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Title: Senator Fulbright's secret memorandum
Author: James D. Bales
Release date: June 22, 2026 [eBook #78918]
Language: English
Original publication: Searcy, AR: Bales Bookstore, 1962
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78918
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SENATOR FULBRIGHT'S SECRET MEMORANDUM ***
Transcriber’s Note
Italic text displayed as: _italic_
Senator Fulbright’s
Secret Memorandum
JAMES D. BALES
Concerning the cold war, a well known
liberal, William E. Bohn, said: “Many of
us on the democratic side are poorly prepared
for this historic conflict. There are
editors, clergymen, educators, and politicians
in this country who hardly know what Communism
is.” (_The New Leader_, January
22, 1962, p. 15)
BALES BOOKSTORE
Searcy, Arkansas
Copyright 1962 By
JAMES D. BALES
PREFACE
Senator J. W. Fulbright’s memorandum concerning the military and
the cold war was likely the most controversial paper which appeared
in Washington in 1961. It is probable that the memorandum has been
discussed by a lot of people who have not read it, much less studied
it. Because it is an important document it ought to be studied by the
public as a whole, and not just by men in the armed forces or by those
in the political arena.
The importance of the memorandum is underscored not only by what
it says but also by the wide and varied reaction to it. As to be
expected, it has not been favorably received by those individuals and
organizations which it attacks as extremely radical rightwingers. In
addition, many individuals from various parts of the United States and
from both political parties have been critical of the memorandum.
On the other hand, support for the memorandum has come from many and
different sources. President Kennedy stated that Senator Fulbright
rendered a service by sending the memorandum to the White House. In
the Senator’s own state, the _Arkansas Gazette_ has more than once
indicated its editorial backing of the memorandum.
The leftists as a whole have backed the memorandum. This backing has
included that of the socialists and of the communists. Kingsley Martin,
a British socialist said: “The dangerous change came with the Korean
war, when America discovered that GIs, having no notion why they were
fighting, were easily influenced by Communist propaganda. As a result,
the Pentagon has poured out hundreds of booklets instructing officers
how to indoctrinate the army with hatred of Communism. Quotations
from these documents, presented at the initial hearing of the Walker
case, were, one would have thought sufficient evidence of the virulent
anti-Communist propaganda to which the troops are subjected. But the
Fulbright memorandum (which should be widely published and not hidden
in the Congressional Record) proved that politically-minded generals
had used the permitted task of indoctrination as a means of denigrating
such distinguished American personalities as Truman, Mrs. Roosevelt
and Dean Acheson. These were in effect treated as near-Communists, if
not traitors.”[1] So far as the present author understands the matter,
the memorandum does not mention but one General even remotely in such
a way. And even in his case it states that he said that some prominent
Americans were “tainted with Communist ideology.” This is not the same
as calling them near-Communists or traitors.
Kingsley Martin further praised Senator Fulbright as an
internationalist, and as one who “was making a reasoned attempt to
bring Arkansas into the world community.”[2] What kind of “world
community” did the socialist Martin have in mind?
Senator Fulbright and his position were backed in the Paris weekly,
L’EXPRESS on October 12, 1961. This paper is connected with Pierre
Mendes-France, a leader of the leftwing of the Socialist Party in
France.[3]
The Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation has backed it
consistently. Norman Thomas said: “Our immediate purpose in preparing
this factual pamphlet was to present it to the administration in order
to back up Senator Fulbright’s excellent memorandum and continue the
work that the Defense Department has begun.”[4]
Irwin Suall, a prominent socialist, has written: “Flushing out and
exposing the activities of the ultras is a major current function of
the Socialist Party. From that standpoint, Thomas called the results of
his press conference ‘highly gratifying’.”[5]
The Communist Party in the United States thought so highly of the
memorandum that they reprinted without comment several columns of the
memorandum in _The Worker_ for August 27, 1961.
No attempt is made to identify Senator Fulbright with each of these
groups just because they back him in this matter. This would be neither
sensible nor fair. However, such questions as the following are raised:
Why are they backing him in this matter? How do they believe that this
would contribute to their long-range or short-range purposes? Would
it make a contribution to any of their purposes? We do know that the
socialists and the communists are backing the memorandum. This reveals
their evaluation of it and indicates whose causes they think that the
memorandum serves.
The extent to which the censorship, which is recommended in memorandum
of Senator Fulbright, is being carried out already is indicated in
a directive issued to Reserve Officers in at least one area of the
United States. It reads: “Although Reserve personnel are not subject
to Army Regulations except when on active duty, such regulations are
distributed to Reserve units with the intention of providing guidance
where appropriate. Members of the Reserve are encouraged to conform
whenever possible to the spirit and intent of regulations even though
they are not bound by them. It is pointed out that information they
convey to the public becomes at least quasi-official when linked with
their Reserve Status.”
Since within a few months an attempt was being made to carry over the
censorship into the private lives of Reservists, in the above manner,
what will happen within a few years unless the trend is changed? Will
the Reserves be prohibited from the freedom of speech which is the
birthright of American citizens?
The memorandum is thus seen to raise questions which are tremendous in
their import.
Our examination of the memorandum does not imply that there are no
extremists. Obviously there are extremists of all varieties in America,
and it would be unreasonable to conclude that there were no extremists
in the military or amongst the anti-Communists. However, in the
author’s judgment it is highly doubtful that the number of extremists
in the military is anywhere near as high as the percentage of soldiers
in Korean prisoner of war camps who in one way or another collaborated
with the enemy, or defected, or failed to manifest the proper
discipline or failed to cooperate with their fellow soldiers.
Our defense of some of the individuals and positions which are attacked
in the memorandum does not imply an endorsement of every individual
and organization mentioned in the memorandum; nor does it imply an
endorsement of everything which may have been said at one time or
another by the individuals and organizations in whose defense we have
spoken.
In our discussion of the memorandum we have sometimes quoted Senator
Fulbright against Senator Fulbright. We have also quoted some liberals
against Senator Fulbright. This illustrates that one is not necessarily
a so-called ultra rightist just because he opposes certain positions
taken by the Senator.
There are some who have implied that Senator Fulbright is not
responsible for what is in the memorandum since he did not personally
write it. Of such we would ask: Is there anything in the memorandum’s
charges and recommendations with which the Senator disagrees? If so,
why has he not said so? As far as our knowledge goes, the Senator
himself has never suggested that he disagrees with any of its charges
and recommendations.
