CFIA and SDS Agree to Debate; New Format Termed Impartial

The Center for International Affairs (CFIA) and SDS-both of which rejected encounters proposed last December-agreed yesterday to a WHRB-sponsored debate to take place Jan. 10 in Lowell Lecture Hall.

"We hope the debate will expose the role the Center plays in the exploitation and oppression of working people and peasants in the third world," Ira Helfand '71, spokesman for SDS, said yesterday. "We hope this will spark a mass fighting campaign to shut the center down."

Joseph S. Nye, program director for the CFIA, said, "There is nothing to hide on our part. The question of an impartial format was foremost for us, and now we have that."

Each side will make a 15-minute presentation and a 10-minute rebuttal, followed by a question and answer period. Robert Golfarb '73, WHRB news director, will moderate the debate.

Should It Exist?

The official topic has been left indefinite, according to Michael Kolowich '73 of WHRB. "SDS wants it to be 'Should the CFIA Exist?', but that's much too slanted," he said.

Nye and Gustav F. Papanek, former director of the CFIA's Development Advisory Service, will represent the CFIA. SDS representatives have not yet been named.

The CFIA declined an SDS challenge to debate in early December on the grounds that there was no independent sponsor, agreed upon procedure, or impartial moderator to enforce that procedure.

'Advocate' Proposal

The CFIA also rejected a proposed debate sponsored by the Harvard Advocate on the topic, "Should the CFIA Exist?" An alternate proposal by Nye to debate in a House dining room on January 6 or 7 was rejected by SDS.

Helfand at that time accused the CFIA of being "afraid to debate before a large crowd" and said that many students would not be in Cambridge on the dates suggested.