When the first plans for 20th Century were being drafted conflicting ideas of the program's purpose emerged. reaction to Yale's "Challenge" programs last year, many the 20th Century Week planners wanted to sponsor an sensive series of small seminars that would attempt to fine "the United States' Image Abroad." Others, however, preferred a program that would attract greater , one modelled more closely along the lines of Challenge." The topic, in their view, would still be the , but discussion would include more students and a range of subjects.

Early this fall, as plans for the program began to jell, prevailing notion of 20th Century Week laid emphasis the former program, a closely knit series of seminars discussing the impact of U.S. foreign policy and principles economic aid on people in foreign countries--particularly the underdeveloped areas of the world.

Since the program was aimed at a small number of people--ideally no more than 20 or 30 per seminar--little thought was given to obtaining "big name" speakers for evening panel discussions. Most of the students involved in planning the program considered these discussions of less importance than the seminars--and for this speakers were chosen only from among the visitors participating in the seminar program or from the facilities of Greater Boston colleges. As Roger M. Leed '61, co-chairman of the 20th Century Week committee, remarked, the panel discussions were added almost as an after-thought. We felt that as long as we had the foreign delecates in Cambridge, we would make use of our opportunity expose them to the public.

Other members of the committee--and most of the general public--assumed that the purpose of the evening was to attract sizeable audiences and promote discussion of the program and the ideas that from it. The speakers selected for seminars, while generally quite articulate and well-versed in their , were for the most part unknown to the general public. This imposed an almost insurmountable problem publicity, which was never successfully solved.

The result was a disturbingly small attendance at the sessions (fewer than 250 people attended most of Sanders Theatre programs) and a widespread apathy toward 20th Century Week in general among students not connected with the seminars.

Students who attended the seminar sessions felt they for the most part quite valuable and were usually satisfied that 20th Century Week had lived up to their . The seminars provided a rare opportunity for discussing the feelings of other countries toward the United States with government officials from abroad.

Those who attended only the evening programs did share this feeling of satisfaction. Since the panel discussions were designed primarily as introductions for the following day's seminars, many people felt they contributed little to an understanding of "the U.S. Image" isolated from the seminars.

Here again there was confusion about aims of the program. If the evening panels were supposed to be merely an introduction to the next day's seminars, then students not involved in the seminars were perfectly justified in staying away, and there should have been no disappointment at the small attendance. On the other hand, if the planners of 20th Century Week were being consistent in this aim, they made a serious mistake in reserving Sanders for the evening programs.

Many members of the 20th Century Week committee felt it was not enough to present a program of seminars punctuated by public panel discussions. There was considerable support for the notion that the program could yield new ideas and widespread discussion of the United States Image.

Apparently, the committee had decided to try to attract large audiences when, soon before the program began, it sought first Adlai Stevenson, then Averell Harriman to speak at the close of the Week. But this attempt to spread the interest already inspired in the seminars throughout the entire campus was begun too late, and carried out too haphazardly. Many students who might have attended Harriman's speech if it had been offered early in the week, had lost interest by Sunday, when he gave it. Others who were enthused with Harriman's words had no place to take their kindling interest--for that afternoon marked the end of the program.

This indecisive planning cannot be blamed entirely on the planners of Twentieth Century Week--such waverings between over-ambitiousness and over-conservatism are implicit in practically any such undergraduate enterprise. Nor are they fully responsible for the program's failure to attract wide-spread undergraduate interest. For they ran into serious trouble in attempting to raise funds and acquire whole-hearted support from the Harvard administration, causing them to narrow greatly the scope of their plans.

When plans for the Week were first being framed, the program committee was thinking in terms of a $35,000 budget. Last spring, apparently, they traveled the foundation circuit, receiving expressions of interest, but no commitments. These nibbles, however, led them to plan for a large-scale program--until they returned to Harvard this Fall and found only $200 in their coffers.

Perhaps the best example of the group's fund-raising problem occurred when they went to the Ford Foundation for support. Attracted by the project, but suspicious of the group's ability to carry through, Ford offered to put up the entire sum needed, with only one string attached: they would have to see a verified list of speakers before giving money.

This of course, put the group smack in the midst of an inescapable dilemma. To attract speakers from under-developed land, they would have to promise money for transportation, housing, and sometimes also pay honorariums. To receive the money, they would have to acquire ironclad commitments from each of the speakers.

Without going as far as Fore most of the large Foundations required proof that the program would succeed--more than "something ." As they could present such proof, and as their chief fund raiser persisted in judging foundations to be the only major source support, the committee was final forced to content themselves with $200 worth of donations from Harvard alumni and other private individuals.

By shifting the emphasis of the fund-raising technique, the committee managed to turn $200 into this fall. Instead of banking on the foundations, a few students worked contacting alumni and other interested persons. To the surprise of some committee members--who deemed the success of this approach 'miraculous'--the technique was so successful that estimates of the final total of donation range as high as $10,000.

When Foundation support fail to materialize this Fall, the program committee was forced to make a to revision of its plans--to draw up entirely new guest list. On a limit budget, they could not afford to transportation costs to bring from Asia, Africa, and America, as originally planned. The had to rely almost exclusively on resentatives of these continents happened to be in the United State this Fall.

This created enormous problem it made scheduling an extremely hazard task. The committee could longer search the world for suitable speakers, as it had intended. The list of potential speakers was limit. They had no guarantee that people who accepted their invitations-- had come to the United States other, more pressing reasons--would be able to attend. One such disappointment occurred when Ja Ja chuku. Nigerian Minister of Finance had to break his speaking to attend an emergency of the United Nations Congo Committee.

With the guest list so uncertain, committee frequently met with turbing problems of detail. It was occasionally difficult, for example, find accommodations for the speakers. Throughout the week, there frequent last minute attempts to someone who could drive a from Logan Airport to the University. One evening, too, just be a panel discussion, the found itself with more invited than it could use--and had to several of them to sit in the audio and listen. Through some quick stitution plays, most of these a chance to participate later forum, and none seemed particularly annoved. Such occurred did not prevent the program running smoothly, on the surface least.

Twentieth Century Week was received with worthwhile purpose, for the 200 students who registered the seminars, represented a success examination of our national image.

It can only be regretted, how that 20th Century Week did possess as much value for the students body at large. One wishes that a complete synthesis of the inner of 20th Century Week and parts that were open to the could have been achieved. For the ject matter of the Week should been considered by the entire Harvard community, not only by the group of interested students probably would have given questions serious thought on own