"You're a Mother?"

In Warsaw last week, a Polish woman stopped before a students' dormitory to ask what all the flags and crowds were about. A fierce young Greek confronted her. "What side are you on?" he demanded. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, are you for Markos or for Athens?"

"Oh--I'm a mother. I look after my child and don't pay much attention to those things."

"You're a mother? Then you are against war?"

"Certainly."

"Ah--then you are with us! Long live Markos!"

All week long Warsaw was treated to a gigantic dose of such dialectics. It was the annual conference of the Communist-dominated World Federation of Democratic Youth. There were delegates from 46 countries--Indian girls in saris, Vietnamese in lumber jackets, Uzbeks in embroidered beanies (called tyubeteiki), Americans in sloppy sweaters with Wallace-for-President buttons.

The world's youth, it seemed in Warsaw, had many problems--peace, better working conditions, more and better jobs, more education, abolition of child labor. But in Warsaw all the answers were clear, and dictated. A young Polish delegate put in a resolution which flatly declared that in the Soviet Union and in the popular (i.e., Soviet satellite) democracies "all the problems of youth have been solved." The Federation's suave French Communist President Guy de Boisson suggested the resolution be modified to say they were "on the road to solution." Snaoped Soviet Delegate Alexei Klimov: "That may be true in popular democracies. But in the Soviet Union they are solved."

In London last week the Iron Curtain countries were losing some of their athletes. They had come to compete in the Olympic games and developed an appetite for freedom. Two swimmers from Hungary had already received permission from Britain's Home Office to remain in Britain. Said the Home Office: "Other athletes from Communist-dominated countries may want to see us."

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