Professors Consider Plans to Stop Terrorism

Harvard experts on West Germany agree that the recent wave of terrorism in that country may lead to a government crackdown on terrorist activities supported by a wide popular consensus.

Guido G. Goldman '59, executive director of the Center for European Studies, said yesterday he foresees "an increasing willingness to see uniformed authorities on the streets, tighter border security and more pressure for the death penalty."

Goldman, who heads the German Marshall Fund, said he did not foresee a rightward shift in German politics, adding, "law and order has always been a bipartisan issue in Germany."

Richard M. Hunt, associate dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and president of the American Council on Germany, said until now the government of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt has been "scrupulous with civil liberties."

Hunt, who is now writing an article for the Christian Science Monitor on the German popular response to terrorism, said the "exasperation of public opinion" is contributing to a trend in Western governments toward "keeping order."

As the inquiry into the deaths of Andreas Baader, founder of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang, and gang members Gudrun Enselin and Jean Carl Raspe continues in Stuttgart, Germany, this week West German federal police told The New York Times they believe terrorists planted the bomb which shattered a Rhineland village courthouse on Monday.

Police are now searching in Denmark for members of an offshoot of the Baader-Meinhof gang called the Red Army Faction, a West Germany-based group that claimed responsibility for the abduction and murder of West German industrialist Hans Martin Schleyer. Police said they believe the Red Army Faction is also responsible for the explosion.

Several Harvard faculty members who have studied international terrorism said last week Western governments have failed to develop an appropriate response to the problem.

Gutless and Immoral

"The world is gutless on these issues and immoral in its response," Alan Dershowitz, professor of Law, said last week.

Dershowitz, who has defended members of the Jewish Defense League and the Weathermen against criminal charges, said the United States should boycott countries that harbor terrorists, such as Algeria and Libya.

"You can't get the world to place sanctions on these 'in' countries," Dershowitz said, adding that he thought the U.S. should couple the U.N. resolutions calling for limitations on trade with South Africa with a similar one on Algeria and Libya.

Michael L. Walzer, professor of Government, agreed last week that states must deal with terrorism through international cooperation, but added that waiting for the U.N. to act is like "waiting for the Messiah."

"Governments committed to the fight against international terrorism must impose burdens on their citizens and insist that other governments do the same," Walzer said. He added that, in addition to "universal condemnation," governments must be "willing to use force on the spot."

Walzer said he did not believe the death penalty would deter potential terrorists.

Find Them and Kill Them

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), former professor of Government, said last week the present failure of efforts to limit terrorism results from a misconception of the problem.

Moynihan, who has written on the international terrorist network in L'Express and New York Magazine, said terrorism must be understood as a political phenomenon. "The point to repeat," Moynihan added, "is that terrorism is totalitarianism in action."

Moynihan said "terrorism has nothing to do with injustice, but with the extraordinary power of totalitarian ideas," adding, "liberal civilization is under attack."

Moynihan said "it is wrong to assume that terrorism can be inhibited by modes of punishment or by raising the minimum wage." He added, "The only thing to do with terrorists is as quickly as possible to find them and kill them."