1 PEACEFUL CHANGE OR WAR? 53material needs of those making demands for change needed to be inves-
tigated: one needed to ask, for example, whether such demands were
manufactured to suit the interests of a particular political movement or
whether they stemmed from a disturbing imperialism.^165
While Bourquin argued that the conference must strive for ‘maxi-
mum objectivity,’ he noted that this objectivity had its limits, not least
because many of those present were from countries directly implicated
in the question of peaceful change.^166 In relation to this, he warned that
if those concerned with this issue remained ‘hermetically’ sealed within
their own point of view, without paying heed to the ‘preoccupations of
others, without being ready to consent to the minimum of sacrifices for
the common good,’ they would remain locked in a ‘vicious circle’ until
the day that this circle was broken by force.^167
Among those from countries directly implicated in the question was
Berber, whose main contribution at the study meeting was to press
for the issue of national and ethnical unity to be included on the pro-
gram for the 1937 conference. This problem was described by Berber
as a ‘fundamental aspect of the subject’ of peaceful change: the prob-
lem of individuals being ‘subjects of a nation State whose nationality
they do not possess’.^168 More specifically, Berber, who described him-
self to the amusement of some at the meeting as ‘a representative of
“National Socialist Science”,’ demanded that ethnical and national aspi-
rations should be studied because he and the ‘doctrine he represented’
considered them to be of ‘fundamental’ importance. Vlădescu-Răcoasa
who later noted that it was thus that ‘a breath of national–socialism’ was
brought to the conference.^169
Vlădescu-Răcoasa, a graduate of the Institute of International Studies
in Geneva, in addition to his academic and journalistic roles was the
(^165) Ibid., 13.
(^166) Ibid., 8.
(^167) Ibid., 9.
(^168) Coopération Intellectuelle, nos. 66–67 (1936), 30, and International Studies
Conference, Peaceful Change, 166–7.
(^169) Malcolm W. Davis, ‘The League of Minds,’ in Harriet Eager Davis, ed., Pioneers
in World Order: An American Appraisal of the League of Nations (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1944), 240. For Berber’s demand that national and ethnical problems be
addressed by the conference address see ‘Conférence permanente des hautes études inter-
nationales: Impressions de la dernière session’ par G. Vladesco Rocoassa, AG 1-IICI-I-
15.d, UA.