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The unprecedented rate & speed of pop growth is a problem unique in history: its core is the drop in the death-rate, esp in underdeveloped countries, where the maintenance of pol'al stability may be threatened. The food problem is its worst aspect. There are 2 ways of attacking the problem: increased production & birth control. The US are considering both in reaching policy decisions. Kennedy is inclined against advocating birth control in other countries. Religious views come into it. The Communists are facing the same problem, though they still associate an expanding pop with a vigorous society. Yet abortions are no longer illegal. The Chinese pop problem obviously causes the Sovets concern; it has even caused the Chinese themselves to re-examine their views. A campaign for birth control got under way in 1955, though clearly Peking is uncomfortable about its affinity to neo-Malthusian logic. Elsewhere there is a growing awareness of the problem, cutting across lines of religion, pol,& class. IPSA.

There are very few states today which do not aspire to modernity. The day of rulers who were indifferent to the archaism of the society which they governed has almost disappeared. The leaders of nearly every state—both the old established states as well as the new states of Asia and Africa—feel a pressing necessity of espousing policies which will bring them well within the circle of modernity. Much of the opposition which they encounter among their politically interested countrymen contends that they are not modern enough. Many traditionalists are constrained to assert that only by cleaving to the essence of older traditions can a genuine and stable modernity be attained.Modern states must be "dynamic", above all else. To be modern, an elite, as the elites of the new states see it, must not fear change; on the contrary, it umst strive to bring it about. It does not wish to remain as it is. It is against the ancien regime; even where it affirms the past of the country, it stresses its adaptability to the needs of the pressent. "Dynamic" is one of the favorite adjectives of the elites of the new states. The elites pride themselves on their dynamism and they claim that the mass of the population demands it of them. Almost everything else which they esteem presupposes this praise of change.