"The world is rushing steadily into a race war between the rich, white nations and the poor, colored ones," Ronald Segal told a partly-stunned, partly-admiring audience in Boylston Hall last night.

The exiled South African author and editor said South Africa's racial crisis is a world crisis. He called for international intervention to change South Africa's racial policies before Africa and then the world are dragged into racial violence. "See that you do something tangible and perceptible about it," he pleaded with his listeners. "In the present world situation, it is suicidal not to act now before it is too late."

Segal detailed a "harrowing" list of examples to document the "growing gulf" between the white and colored nations. From increasing African and Asian support for Red Chinese policies on one side to Portuguese atrocities in Angola on the other, he said, "the distance be- tween rich and poor, black and white is getting greater, not smaller."

He said the most startling immediate example of racist feeling has been the Western world's reaction to the slaying of whites by Africans in the Congo and the general defense of the killings by moderate African leaders. "Why is mass torture of peasants in South Vietnam acceptable when Congolese murders are not?" he asked. "Because one case is blacks killing whites, and the other is whites killing coloreds."

Segal felt China's recent nuclear explosion was a sign that the balance of power was changing in the world. "Even the New York Times," he said with acid voice, is preparing its readers for the cataclysm of Chinese admission to the U.N.