Although the Senator did not personally write the memorandum, he is
responsible for it; and as far as we know he has never suggested
otherwise. He submitted it “to the Secretary of Defense.”[6] He said:
“The memorandum was based on my strong belief in the principle of
military subordination to civilian control.”[7] “The memorandum was a
personal one.... It was transmitted to the Secretary of Defense as a
personal correspondence.” It was a part of his “private papers.”[8]
According to the President, Senator Fulbright’s memorandum presented
the Senator’s views. “Senator Fulbright sent a memorandum to the
Secretary of Defense at the request of the Secretary of Defense, and
expressed his views about a matter which is, of course, of concern to
the Department of Defense.”
“So, in my judgment, Senator Fulbright performed a service in sending
his viewpoint to the Department of Defense....”[9]
In order to assist the public in their evaluation of the memorandum,
the following discussion of the memorandum is placed before the public.
This discussion does not endeavor to present and to examine the basic
philosophy, strategy and tactics of the enemy—communism. This the
author has endeavored to do in two other books, _Communism: Its Faith
and Fallacies_ and _Understanding Communism_.
Appreciation is expressed to those who gave permission to quote from
copyrighted material.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _New Statesman_, November 17, 1961, p. 732, col. 2,t. The
difficulty of speaking on some phases of the present world situation
without crossing Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt is illustrated by following
remarks which she made in a recent interview. _First_, the President
has urged the people to build shelters. Mrs. Roosevelt said: “I don’t
believe in private shelters, or school shelters.” It must be done,
she said, through “a comprehensive government program” if it is to be
done at all. _Second_, the President indicates that we shall fight
if necessary. Military men teach the same thing. She said: “War
is inadmissible anymore.... Today willingness to go to war means
willingness to face the loss of civilization.” (Hal Boyle, “Eleanor
Roosevelt Recalls Pearl Harbor,” _Arkansas Democrat_, Dec. 7, 1961, p.
19.)
[2] _New Statesman_, p. 732, col. 1,m.
[3] “Politically, it speaks for the non-Communist left and is close to
ex-Premier Pierre Mendes-France.” _Newsweek_, Feb. 12, 1962, p. 82,
col. 3,b.
[4] _New America_, December 8, 1961, p. 2.
[5] _Ibid._, p. 6, col. 5,t. _Maclean’s_ magazine (September 9, 1961)
defended Senator Fulbright and implied that “fanatics, numbskulls and
mediocrities” were the core of the opposition to him in his home state
(p. 81. From an article by Ian Schlanders.)
[6] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13436, col. 2,m.
[7] _Ibid._, p. 13436, col. 2,m.
[8] _Ibid._, p. 13436, col. 3,t.
[9] Press conference of August 10. _Congressional Record_, August 11,
1961, p. 14449, col. 1,t,m. See also p. 14559.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTERS Page
Preface
I The Background 1
II The Secret Memorandum Made Public 5
III The Effect of the Memorandum 6
IV Who Is Attacked in the Memorandum 9
V The Protracted Conflict Concept Criticized 29
VI The American People the Principle Problem? 50
VII Who Is the Defeatest? 70
VIII Senator Fulbright and World Opinion 70
IX Is Communism A Matter of Politics? 80
X The Memorandum and the Community Party Line 80
XI Conclusions 101
Chapter I
THE BACKGROUND
Too many Americans have understood neither the American system
of freedom, and how it works, nor the communist challenge to our
freedom, and how it operates. The well known liberal, William E. Bohn,
wrote: “Many of us on the democratic side are poorly prepared for
this historic conflict. There are editors, clergymen, educators and
politicians in this country who hardly know what Communism is.”[10]
This lack of understanding was illustrated in the case of those
prisoners of war in Korea who were brainwashed.[11]
Out of this lack of understanding of the nature of our country, and of
the nature of the enemy who has challenged us, has come an apathy which
threatens our very survival. Senator Fulbright himself has spoken of
our having become “snug and complacent.”[12] He lamented: “... If only
we would stop snoring with our eyes open.”[13] His fear was that even
if we are aroused out of our sleep we “again subside into dreamland.”
In fact, he said: “Mr. President, I have no idea what must be done to
awaken Americans to the unpleasant facts of life. As unwilling as I
am to face it, perhaps the answer is that we simply do not wish to be
disturbed.”[14]
In December, 1960, the Senator said: “The greatest crisis confronting
the West is not Berlin. It is the apathy of the free world and its
incomprehensible unwillingness to look facts in the face. Evolution and
the survival of the fittest are concepts we understand when applied to
plants and animals—but we seem not to realize that these concepts apply
to us.”[15]
The people, said the Senator, must be informed. “The American people
ought to be told the bleak truth about their world, the character of
the forces arrayed against them, and what they must do, at whatever
cost, to survive or even to bring about a state of high security. They
must be told that, however humane their society, whatever its ideals,
this alone will not save them from destruction by a society armed with
the prodigious mechanisms of our times and an implacable determination
to dominate all men.”[16]
Spurred on by the studies of the Korean prisoners of war, and deeply
concerned with the apathy and ignorance in America, efforts were made
to do a better job of equipping the American soldier for the war in
which we have become involved. On August 17, 1955, President Eisenhower
made an official proclamation that soldiers were expected to live up to
the newly formulated “Code of Conduct for Members of the Armed Forces
of the United States.” Since the ignorance in the Armed Forces was but
a reflection of the ignorance of the general population, President
Eisenhower and the National Security Council issued in 1958 a directive
which more fully put the military in the cold war.
The National Security Council is our top policy and planning agency.
It is composed of the Cabinet members who have responsibilities in
the field of national security, and included in it by law are the
President, Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary
of State, the National Security Resources Board’s Chairman; and, as
statutory advisers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the
CIA. It was this group which issued the directive of 1958 which placed
upon the military the duty of helping not only the military but also
the civilian population to gain an understanding of the issues involved
in the cold war. By name, its statutory members in 1958 were President
Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, John Foster Dulles, Neil H. McElroy,
and Gordon Grey, the Director of the Office of Defense Mobilization.
As a result of this directive of the National Security Council,
national strategy seminars were conducted throughout the country.
