U.S. and Soviet Professors Urge Closer Ties

In a forum that was interrupted several times by protestors, three Soviet professors and three of their American counterparts agreed that the two countries should establish closer relations and should together work to aid lesser developed nations.

Four demonstrators from the ultra-conservative National Democratic Policy Committee were ejected from the Science Center after trying to shout down the speakers at the symposium sponsored by the Forum for the U.S.-Soviet Dialogue, a group established to create non-governmental discussion between the two countries.

The protestors accused the speakers of being influenced by the Soviet KGB and misleading the crowd of more than 200 before Harvard Police officers outsted them from the building.

Once the disturbances had ended, Harold J. Berman, Ames Professor of Law, in his keynote address, stressed that the U.S. and the Soviet Union should not be satisfied with maintaining the current detente but should instead strive to become allies. Only then he argued, can the countries end the threat of nuclear war and redirect their energies to help Third World countries.

"The vision of Soviet-American relations we need is an ultimate partnership between two countries," he said, speaking through an interpreter that all panelists used. Berman added, "If we give up thinking of the prospect of war, we can live in a world where war can be avoided."

The Soviet scholars, echoed Berman's sentiments. "We can't speak of relationships in what's bad for the U.S. is good for us, and vice versa. We shouldn't view everything in terms of good and bad," Ted Djaparidze, a professor at the Moscow Institute said.

His colleague from the Institute, Shamul Sultanov, said both countries must take notice that the world is no longer bi-polar. "We must take into consideration the increasing complexity and mustn't make our values seem like the values of the whole world."

Other speakers on the panel included Paul M. Doty, Mallinckrodt Professor of Biochemistry, William Jackson, a professor of political science at Miami of Ohio University; professor Vladmir Barankowski of the Soviet Union, and Time Magazine correspondent John Keown.