian Research center said yesterday in Chicago that Sputnik has shown the superiority of Soviet accomplishments in scientific training.

DeWitt told a conference called by the National Science Foundation that the Russians "have a better and wider base" at the high school level to promote higher scientific training, and that the 1.5 million who were graduated this year "had five times more hours in scientific subjects than the minimum stipulated for entrance to a school the caliber of M.I.T."

Americans long downgraded Soviet scientific accomplishments, DeWitt said, but then came a display of modern Russian weapons "too much to be explained solely by Soviet reliance on captured German brains and stolen secrets."