Originating in the War College, these seminars were making a valuable
contribution to the waging of the cold war, as Roscoe Drummond has
pointed out.[17] Civilian organizations who wanted speakers on the
subject of Communism and the cold war could contact the military and
secure the services of military officials who were versed in some phase
of the cold war. In some cases facilities on military bases were made
available.
During 1961, however, there was an increase in censorship of the
speeches of military men. In July, 1961, the Defense Department issued
a directive placing certain restraints on military speakers, and this
action, according to Cabell Phillips in the _New York Times_ of July
21, was the result of a memorandum of Senator J. W. Fulbright.[18]
Supposedly directed only toward the curbing of political utterances
by rightwing military speakers, the impact of the directive and the
controversy which has arisen have been much broader. As a result, as
Roscoe Drummond pointed out, the country is being deprived “of the
useful and needed service which the military can properly perform.”
“We have just about thrown away the public national-strategy seminars
which were doing so much to alert people” concerning communism and its
strategy in the cold war.[19]
As far as we know the Defense Department has now limited the military
to military subjects, which include the military threat of Russia; but
anything dealing with the _specific aims and political tactics of the
communists must be cleared by the Pentagon_.[20]
Fulbright’s memorandum, which has had an influence on the stand taken
by the Department of Defense, is thus seen to be an important one.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] _The New Leader_, Jan. 22, 1962, p. 15.
[11] William E. Mayer, “Communist Indoctrination—Its Significance to
Americans,” Searcy, Arkansas: National Education Program, 1957, pp.
14-15, _Congressional Record_, Jan. 21, 1960, p. 877, col. 1,m. Senator
Dodd has endeavored to give the percentage of collaborators in The
_Congressional Record_, July 23, 1962, p. 13569. On the same page he
said: “The overwhelming majority of these POW’s succumbed to Communist
pressures and became collaborators in one degree or another. So general
was the phenomena of defeatism and ‘give-up-itis,’ that we cannot
write them off to individual weakness. The fault lay not with the
individual, but with our society.” See also the statements of Admiral
Arleigh A. Burke in the Special Preparedness Subcommittee of the
Committee on Armed Services, _Military Cold War Education and Speech
Review Policies_, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1962, Part 1,
p.19. Also Secretary McNamara, Hearings Before the Committee on Armed
Services, _Defense Secretary McNamara on S. Res. 191_, Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1961, p. 4.
[12] _Congressional Record_, May 11, 1959, p. A3890, col. 2,b.
[13] _Ibid._, p. A3890, col. 1,m.
[14] _Congressional Record_, Jan. 23, 1959, p. 1007, col. 1,b.
[15] _Congressional Record_, Feb. 16, 1961, p. A925, col. 2,b.
[16] _Congressional Record_, March 28, 1960, p. A2709, col. 2,t.
[17] “When the Generals Should Be Allowed To Speak,” _Arkansas
Democrat_, October 26, 1961. General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, thought that qualified military personnel
should participate in such seminars. Special Preparedness Subcommittee
of the Committee on Armed Services, _Military Cold War Education and
Speech Review Policies_, Part 1, page 103.
[18] See the directive and Phillips’ articles reprinted by Senator
Strom Thurmond in the _Congressional Record_, July 26, 1961, pp.
12620-12621. Compare _U.S. News and World Report_, August 7, 1961, p.
9. See also pp. 12-15 of a reprint entitled “Excerpts From Speeches
by Senator Strom Thurmond on Efforts to Gag Military Anti-Communist
Speeches and Seminars.”
[19] “When the Generals Should Be Allowed To Speak,” _Arkansas
Democrat_, October 26, 1961.
[20] According to _U.S. News and World Report_, September 18, 1961, p.
8. Reporting on the September 6 testimony of Defense Secretary McNamara.
Chapter II
THE SECRET MEMORANDUM MADE PUBLIC
The Fulbright memorandum was sent to the Secretary of Defense and
to the President. It was so secret that other members of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, of which Senator Fulbright is the
chairman, did not know of its existence.[21] Someone, however, made
it available to the United Press International.[22] Senator Thurmond
learned of its existence and tried, without success at first, to secure
a copy. He, Senator Mundt, and Senator Styles Bridges were concerned
that such an influential memorandum was kept secret.[23] As Senator
Fulbright himself had said, more than a year before, when something has
been leaked to the press it should be more or less officially released.
When it is not released, people wonder whether some things which they
should know have been withheld from them.[24] But Senator Fulbright was
willing to let the people wonder in this case!
Due to circumstances beyond the control of Senator Fulbright, Senator
Thurmond secured a copy of the memorandum and inserted it into the
Congressional Record.[25] Later the same day Senator Fulbright placed
it in the _Record_.[26]
What was the effect of the secret memorandum which, without Senator
Fulbright’s aid, has been made public?
FOOTNOTES:
[21] President Kennedy in a press conference on August 10, 1961,
_Congressional Record_, August 11, 1961, p. 14449, col. 1,t. See
Senator Fulbright’s letter to Senator Thurmond in the _Congressional
Record_, August 4, 1961, p. 13687, col. 2,t. _Arkansas Gazette_, July
21, 1961, p. 1. _Congressional Record_, July 31, 1961, p. 13174. August
4, 1961, p. 13687, col. 2,t. _Congressional Record_, July 29, 1961,
p. 13005; Compare August 4, 1961, p. 13687. See also Marquis Childs,
_Congressional Record_, July 26, 1961, p. 12618.
[22] _Arkansas Gazette_, July 21, 1961, p. 1. See also Marquis Childs,
“Birchites Finding Allies in Military,” _Congressional Record_, July
14, 1961, pp. 11659-11660.
[23] _Congressional Record_, July 26, 1961, p. 12621. col. 3,t.; July
29, 1961, p. 13005, col. 1,m.; p. 13005, col. 3,m.
[24] _Congressional Record_, March 28, 1960, p. 6207, col. 2,m.
[25] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13398.
[26] _Congressional Record_, p. 13436.
