Nye Bevan Declares World Near Disaster

"The institutions of democracy have become a farce, because the decision to unleash atomic weapons will not come from a representative assembly, but from an individual," according to the No. 2 man in the British Labor Party.

Labor foreign affairs spokesman Aneurin Bevan last night told the Harvard Law School Forum that "the world faces complete disaster unless some new initiative is taken," and that "the Free World has lost control of its destiny." He questioned the effectiveness of Western diplomacy, and stated that "we should invent other methods of approach. Ordinary people must now make the decisions."

Evades Challenges

Bevan evaded several challenges to present specific proposals to ease world tensions, stating that his "mission" was to emphasize to Americans the need for a "new posture" in the "somber, ugly situation" of world affairs.

The Labor spokesman pointed out that "new techniques of war have altered international relationships" so that localized wars between big nations are no longer possible. "This philosophy was born in a university, and it will die in a university," he declared.

Would End H-Bomb Tests

Bevan said that "'Britain could be destroyed as an incidental by-product" in a hydrogen bomb explosion, and restated that if a Labor government were elected, British H-Bomb tests would stop immediately.

But he continued that "I do not regard the recent launching of the Soviet space satellite as important. It has no profound military or scientific significance."

Impression of Khrushchev

Bevan, who is the last important Western statesman to have visited Nikita Khrushchev, said that the Communist party leader "'seemed to me very much like many of the high-ranking executives I met in the United States."

He stated that "there have been very important changes in the structure of Soviet society since the death of Stalin" and that, on the basis of these changes, "Soviet society is moving in the right direction."

He repeated his demand for American recognition of Red China, and for more East-West negotiations.