Next Week: '20th Century Week,' Conference on U.S. Image Abroad

From December 5 through 11, "20th Century Week" will bring together at Harvard foreign visitors and hundreds of college students from all over New England for a week-long series of forums, discussions and seminars. Under the auspices of the Harvard Student Council, the project will study the "image the U.S. projects abroad."

Unlike many undergraduate-sponsored forums, 20th Century Week is a serious attempt to obtain and analyze the views of natives of foreign countries. According to Roger M. Leed '61, chairman of the project, the students at the conference will have a chance to communicate with "practical men rather than academicians".

The countries from which most of 20th Century Week's guests will come are the underdeveloped neutrals, the countries which the project committee feels are most affected by inadequate or ineffective projections of America's image. "These countries," says a committee report, "must never gravitate toward the Soviet bloc...at least we must guarantee that they never have reason to relinquish their neutrality in favor of communism."

The report stresses that official statements of neutral nations tell us little about their concept of America's role, and that "the information which filters through the press is second hand at best."

Businessmen, journalists, economists, teachers, and civil servants are expected to supply the hoped-for first hand information. They will represent four areas of the world--Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. American foreign policy experts will speak from the U.S.'s point of view.

The former chief of the Indonesian Directorate of Industry, Raden Sanoesi, will be the principal delegate from the Southeast Asian region. A member of many trade and industry missions throughout the world, Sanoesi has written articles on development planning and financing, and is at present counsellor to the Development Ministry of his country.

The delegates from the Middle East include Jamal Sa'd of the United Arab Republic, Director of the Arab Information Office in Washington, and Yussif Sayigh, a Syrian professor of economics at Beirut University.

From Lebanon, 20th Century Week has invited Emile Bustani, a businessman, Chairman of the Contracting and Trading Company. In politics, Bustani has served his country as a cabinet minister and is at present a member of his country's parliament.

The American Friends of the Middle East have agreed to fly in especially for the project the influential Iranian economist, Khoddad Farmanfarmian, who is on Iran's Government Bureau of Economic Planning and Organization.

An Argentinan and a Cuban head the Latin American delegation. Hora- cio Godoy, an expert on South America's foreign policy and Professor of Law at the University of La Plata, will contrast his opinions with those of the former secretary of the Cuban Sugar Institute, Henrique Menoca, who was until recently second in command to Che Guevera, the Cuban Finance Minister.

The committee is planning on several major figures from African countries. There is a possibility, says Leed, that Tom Mboya, the leader of the Kenya African National Party, who is now traveling in the U.S., will be able to participate in 20th Century Week. Oliver Tambo, an African escapee from South Africa and a leading force in the Pan-African movement, and Gaja Wachuku, held of the Nigerian delegation to the U.N., are also being sought.

One of the major addresses of the conference will be given by Sir Andrew Cohen. A highly respected and well-informed expert on African affairs, Sir Andrew now holds the post of British representative on the U.N. Trusteeship Council. Formerly, he was the British Governor of Uganda, and was once described in London as "the brainiest of the Governors." Other speakers will be Raymond Aron, Professor of Sociology at the Sorbonne, Hans J. Morgenthau, Professor of Government at the University of Chicago, and John N. Plank, Instructor in Government at Harvard.

A distinctly unusual feature of the project is its separation into two phases: evening forums and seminars. The week begins with the evening program exclusively. Various American experts on foreign policy will discuss the subject areas and the "relation of their problems to the American image." Later, the foreign guests will speak at the evening panels, which will be open to the public.

The real business of 20th Century Week will be done in the seminars, which the committee has decided to present over the weekend so that students from outside the Boston area can participate. Under the guidance of foreign guests, these seminars will be studies in depth of the four areas. Each of the registering students will be required to "concentrate" in a specific area--Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East or Latin America