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Show delibiJ lite JJeaJfined ; medical cooperation between the United States and Soviet Union ; during his visit her last fall. ' It was the President's son, Major John Eisenhower, who said earlier this year at the University Uni-versity of Pennsylvania that he "would like to see the U. S. and Soviet Union do more together to wipe out the world's misery, sickness and disease," instead of talking of wiping out each other. Since then, joint East-West discussions, just concluded, have led to the formal and official, but unpublicized and little noted announcement, that East and West "now are allied" in peaceful peace-ful medical research. Beginning almost immediately, the U.S. and Soviet Union are to begin preparing pre-paring for their first conference to exchange information on combatting com-batting cancer, heart disease and polio three of the worst crip-plers crip-plers and killers. Special attention will also be paid to an exchange of information informa-tion by U. S. and Soviet doctors and scientists on child health care, the mentally retarded, prevention pre-vention of birth defects, nutrition, nutri-tion, industrial medicine, surgery sur-gery and infectious diseases, in seeking together to eliminate the non-political scourages of both East and West and of everyone, everywhere. The Soviets can have many sinister motives for fostering scientific and cultural exchange for seeking greater East-West trade, agreeing to disarmament, a nuclear test ban, pooling space and missile efforts or joining in a joint East West program of economic aid to the hungry, impoverished im-poverished peoples of the world. These activities, while loudly acclaimed, also help the Soviets to score psychological victories or military successes, split the Western Allies, broaden their espionage activities, penetrate the uncommitted nations, or lull the West to sleep. No one warned that there is any danger, but that there is on the contrary, the greatest hope for a better world, in cooperating on medical research. re-search. And there is the hope that if we could cooperate on this, that other cooperation may be easier. It will pose a challenge and opportunity in the year ahead. Dr. Thomas Dooley, the young medical missionary in Laos, who has been called another Dr. Albert Al-bert Schweitzer, has said that "You just can't describe the good you feel when you have a human life." For this Christmastime to find the United States and Soviet Union cooperating, and about to do good together, in this extremely ex-tremely important field has been the best, most hopeful Christmas present of all. i v Already Christmas is a fading memory. The rush and excitement excite-ment are gone. Santa Claus, that jolly, generous and indispensable symbol of Christmas, is taking a well earned rest. The Christmas presents have long since been opened, some even exchanged, and soon the trees, trinkets and tinsel will be coming down. In most ways, this Christmas past has been like all the others that have gone before, and there in lies its charm. But this year, and especially as we enter the New Year, the Soviets of all people have given the world a genuinely unbelivable Christmas present that merits more notoriety noto-riety and attention and perhaps even more appreciation than it has received, and it bears a special relationship to both the Christmas past and the New Year ahead. Someday, scientists in this age of Science, may be able to place that wondrous thing called the Yuletide on a microscope and tell us what it really is. In the meantime, it will have to be understood only in the heart. We can only marvel at what it is that so changes people and wonder why a spirit that can bring peace to the Holy Lands for a few short days, that pro-dues pro-dues a great outpouring of concern con-cern for the unfortunate, and that sees the sick and the halt and the forgotten remembered, cannot be captured and carried through the rest of the year. In one respect, this seems to have happened, or we may have been given an unexpected opportunity op-portunity to help it flourish. In their Christmas messages, both Pope John XXIII and Mr. Eisenhower shared one thought in common. That was that we should see more actual deeds join the great out-pouring of words about "peace," which the world is experiencing. The world can leap with joy that this tenuous new era we call "co-existence" and "a relaxation of tensions" has been showered upon us, replacing the more immediate im-mediate threats of war, destruction destruc-tion and extinction. But as both the President and Pope reminded us, and as others have "peace" is more than just the absence of the threat of war. Our world would also seem to need the freedom President Eisenhower Ei-senhower made a key word in his goodwill trip abroad. Who can deny that.it needs the justice jus-tice the Pope also said is indispensable indis-pensable to peace? Of the charity, char-ity, humility and humanity the President urged in his lighting of the National Christmas Tree, if we really want to root out the causes of war? Now, this may be one of the gifts the Soviets of all people may have given to a troubled world, but which, oddly, seems to have been ignored in Christmas Christ-mas rush. For of all of man's scourages, disease is one of the oldest and the most impersonal. Now, the United States and Soviet Union, for all their deep seated differences differ-ences on disarmament, ideology and even the dignity of man, have still agreed that they can cooperate in saving people's lives. A great, global, joint Russian-American Russian-American effort has just been formalized, to begin exchanging health, medical a lrdn teaedinda health, medical and related information, in-formation, which may even have begun in Philadelphia. Premier Khrushchev proposed a greater |