Chapter III
THE EFFECT OF THE MEMORANDUM
Senator Fulbright, when he inserted the memorandum into the
_Congressional Record_, said it was based on the principle of military
subordination to civilian control, and that it was not the function of
the military to educate the public on political issues.[27] The Senator
further said: “The memorandum was directed solely at the impropriety
of officers of the armed services lending their prestige and official
status to meetings which tend to undermine policies of the civil
government of the United States, as set forth by the President and the
Congress.”[28]
“The sole objective of my recommendation was to insure that high
military personnel adhere to the obligation, which is inherent in their
duty as officers to refrain from public expressions of opposition to
the policies of the Government and of their Commander-in-Chief.”[29]
We are not impugning the motives of Senator Fulbright when we say that
a study of the memorandum reveals that its effect was to challenge
the National Security Council directive of 1958. This directive did
not deny the principle of civilian control; in fact, because of
its subordination to President Eisenhower the military obeyed the
directive. Furthermore, the directive did not call for the military
to educate the public on political issues in the sense of partisan
politics. In the memorandum Senator Fulbright himself said: “Under a
National Security Council directive in 1958, it remains the policy of
the U. S. Government to make use of military personnel and facilities
to arouse the public to the menace of the cold war.”[30]
“The purpose of this memorandum is to give some indication of the
dangers involved in education and propaganda activities by the
military, directed at the public, and to suggest steps for dealing with
the underlying problem.”[31]
“There is little in the education, training or experience of most
military officers to equip them with the balance of judgment necessary
to put their own ultimate solutions—those with which their education,
training and experience are concerned—into proper perspective in the
President’s total ‘strategy for the nuclear age’.”[32]
Under “Recommendations” we find:
“1. With reference to the National Security Council directive of 1958,
suggested revision is based upon its description in attachment 3 (New
York Times article of June 18, 1961), from which the following is
excerpted: ‘President Eisenhower and his top policy leaders decreed
that the cold war could not be fought as a series of separate and
often unrelated actions, as with foreign aid and propaganda’. Rather,
it must be fought with a concentration of all the resources of the
Government and with the full understanding and support of the civilian
population. It was decided, in particular, that the military should be
used to reinforce the cold-war effort.”
“This policy should be reconsidered from the standpoint of a basic
error, that military personnel have the necessarily broad background
which would enable them to relate the various aspects of the cold-war
effort, one to the other.”[33]
The memorandum indicates that it is convinced that the National
Security Council directive, and its implementation, could be attacked
from several grounds, including an assumed violation of the “basic
traditional and constitutional question of military efforts to
propagandize the public....” As it went on to say: “the violation of
these concepts alone should be sufficient basis for challenging the
National Security Council policy, and its implementation.”[34]
This also helps make it certain that the memorandum was not directed
simply against certain mistakes in the implementation of the policy,
but against the policy itself. In addition to saying that the military
is _not qualified_ to engage in the cold war, the Senator claims that
it is _forbidden on constitutional grounds_.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13436, col. 2,m.
Civilian control is not controversial. In his May 12, 1962 speech
to the West Point Cadets, General Douglas MacArthur emphasized that
political problems were “not for your professional participation or
military solution.” _Congressional Record_, May 31, 1962, p. A4009,
col. 1,t.
Admiral Arleigh A. Burke testified: “No mature U.S. military officer
I know of has ever questioned it. Indeed, it is a sacred part of our
military tradition itself. If a military man cannot reconcile his
convictions with his civilian superior’s orders, he has only the
recourse of leaving the service.”
“But the principle of civilian control can be perverted. Civilian
control of the military is properly exerted by the President, the
Secretary of Defense, and the secretaries of the individual military
departments over the military services, within the guidelines laid down
by Congress. The senior civilians in the Government have the final
decision on all problems affecting the military posture of the United
States. This is proper and correct.”
“In my opinion, it is improper that civilian control should be
exercised in any other echelon but at the top. It should not be
extended to every subordinate military echelon. To be specific, orders
and directives to the military should come from the top civilian
elements to the senior military people. They should not come from
junior civilian elements to junior military people.” (Military Cold War
Education and Speech Review Policies, Part 1, pp. 21-22).
General MacArthur further said: “While for the purpose of
administration and command the Armed forces are within the executive
branch of the Government, they are accountable as well to the
Congress, charged with the policymaking responsibility, and to the
people, ultimate repository of all national power. Yet so inordinate
has been the application of the Executive power that members of the
armed services have been subjected to the most arbitrary and ruthless
treatment for daring to speak the truth in accordance with conviction
and conscience.” (as quoted by General Edward M. Almond, _Ibid._, Part
2, p. 714.)
[28] “Statement of Senator J. W. Fulbright Relating to a Memorandum
Submitted by Him to the Department of Defense,” p. 3.
[29] _Ibid._, page 4.
[30] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13436, col. 3,b.
[31] _Ibid._, p. 13437, col. 1,t.
[32] _Ibid._, p. 13437, col. 1,b.
[33] _Ibid._, p. 13437, col. 3,t.
[34] _Ibid._, p. 13437, col. 2,b.
Chapter IV
WHO IS ATTACKED IN THE MEMORANDUM?
Senator Fulbright’s memorandum attacked a wide variety of Americans, as
well as the American people as a whole.
_President Eisenhower_
In challenging the directive of the National Security Council, Senator
Fulbright was saying that in spite of his military background President
Eisenhower did not know enough to realize that the military was not
qualified to engage in the cold war. Senator Fulbright, however, was
qualified—he thought—to judge that the military was not qualified.
Furthermore, when Senator Fulbright said that such participation was
contrary to certain constitutional values, he was saying that either
President Eisenhower did not understand these values or that he chose
to disregard them.
_The Military_
Senator Fulbright’s memorandum was an attack on the competency of
the military to engage in the cold war. Concerning the policy of
the National Security Council, which put the military into the cold
war, the memorandum said: “This policy should be reconsidered from
the standpoint of a basic error, that military personnel have the
necessarily broad background which would enable them to relate the
various aspects of the cold-war effort, one to the other.”[35]
It was also stated: “There is little in the education, training or
experience of most military officers to equip them with the balance
of judgment necessary to put their own ultimate solutions—those with
which their education, training and experience are concerned—into
proper perspective in the President’s total ‘strategy for the nuclear
age’.”[36]
Furthermore, the Senator said: “There are no reasons to believe that
military personnel generally can contribute to this need, beyond their
specific, technical competence to explain their own role. On the
contrary, there are many reasons, and some evidence, for believing
that an effort by the military, beyond this limitation, involves
considerable danger.”[37]
Whence did the Senator get his competency in the field of the cold war?
