The freedom of all nations — particularly the captive nations — should have received equal attention with peace on the plaque left on the moon by the Apollo-11 astronauts, Dr. Lev E. Dobriansky of Washington said at a civic luncheon observing Captive Nations Week in the Buffalo Athletic Club today.
“From a propaganda angle, the United States missed the boat,” he said.
A banner proclaiming “Remember the Captive Nations” draped the head table as Dr. Dobriansky, founder of the observance and a faculty member at Georgetown University, declared: “You can’t have an appreciative understanding of the material and spiritual goods that we have in the United States until you contrast what we have with the lot of those who are deprived –particularly in the various captive nations from the Danube to the Pacific.”
This was the 10th observance of the special week in Buffalo and the speaker emphasized: “The importance of perpetuating this special attention to captive nations is in education for freedom by contrast.”
The civic luncheon, attended by about 125 persons, was the regular Kiwanis Club meeting.
Dr. Dobriansky said if there were no captive nations held in thrall by the Soviet Union “many of the problems that confront us would be no problems at all.”
He named the ABM, Vietnam and inflation as issues that are prominent because of the “single threat posed by Moscow.” Dr. Dobriansky said Moscow seeks American “acquiescence to the permanent captivity of captive nations.”
He urged Americans “to keep things in perspective by continually contrasting what we have with what people in the captive countries don’t have.”
The Georgetown professor said he and his associates in founding the annual observance “have never been against better relations with Russia — but we are greatly concerned about the matter of better relations on what basis.”
Harry W. Halbersleben, Kiwanis president, was chairman.
