The United States and the U.S.S.R. can trust each other if they only wait.

This was the concensus of “Can There be Trust Between the Superpowers?” a Monday night debate in Carl Sandburg Auditorium between three graduate students from NIU and two Soviet students who have been touring the United States.

Soviet debators included Kirill L. Simkin, from the Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages and Tamara B. Nazarova from Moscow State University. NIU debators were Dana Miller, Shane Miller and Ray Roberts.

“Now that we have gone through a period of increased confidence and exchange, now is the time for us to face the question of again about whether we can return to a period of mutual trust and guarantee,” said Jack Parker, NIU forensics program director and moderator of the debate, as he made the opening statements.

Committee chairman Thomas Kane, of the University of Pittsburgh, accompanied the Soviet delegation. “They (the Soviet debators) clearly represent a new citizen of the Soviet Union, of the Federation of Regimes,” he said.

Simkin discussed the difficulties of “changing views easily” and the usefulness of the students of our countries to “know each other better than they do now.”

Miller spoke of the “two criteria needed to be met before trust becomes reality”—the cultural problems and “the problems with the sense of accountability of the Soviet government.”

“Its high time we rolled up our sleeves and thought about trust and guarantees seriously,” Nazarova said.

The debate was sponsored by the Campus Activities Board and included four speeches and questions from the audience.