U.S. UNIVERSITY LEADER WRITES TO STALIN

Wanganui Chronicle, 6 October 1950, Page 5

U.S. UNIVERSITY LEADER WRITES TO STALIN

Soviet May UnderRate Strength Of West And Fight WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 (Reed. > p.m.)—Mr. Harold Stassen, president of the University of Pennsylvania, said today he had asked Stalin for a personal meeting to chart a new course for world peace. Mr. Stassen sought Republican nomination in the 1948 Presidential election. Today he made public a personal letter he wrote to Stalin wo days ago. He said its primary objective was to pave the way for a conference between Stalin and members of the Russian Politburo, himself and four or five other American “citizen” leaders. Mr. Stassen said the letter was the result of a long period of study and conferences with American leaders,

predominantly Republican. He declined to name any of those associated with him in the action, but said they included University professors, Republican Congressional leaders, lawyers, and retired military officers. Mr. Stassen said he believed the Soviet, rulers were re-examining their own world policies, and that the greatest danger of another world war would come from Russian miscalculation or under-estimating the strength and intentions of the United States. His letter to Stalin recalled their 1947 conference at the Kremlin. Stassen said the forecasts made then by Stalin about an American economic crash and other developments had proved false. Mr. Stassen also said that Stalin had asserted then that Russia wanted peace. “I find it impossible to reconcile that statement with North Korean aggression, with the Soviet Union’s refusal to co-operate in stopping that aggression, with the Soviet Union's rearmament of Eastern Germany, and with other recent actions of the Soviet Union,” Mr. Stassen wrote to Stalin. He also warned that the United tSates can match Soviet rearrmament for 10 or 20 years, or indefinitely, without an economic failure.