Hughes Pictures Bleak Prospects For Nuclear Race

"Any honest advocate of peace and disarmament must start by saying that things have never looked worse," declared H. Stuart Hughes, professor of History, last night at a Tocsin meeting.

The walling off of East Berlin and the Soviet resumption of nuclear tests are responsible for this situation, he said. "But the fact that negotiated disarmament seems farther away is a valid and necessary reason for the taking of unilateral action," Hughes continued.

He stressed the many interests which the U.S. and the Soviet Union share-- such as "the enjoyment of living as opposed to dying"--which could form the basis for accord between the two nations.

Henry A. Kissinger '50, associate professor of Government, stated that, "Any thoughtful person today must be interested in peace." But the efforts of disarmament groups have been directed too exclusively toward influencing the desires of people for peace, he said. "The chief issue is how to do it."

The third speaker at the meeting, Roger D. Fisher '43, professor of Law, emphasized the need to think through the problem of disarmament thoroughly. Getting the nations to obey disarmament agreements might best be solved by making the rules part of the internal laws of society, he suggested.

Opening his talk with a discussion of the Berlin crisis, Hughes saw a great danger in the fact that President Kennedy had aroused the public to a mood of militancy and a sense of frustration, which might redound to the benefit of right wing extremists.

Kissinger denied that anyone in Washington "has ever wanted to fight for Berlin as a prestige window to the East." But the freedom of West Berliners is integrally tied to the right of access. "Without access, Berlin can be throttled," he said.