Whence his qualifications as a cold war strategist so that he knows
that we have much to lose and nothing to gain by having the military
in the cold war? How did he become qualified to advise in effect the
neutralization, in so far as the public is involved, of the military in
the cold war?
Are there any military officials more competent than the Senator is
in any phase of the cold war? If so, why not let military experts on
Communism be used to help us win the victory in the cold war?
Senator Fulbright’s position, that military officials are not
sufficiently educated to engage in the cold war, is an indictment of
the armed services colleges where these officers have been trained.
Many of the officers have one or more degrees. Many of them have
travelled extensively and some of them are proficient in more than one
language.
Senator Styles Bridges expressed his shock at Senator Fulbright’s
evaluation of the military. “I assume, and it is an assumption which I
believe to be valid, that our senior military officers, particularly
those of flag and general officer rank, are persons of judgment and
responsibility. Most of these officers are graduates of our Military
Academies, and all of them have many years of experience in leadership,
many of them are held directly responsible for the welfare and lives
of large segments of our military forces, and many of them are held
directly chargeable with the care, custody and protection of millions
of dollars worth of property belonging to the U. S. Government. The
appointment of each of them to a position of high rank was made as
an expression of trust and confidence by the President and with the
concurrence of the U. S. Senate.”[38] After discussing the education of
most of the Army officers, Major John A. Burns wrote: “It is doubtful
if any professional group is so rigorously trained and educated as the
American officer.”[39]
The Senator recognizes, as do the rest of us, that the United States
is confronted by a situation which it has never before faced. The
memorandum indicates that it is not in the American tradition to be
involved in the “long twilight struggle” which we are now involved in;
but we are so involved.[40]
That we are in an unprecedented situation in the history of America,
is underscored by the fact that on December 16, 1950, President Truman
declared, in Proclamation 2914, that we are in a state of national
emergency because of Communist imperialism. Events since that time
have only further emphasized that we are in a state of national
emergency.[41]
It is not contrary to our tradition for the military to go into action
when war comes. War has come.
W. D. Workman wrote: “If warfare today were confined to the
battlefield, and if the battlefield alone were the concern of the
military, there might be some justification for buttoning the lips
of our senior officers. But warfare now is fourth dimensional,
encompassing politics, culture, economics and all other institutions
which lend themselves to internal subversion as well as external
manipulation.”[42]
_The Military Oath_
Military men have taken an oath to defend the United States against
enemies both domestic and foreign. This oath calls on them to defend
the country against _domestic_ enemies as well as foreign enemies. Why,
then, does Senator Fulbright take a position which in effect keeps the
military men from carrying out their oath against such a domestic enemy
as the Communist conspiracy in America?
It is in the light of their oath, and of the threat of internal and
external communism, that we can fully understand Resolution 99 of the
American Legion convention in Denver. It states: “Whereas the morale
and fighting spirit of our Armed Forces is directly related to their
knowledge and their belief in the fundamental principles upon which
the Government of their homeland is founded and to their knowledge and
understanding of the aims and purposes of the enemy; and
“Whereas the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and author
of ‘Masters of Deceit’, a most knowledgeable work on communism, has
stated and warned, ‘We cannot hope to successfully meet the Communist
menace unless there is a wide knowledge and understanding of its aims
and designs’, and
“Whereas, Lenin, the real architect of communism, proclaimed, ‘It is
inconceivable that communism and democracy can exist side by side in
this world.’ Lenin said inevitably we must perish; and
“Whereas this doctrine has been iterated and reiterated many times by
his successors, and their actions have consistently been in conformity
therewith; and
“Whereas the military officers of the U. S. Armed Forces are charged
under oath with the duty to defend our country from all enemies foreign
and domestic and that to accomplish fealty to this oath, the military
leaders must know the enemy—his aims and purposes in order to instruct
the men under their command, fortify their morale, and so defend our
homeland against the enemy; and
“Whereas this right and duty of the military officers of the U. S.
Armed Forces has recently been challenged publicly by certain officials
in high places in Government: Now, therefore, be it
“_Resolved_, That the American Legion in convention assembled in
Denver, Colo., September 9 through 14, 1961, urge the officers of the
U. S. Armed Forces to continue to perform their duty to defend the
Constitution of the United States, that they better inform themselves
regarding the fundamental principles of our form of government
exemplified by our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, that
they transmit and impart this knowledge to the Armed Forces under their
command and to the general public, that the officers of our Armed
Forces familiarize themselves with the aims and purposes of the known
enemy, that they earnestly and patriotically strive at all times to
impart this knowledge to the men under their command and to the general
public to the end that the morale and fighting spirit of our Armed
Forces be kept at all times at the highest possible level. We further
urge that the challenge of certain Government officials in high places
to the established rights and duties of the officers of our Armed
Forces be removed and that they be left unshackled and unhampered in
the discharge of their duties to the above end.”[43]
Does the Senator think that the only way that the military can live
up to its oath is by bullets in a hot war, and not also by words in a
cold war? The oath does not say that the defense of the United States
is limited to defense by bullets. To uphold the United States includes
upholding it by word also. Or does the Senator, with his attitude
toward at least some aspects of our constitutional system, think that
if one upholds the Constitution by the teaching method that he is
engaging in partisan politics?
If it is not a violation of their oath to defend the Constitution by
words against the domestic enemy communism, if they can in harmony with
their oath expose and oppose the domestic enemy communism, then why not
let them participate in the cold war?
Is not the memorandum, in effect, a demand that the military not carry
out their oath in so far as domestic Communists are concerned, which
domestic Communists are a part of the international communist threat?
The Senator in effect wants the military eliminated from the cold war.
As Senator Curtis, from Nebraska, said: “If this paper were devoted
to errors of judgment or fact—which are going to creep into any
program—everybody should consider those errors so that they might not
be repeated or that they might be corrected. But the purport of this
memorandum is plain—it is a pronouncement that the military should not
alert the citizens of the internal Communist threat. I am afraid it
serves interests that were never intended to be served by whoever had
the responsibility of putting the memorandum together.”[44]
We would add the observation that there is no indication that Senator
Fulbright in the memorandum proposed that the military officials
should alert even their own troops to the menace and nature of the
cold war except possibly later when some of them have been educated
by civilians. And even then he says it should be done under civilian
direction as far as possible.
The Senator does not seem to want the military to have the right to
speak out against internal communism, or to inform the public of the
dangers which threaten us or to show how the Communists operate.
