PRESTIGE OF U.S.

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27203, 21 November 1953, Page 7

PRESTIGE OF U.S.

American’s View On Decline (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) WASHINGTON, Nov. 19. Dr. Carleton Smith, Director of the National Arts Foundation of New York, told a meeting of the organisation’s officers in Washington today that “United States prestige and goodwill had seldom been lower among influential leaders of thought in Europe and Asia.”

He was reporting on his visit to 28 tountries which he completed on Monday.

“Headlines about purges and bookburning, plus headlines abount unproved charges, confirm the suspicion that the United States has substituted trial by gossip for due process of law,” said Dr. Smith.

“This growing belief is a serious blow to our moral leadership of the free world. “Europeans do not understand the extent to which Americans like to play football with politics,” he said. He recommended, first, that the public in the United States should act less hysterically and more confidently, and second, that Americans should show their willingness to work with the status quo, and he said that it was necessary for the Western world to provide increased education facilities and personnel for the Arab, African and Indian peoples.