A Columbia University professor predicted last night that civil rights groups would backing disarmament to make "the conversion to a peace-time economy" an issue in 1964.

Seymour Melman, professor of engineering at Columbia and The Peace explained that without job opportunities Negroes could not achieve equality. And job opportunities will continue to be because the American economy is geared to developing "a military competence for which there can be no useful purpose."

While producing weapons enough to destroy the U.S.S.R. 231 times over, the United States has failed to keep its underlying industrial machinery up-to-date, so that it is today, according to Melman, "the center of technological stagnation" among the developed nations of the world.

The professor addressed a dinner held by the Massachusetts Political Action for Peace, to honor the Rev. Thomas Mert for writings making clear the moral imperative of opposing thermonuclear war, About 300 attended.

A letter from Merton accepting the citation, read by the Rt. Rev. George Casey, did not have the hopeful tone of Melman's talk. Merton, writing from a Trappist monastery in Jerusalem, said that because of his retreat from society he was not entitled to the citation. He accepted, however, because he said, at the exceptional

Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis.), saw in popular supporters a following, "based on misunderstanding and ov simplification," and urged PAX to continue its efforts at an examination of issues.

Martin Peretz, teaching fellow in Government, presiding at the four-hour-long gathering, urged its membership to dedicate themselves to "new politics in Massachusetts." PAX, an outgrowth of the campaign of H. Stuart Hughes for Senate, will run peace candidates for state and local offices.