Gunter Grass, one of Germany's bestknown living writers, told a capacity crowd in Lowell Lecture Hall last night that Harvard is "a comfortable ghetto inside a sick society."

Grass, an active member of Germany's Social Democratic Party, called for more individual involvement be intellectuals in mainstream politics and discussed the condition of democracy in the United States. The distance between the Soviet Union and the United States, Grass said, "is not so large." "Nixon and Breshnev understand each other."

"I'm afraid when men like that understand each other too well." Grass commented. Grass, whose most recent work deals with the 1969 German elections, repeatedly questioned the political health of the United States and Western Europe. "How could the United States start a war in Vietnam and allow the things that went on there?" he asked. The recent coup in Chile demonstrates how far fascism has gone, Grass stated. "It is late," he said, referring to the urgency of political involvement by the left.

Although leftists used "very nice phrases" to criticize the Weimar Republic, their failure to participate in its regular politics led to its downfall, Grass maintained.

Grass himself actively campaigned for Willy Brandt in 1969. "I learned my lesson from Weimar," Grass said.

The author recommended the audience involve itself in American politics by exerting "new influence on the Democratic party." "Protest is bringing no change, political echo is not there," he said.

Grass called for effectively engaging in protest and suggested that protesting the Greek junta's treatment of its writers would be more useful than attacking Soviet suppression of dissidents.

About 700 people attended the lecture, which was sponsored by the Signet Society.