We are confident that, regardless of the Senator’s motives, Khrushchev
must be pleased with the idea of the military being so neutralized in
the cold war. Since the cold war is the major war which Khrushchev and
world communism are now waging against us, Khrushchev must consider it
to be a real victory for his side to have the military forces knocked
out of the cold war to the extent that the memorandum knocked the
military out of the cold war.
We would have little or no hope for the survival of our country if the
military did not have greater confidence in America than the Senator
seems to have in the military. Indeed, the Senator himself once said:
“If we lose faith in the integrity of our military men, in addition
to the criticism which has been heaped upon the leadership in the
political field, we certainly are in a sad state.”[45]
We are afraid that under the influence of Senator Fulbright’s
memorandum concerning the military, and the increased power which the
Secretary of Defense is wielding over the statements of the military,
that a situation is developing which a few years ago the Senator
himself thought would be a serious condition indeed. Senator Taft had
criticized the Chiefs of Staff because he thought that they were but
rubber stamps for the administration. Taft said: “I accepted them as
experts; but I have come to the point where I do not accept them as
experts, particularly when General Bradley makes a foreign policy
speech. I suggest to the Senator that the Joint Chiefs of Staff are
absolutely under the control of the administration, and that their
recommendations are what the administration demands that they make.
“_Mr. Fulbright._ Mr. President, I think that is a very serious charge
which is made by the Senator from Ohio. I can think of nothing which is
more likely to cause consternation in this country, to develop a fear
which I believe the facts do not warrant, and generally to disrupt our
effort in this great struggle with the Russians and with communism,
than to state here that in effect he has no confidence in the integrity
of the leading military figures in our Government. I think it is a
very sad state in which we find ourselves if we are led to such extreme
views.”[46] Yet in 1960, Senator Fulbright praised an article which
said, among other things, that in President Eisenhower’s administration
“uniformity of viewpoint is virtually enforced.”[47]
If the military is not permitted to speak out on the issues of the cold
war, if they must silently wait until the time comes for them to rubber
stamp whatever program the President finally comes up with, one would
have the situation which Taft had in mind, i.e. they would recommend
whatever the administration demanded. And this they would do without
having had the opportunity to have participated in public discussions
before the program was arrived at.
_General MacArthur Attacked_
The Senator smeared one of the greatest generals in the history of
America, and included him as a sample of the attitude of rightwing
extremism. Of MacArthur, who was born in Arkansas, the Senator said:
“Pride in victory, and frustration in restraint, during the Korean war,
led to MacArthur’s revolt and McCarthyism.”[48]
Surely the Senator must have at least hesitated before impugning the
motives of General MacArthur. Although it would be a good thing for us
to win the victory over communism, pride in victory is not the motive.
The important things are for what one is fighting and against what
one is fighting. The desire to win victory over communism is highly
commendable. Was the General motivated by pride in victory or by love
of country, love of freedom and by opposition to this tremendous evil
which would enslave mankind? In our opinion, the Senator’s evaluation
of the General is a reflection on the Senator instead of on the
General. We do not believe that the General’s long life of service to
his country gives us any reason for believing that “pride in victory”
is a correct analysis. The Senator was judging motives.
In another place, the Senator has said: “This technique of questioning
the motives of the opposition instead of arguing about the wisdom of
their views is one of the oldest and most effective tools of tyrants or
demagogues.” He went on to say that one could question his judgment and
intellect, but “I do object to their questioning my motives or purposes
or loyalty.”[49] And yet, the Senator questioned the motives of the
General and said that the General acted out of “pride in victory.”
As for the General being frustrated under restraint, it likely would
have been frustrating to any soldier to have been ordered into a
war in which the main enemy—the Chinese Communists—was permitted a
privileged sanctuary beyond the Yalu River. Furthermore, it was a war
which the General was not permitted to try to win. Would the Senator be
frustrated if he was ordered into a political campaign which he would
not be permitted—by those who ordered him into it—to win? How much
more so when one wanted to win against communism and for the cause of
freedom.
The term “McCarthyism” is used as a smear word, and by thus equating
“MacArthur’s revolt” and “McCarthyism” was the Senator unconscious of
the fact that in the minds of some a bit, at least, of the smear would
rub off on the General?
We contrast the Senator’s views of MacArthur with that of General
Carlos P. Romulo, the Ambassador to the United States from the
Philippines.
“Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s sentimental journey to the Philippines has a
fourfold significance:
“1. At a time when Soviet propaganda is sparing no effort to
distort America’s image in the eyes of the peoples of Asia, General
MacArthur’s personality emerges as a living refutation of Communist
misrepresentations. Received by an Asian people with open arms and
given a reception that in warmth and magnitude is unprecedented in that
section of the globe, the American people should be proud that they
have one of their own who can draw to his person and to his country
such universal popular acclaim and admiration.”[50]
MacArthur’s wisdom concerning China, in contract with the illusions of
the civilian authorities who then formed policy, is illustrated in his
cable to the House Foreign Affairs Committee around the early part of
1948.
“The international aspect of the Chinese problem, unfortunately, has
become somewhat beclouded by demands for internal reform. Desirable
as such reform may be, its importance is but secondary to the issue
of civil strife now engulfing the land, and these two issues are as
impossible of synchronization as it would be to alter the structural
design of a house while the same was being consumed by flame. The
maintenance of China’s integrity against destructive forces which
threaten her engulfment is of infinitely more concern. For with the
firm maintenance of such integrity, reform will gradually take place in
the evolutionary processes of China’s future.
“The Chinese problem is part of a global situation which should be
considered in its entirely. Fragmentary decisions in disconnected
sectors of the world will not bring an integrated solution. It would be
utterly fallacious to underrate either China’s needs or her importance.
For if we embark upon a general policy to bulwark the frontiers of
freedom against the assaults of political despotism, one major frontier
is no less important than another, and a decisive breach of any will
inevitably engulf all.”[51]
When he was a Congressman, President Kennedy also spoke of some of
the illusions of civilian authorities concerning China. “Mr. Speaker,
over this week end we have learned the extent of the disaster that
has befallen China and the United States. The responsibility for the
failure of our foreign policy in the Far East rests squarely with the
White House and the Department of State.
“The continued insistence that aid would not be forthcoming, unless a
coalition government with the Communists was formed, was a crippling
blow to the National Government.
