From the S&S archives: 2,000 picket opening of 'peace' conference

NEW YORK, March 26 — A tension-charged " world peace" conference goes into its keynote sessions today after hearing a U.S. magazine editor declare Americans "do not want peace at any price."

Hisses and jeers broke out six times in the grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel last night as Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review of Literature, spoke.

He accused the conference of owing allegiance to an "outside government." There was some applause when he sat down, but boos and hisses almost drowned it out.

Then playwright Lillian Hellman began her address, saying:

"I would recommend. Mr. Cousins, that when you talk about your hosts at dinner, wait until you have gone home to do it."

Outside, 2,000 pickets, protesting the conference, tramped and chanted in the rain.

Three-Day Affair

About the same number of writers, artists and scientists from many parts of the world filled the conference room to capacity as the three-day affair opened.

Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich told the assemblage he hoped the "genial efforts" of the parley would bear fruit. He heads a seven-man Soviet delegation.

Speaking through an interpreter, he greeted his American hosts, saying:

"We are united with them in accomplishing the noble task of defending peace against its enemies."

Urging a firmer "link between the representatives of culture of our two peoples," he added:

"As a musician and a representative of the art which need not be translated from one language to another ... I particularly realize how much can be done for the cause of peace by the establishment of firm and friendly relations based upon trust and mutual respect."

Other speakers, from both sides of the Iron Curtain, pleaded their case for peace in today's troubled world.

Pickets Chant, Pray

Outside, surging back and forth and praying and chanting in the drizzle, was a police-estimated throng of 2,000 persons of mixed religious and racial background.

With placards and shouts they protested the conference, the full title of which is the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace.

Some placards read: "Soviet's pitiful slaves, go back to Stalin" and "Pal Joe wants peace — a piece of every nation."

An enterprising vendor shouldered his way along the packed curbs selling buttons bearing the name "Cardinal Mindszenty" and a crucifix at the end of a ribbon for 15 cents each.

Generally, the pickets were loud but orderly. There was one fist fight and some noisy arguments, but no arrests.

One picket wore a monocle. His woman companion had on a mink coat. Seven crippled war veterans wheeled their chairs back and forth in the line for about 15 minutes.

Crowds of curious lined Park Ave. to watch. Police said there were 9,000 spectators on hand at one time.

A counter-rally was to be held today a few blocks away by Americans for Intellectual Freedom, a group opposed to the Waldorf conference.

Opponents of the peace conference charged it is dominated by pro-Communist delegates. This repeatedly has been denied by the conference chairman, Dr. Harlow Shapley, Harvard University astronomer.

Shapley told the conference the opening dinner that "we come here ...  with humility and to ask the simple and ageless question: 'How can men live in peace?'"

Secretary of State Dean Acheson has called the meeting "a sounding board board for Communist propaganda."

The conference, which has about 500 American artists, writers, educators and clergymen among its sponsors, opened with "The Star Spangled Banner," sung by Brenda Lewis, one of the sponsors.

The delegates gave Shapley a standing ovation. Shostakovich got the biggest hand.

Churchill, Hoover Booed

References to Winston Churchill, former British prime minister, and Herbert Hoover, former U.S. President, drew boos from delegates. President Truman's name was cheered.

Through all the ovation and cheering, Cousins remained seated and did not applaud. He had turned down one invitation to the conference, but Under Secretary of State George V. Allen suggested that he attend and give a "vigorous affirmation" of the democratic point of view.

Americans do not seek war, Cousins said, but. they feel that the needs of peace best can be served "by a supreme supporting effort behind the United Nations, giving it the form and substance of world law." He called for abolition of the veto in the UN.

Danger of Coercion

Cousins asked the delegates to "tell the folks at home" that "while Americans respect the rights of other people to their own forms of government, they are apprehensive about the danger to the world of government by coercion, especially when the coercion comes from without."

A woman's club leader and journalist from Cuba, Myrta Aguirre, described the conference as an effort to work against "a perfectly avoidable war."

Another speaker, British philosopher William O. Stapledon, prepared a speech warning America that the English people will not be "wholeheartedly against Russia as we were against Germany" in a new war.

Departs From Text

"We are not anxious to sell our souls to America," the speech read. It suggested that the U.S. was embarked "on a new imperialism" and said the average British workman "is not going to be suddenly turned against Russia."

However, for some reason that was not explained, Stapledon departed from this text and delivered a speech in milder terms. In it he stressed the British people's opposition to war.

Stapledon was the only British delegate allowed to come to tins country for the conference.

Nineteen delegates from Europe, Mexico and South America were denied visas. The State Department said they had not been designated as representatives of their governments.