Six international figures expressed grave concern over the reaction of their countrymen to the nomination of Senator Goldwater at the International Seminar Forum last night.
The Republican Convention results were "viewed with alarm" in Europe, said Niels Westerby, candidate from Copenhagen for the Danish Parliament. The party platform, he added, had made a "very bad impression," while the possibility of a Goldwater victory has "hurt American prestige all over the world."
Kayode Eso, head of the Legal Division of the Ministry of Justice in western Nigeria, predicted that the "Goldwater incident" would alienate many "neutral" Nigerians from the West.
A "small minority" of Germans favored the Senator, said Martin Broszat, of the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich. Only "right-wing Christian Democrats" and those who have previously "distrusted American foreign policy" are probable Goldwater supporters, according to Broszat.
Describing the predominant view of the Nigerian people toward the recent Civil Rights Act, Eso emphasized the popularity of the civil rights policies of the Kennedy administration. He stressed, however, that education of white attitudes, not law can be the only ultimate answer to segregation.
The panelists also referred to racism in the Soviet Union. Oded Messer, Director General of the Ministry of Labor in Israel, deplored "discrimination of the Russian people against the Jewish community." He pointed out that contact between Russian Jews and Israel has been strictly limited.
Arsen Jovanovic of Yugoslavia agreed with Messer, but emphasized that such discrimination has continued in spite of frequent efforts by the Soviet government to prevent anti-Semitism and to eradicate its traditional causes by means of political and cultural propaganda.
"In spite of Khrushchev's frequent hand-shaking with Negroes," stated Eso, Nigerians consider the American political system "far more effective" than the Soviet government in dealing constructively with racial problems.
Westerby described the late President Kennedy's action in the Cuban crisis of 1962 as a "masterpiece of foreign policy." He regretted, however, that the prestige of Red China had grown during the crisis when the Soviets were "pushed around." Kennedy had not, he emphasized, threatened the use of nuclear weapons in Cuba as Goldwater apparently would have done.
Jovanovic, a student of North American studies at the Institute for International Politics and Economics in Belgrade, expressed the hope of the Communist nations for a continuing, gradual detente between East and West. The "hot line" and nuclear test ban treaty were "first steps" only.
Implying opposition to Goldwater in Yugoslavia, Jovanovic described the widespread fear in his country that the trend toward improved East-West relations might be disrupted
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