“So concerned were our diplomats and their advisers, the Lattimores and
the Fairbanks, with the imperfection of the domestic system in China
after 20 years of war and the tales of corruption in high places that
they lost sight of our tremendous stake in a non-Communist China.
“Our policy in the words of the Premier of the National Government, Sun
Fo, of vacillation, uncertainty, and confusion has reaped the whirlwind.
“This House must now assume the responsibility of preventing the
onrushing tide of communism from engulfing all of Asia.”[52]
We wonder whether or not Senator Fulbright would have lectured this
Congressman on the need to support the President’s total program, that
criticism of this nature divides the country, that this is extremely
radical rightwingism, etc.!!
We are glad that President Kennedy’s visits with General MacArthur
indicate that he has a higher regard for the General than does
Senator Fulbright. The Senator’s opinion of General MacArthur is
also in contrast with that of the House of Representatives in their
resolution in which the _Senate_ also concurred. “_Resolved by the
House of Representatives_ (_the Senate concurring_), That the thanks
and appreciation of the Congress and the American people are hereby
tendered to General of the Army Douglas MacArthur in recognition of his
outstanding devotion to the American people, his brilliant leadership
during and following World War II, and the unsurpassed affection held
for him by the people of the Republic of the Philippines which has done
so much to strengthen the ties of friendship between the people of that
nation and the people of the United States.”[53]
_The American People Attacked_
Senator Fulbright not only indicted General MacArthur, but also the
American people. Thus we read: “The American people have never really
been tested in such a struggle. In the long run, it is quite possible
that the principle problem of leadership will be, if it is not already,
to restrain the desire of the people to hit the Communists with
everything we’ve got, particularly if there are more Cubas and Laos.
Pride in victory, and frustration in restraint, during the Korean war,
led to MacArthur’s revolt and McCarthyism.”[54]
Is the Senator saying that the American people may revolt if they are
restrained so much that they are not permitted, as MacArthur was not
permitted, to win the struggle in which the Communists have engaged us?
This, incidentally, is the first time that we have known that the
Senator had such a charitable interpretation of McCarthyism. In effect
the memorandum is saying that the American people want to win the
victory over communism in the struggle which is now going on in the
world; and that when they are restrained and kept from this victory,
McCarthyism is the result. McCarthyism, according to this, is the
desire to break down the restraints which keep us from winning, and the
desire to go on to win the victory over the evil forces of communism.
This, in effect, is what the Senator said.
The American people will doubtless weigh well the Senator’s implication
that they possess the two essential ingredients which, according to
the Senator lead to McCarthyism. These two are: Pride in victory and
frustration in restraint. In other words, the Senator believes that
we are all potential or incipient McCarthyites. There is no reason to
assume that the Senator meant this in any complimentary way.
_Dr. Benson_[55]
Senator Fulbright included Dr. George S. Benson, Arkansan of the Year
for 1953-1954, President of Harding College and President of the
National Education Program, as one of the extremely radical rightwing
speakers. Dr. Benson believes in and advocates the religious and moral
principles on which this country was founded; constitutional and
thus limited government; citizenship responsibility; free enterprise
and freedom. He is against both the internal and external threat of
communism, which are two aspects of the same threat—international
communism.
Does adherence to the traditional values on which America has been
built, and which has made America great, make one an extremely radical
rightwinger? If it does, what does Senator Fulbright’s classification
of Dr. Benson reveal about Senator Fulbright’s stand? Is the Senator so
far away from the positions that Dr. Benson advocates that the Senator
thinks that Dr. Benson is an extremely radical rightwinger?
It would be educational for all concerned if Senator Fulbright would
make an attempt to sustain his charge against Dr. Benson by listing,
with documentation from Dr. Benson’s writings and speeches, those
positions which the Senator believes prove that Dr. Benson is an
extremely radical rightwing speaker. Assertions are not sufficient. The
Senator’s charges, where the Senator has much influence, are damaging
to Dr. Benson’s work for free enterprise and against communism. They
should either be sustained or the Senator should withdraw them publicly.
_Dr. Clifton L. Ganus, Jr._
In his secret memorandum Senator Fulbright passed on, without checking
with Dr. Ganus, a misrepresentation of Dr. Ganus. Senator Fulbright’s
memorandum said: “An Arkansas citizen wrote of the Fort Smith meeting:
‘Dr. Clifton L. Ganus, Jr., vice president and dean of the School
of American Studies at Harding College, made the statement “your
Representative (James W. Trimble) in this area has voted 89 percent of
the time to aid and abet the Communist Party”’.”[56]
Dr. Ganus did not make this statement.[57] If he had made such a
startling statement, surely it would have been picked up by the
newspapers at that time and reported. However, as far as we know even
the _Arkansas Gazette_ did not refer to it until months later. This was
after it had been published in the _Reporter_ magazine—which magazine
presented this false accusation without any effort to check it with Dr.
Ganus. As far as I know, the first time this false accusation appeared
in print was in the July 20, 1961 issue of the _Reporter_, which was
published at least a week earlier than July 20.[58]
It is also instructive that Perry Mason of Harding Academy spoke in
Fort Smith several times, and to some of the same people, a few days
after Dr. Ganus spoke. Although he received some questions concerning
some points made in Dr. Ganus’ speech, no one either publicly or
privately said anything about the statement later attributed to Dr.
Ganus.
If Dr. Ganus had made such a preposterous statement, surely someone
would have defended their Congressman right then and there.
Furthermore, several people have made out affidavits, and have
testified that they were there and that Dr. Ganus did not make the
statement attributed to him.[59]
_Harding College_
Because it has won for ten straight years the highest award of Freedoms
Foundation At Valley Forge, Harding College, a fully accredited
educational institution, has been known as the nation’s most honored
college. Freedoms Foundation has honored Harding College as the
nation’s No. 1 school in promoting the American way of life. On
February 9, 1962, the All-American Conference to Combat Communism, made
up of organizations whose combined membership is well over 50,000,000,
gave Harding College a citation.
The socialists have felt the impact of the College in its stand for
the traditional free enterprise system in America. This helps explain
the attack of Norman Thomas, the leading socialist in America, on the
College early in 1961.
The Communists have recognized that the College is a bulwark against
their designs on America, and thus they have attacked Harding College
and have falsely accused it of being “one of the biggest political
machines of the ultra-Right.”[60] This attack by the Communists is
in reality a tribute to Harding College. The Communists know who is
hurting them.
