Squads of the University's debaters, conservatives, and liberals pranced higgledy-piggledy around the problem of the intellectual's relationship to Communism last night in the first meeting of the Harvard Athenaeum.

When the shouting and hissing were over, poet and historian Peter Viereck '37 had led the affirmative side of the debate to a 30 to 29 victory on the question "Resolved, That this House condemns the double standard of morality set by intellectuals who have not opposed communism as ardently as other forms of totalitarianism."

Peter J. O. Self 1G defended the intellectuals against Viereck's onrush of words, contending that there was no reason why intellectuals should not have been easier with Communism than with Fascism during the 1930's.

Communist Infatuation

Viereck argued that this early infatuation with Communism during the 1930's still persisted today in the form of a "cultural lag" by which intellectuals, even though anti-Communist, each year sanctify a martyr to the cause of academic freedom or free speech who later turns out to have been a practicing Communist or fellow-traveler. A couple of years ago it was Hiss," he said. "Now it is Lattimore."

Also speaking on the affirmative side was William A. Rusher LL.B. '51, while Hugh Schwartzburg '53 defended the intellectual along with Self.