Fulbright Criticizes De Gaulle's Policies

In his second Clayton Lecture, Senator J. William Fulbright turned last night to what he considers to be foreign policy's single most important problem-the development of a North Atlantic community. His particular emphasis was on the threat to Western unity posed by the "limited and inadequate vision" of Charles de Gaulle.

In Fulbrigt's analysis the Gaullist design, though "bold and even creative in tactics," has objectives that are "profoundly conservative." He described the Gaullist program as an attempt to restore the "classical balance -of-power system," a "precarious equilibrium" between"separate sovereign entities." The world that De Gaulle imagines, Fulbright said, is exactly analogous to the Europe of a hundred years ago, except that the sovereign entities of the 19th century were individual nations, while those of the Gaullist system would be the "super- states" of North America, Europe, and the Communist bloc.

Fulbright contrasted this view with the conception of Europe and America as a unified community. "The idea of Atlantic partnership," he said, "is an attempt to come to grips with the basic realities of the twentieth century." He argued that an international system depending on sovereign entities "has become an intolerably dangerous anachronism," maintaining that the system which "worked tolerably well to prevent or limit war before 1914" has by now broken down irreparably."

Fulbright did not confine himself to a consideration of international policy just as a means of preventing war. But when he spoke of the more positive benefits that can result from international cooperation, he quickly narrowed his focus from the world at large, to the countries in Europe and North America. "A genuine world community," he stated, "is demonstrably beyond our capacity in the world as it is and as it is likely to be for the foreseeable future." Therefore, he argued, "we must focus our efforts on the more modest goal of building new bonds among those peoples of the free world who have some feeling of shared values and interest, some feeling of the ability to communicate effectively, some feeling of trust and confidence in each other's purposes."

"Unnatural Animosities"

The De Gaulle program, Fulbright said, "would unite a small community at the cost of dividing a larger one." In doing so, the French program would now "the seeds of unnecessary and unnatural animosities" among peoples "whose destinies, like their histories, are inextricably bound together."

He specifically listed several of what he felt were the most worthwhile areas for North Atlantic cooperation. Among them:

*Foreign Aid. In order to "help create an environment in which free societies can survive and flourish," the various countries of the Atlantic community should unify their aid programs. Fulbright saw two ways this could be done, either through the International development Agency of the World bank, or through the Development Assistance committee of the Organization for economic Cooperation and development.

*Defense. Fulbright had stated in the beginning of his speech the reason why he felt Atlantic defense cooperation to be essential. He returned to the subject to assert that worry over control of nuclear arms was far less important than the development of a "solid consensus on nuclear strategy. "He said that unified strategy planning was "politically feasible," and could be achieved with only a small modification of the NATO Council.

Senator Fulbright will give his final lecture, on "The American Agenda," tonight at 8.30 p.m., In Tufts university's Cohen Auditorium.