However, it must come as something of a shock that Senator Fulbright
from the State of Arkansas, should also attack Harding College as
a source of extremely radical rightwing teaching. And yet, this is
the label under which he secretly represented Harding College to the
President of the United States and to the Secretary of Defense.[61]
Harding College, located in the Senator’s home state, was the only
college attacked in the memorandum.
_Chamber of Commerce_
Senator Fulbright’s memorandum regarded the Strategy for Survival
Conferences as dominated by the extremely rightwing speakers.[62] The
Chamber of Commerce had sponsored this Conference. Thus the Chamber
of Commerce was involved in extreme rightwingism! It is of interest
that the Chamber of Commerce had tried to get Senator Fulbright, but
he was out of the country; and then Senator McClellan, and he was also
unavailable. It was then that they got Dr. Ganus.[63]
The memorandum also stated that General William C. Bullock had
personally persuaded the Chamber of Commerce to sponsor the Conference
in Little Rock. Peyton Rice, who is chairman of the Chamber’s Armed
Services Committee, said that General Bullock had not presented the
proposal to the Chamber.[64]
_House Committee_
The House Committee on Un-American Activities has not been perfect,
but neither has any other Committee. However, on the whole it has done
splendid work investigating and exposing the Communist conspiracy. If
Senator Fulbright had listened to the evidence presented in just the
1938 hearings of the Committee, he would have learned much truth about
communism. He would not have said in 1945 that “our fear of Russia
and communism” is a “powerful prejudice” which we must give up in
order to have peace. He would not have misread history and concluded
that Lenin’s revolution was in any sense a following of our example
in the revolution which we fought for our independence. The Senator
also said: “As I read history, the Russian experiment in socialism is
scarcely more radical, under modern conditions, than the Declaration
of Independence was in the days of George III.”[65] This sounds
somewhat like the statement of Earl Browder when he was head of the
Communist Party in America. “The Declaration of Independence was for
that time what _The Communist Manifesto_ is for ours.”[66] Lenin in his
resolution was basically following the _Communist Manifesto_.
As a Rhodes scholar, Senator Fulbright should have been able to read
_history_, instead of accepting such an obviously false view of
history. Senator Fulbright seems to have known either little or nothing
about Lenin’s revolution, or little or nothing about our revolution.
The kindest thing we can say about the Senator is that he was seemingly
ignorant of some very fundamental matters.
What are some of the differences between Lenin’s revolution and ours?
(1) Our revolution had as its objective the establishment of a reign of
law, but Lenin’s revolution was designed to establish the rule of the
head of the Communist Party who would rule according to his own will.
(2) Our revolution established a Republic, while Lenin’s established a
dictatorship. (3) Our revolution did not result in a reign of terror of
Americans over Americans, but Lenin’s revolution did establish a reign
of terror. (4) Our revolution did not have as its aim the establishment
of a world wide conspiracy which would endeavor to overthrow all other
governments—democratic governments as well as dictatorships. (5) Our
revolution was not a counter-revolution against self-government. Lenin
did not overthrow the Czar, he overthrew the Kerensky Government which
was endeavoring to establish a form of democracy. Lenin was not even
in Russia at the time the Czar abdicated. (6) Our revolution was over
in a very few years, in so far as establishing our form of government
is concerned. How long does it take to overthrow the previous regime?
As Kravchenko said “The French Terror was over in five years.”[67]
By 1945, when Senator Fulbright made his statement concerning Lenin’s
revolution, the Soviet terror had been going on for almost thirty
years. (7) The Communist revolution was not just a revolution in
government. It was a revolt against God, religion, morals and humanity.
Its aim has been, and is, to create a godless society and the new
Soviet man.
All of these things could have been known by Senator Fulbright in 1945
and long before. Communist books and actions had made abundantly clear
the nature of their revolution. Only a “powerful prejudice” could keep
a reader of their history from knowing the nature of Lenin’s revolution.
Also in 1945 the Senator was seemingly so misinformed about Communism
that he said: “I do not believe the Soviets desire to dominate the
world as the Germans did.”[68] Before Hitler came to power the Soviets
made clear their desire to rule the world. And their actions showed
that they meant it. The House Committee had pointed this out. So had
many individuals.
Senator Fulbright’s “powerful prejudice,” or whatever it was, against
the House Committee, however, is such that he objected because in one
of the meetings mentioned in the memorandum, someone defended the
House Committee.[69] Such a defense could hardly be called a matter
of partisan politics, since the House has supported the Committee
for years, and in 1961 the vote to give the Committee its full
appropriation was passed 412 to 6.[70]
“_Operation Abolition_”
The memorandum classified “Operation Abolition” as objectionable
material. Did the Senator want to censor this film? Is he a “film
burner”? Does he think that J. Edgar Hoover and the House Committee
were wrong in saying that the San Francisco riots were Communist
inspired, and that most of the young people were duped?[71]
_Herbert A. Philbrick_
Herbert A. Philbrick, of “I Led Three Lives” fame, was smeared by
Senator Fulbright as being an extremely radical rightwing speaker.[72]
Philbrick spent nine years as a counterspy for the FBI and for America.
He was commended by J. Edgar Hoover.[73] Philbrick has continued to
fight Communism. He has sacrificed much to do so. The Communists
have smeared him. And Senator Fulbright, without giving one shred of
documentation, smeared Philbrick. The Senator must be very, very far
to the left of Mr. Philbrick if from where the Senator is standing,
Philbrick looks to him like an extremely radical rightwinger.
_Dr. Fred Schwarz_
Billy Graham found good reason to commend the anti-communist work of
Dr. Fred Schwarz,[74] and _Life_ Magazine in an unprecedented action on
Oct. 17, 1961, apologized to Dr. Schwarz for their misinterpretation
of him and his work.[75] But Senator Fulbright has never apologized
for accusing, without giving one bit of proof, Dr. Schwarz of being
an extremely radical rightwinger. The Senator made this charge in his
secret memorandum, and without giving Dr. Schwarz an opportunity to
answer the accusation. Did the Senator wish to remain a “faceless”
accuser?
_Dr. Frank Barnett_
Dr. Frank Barnett, who was criticized more than once in the
memorandum,[76] has been commended by Secretary of Defense McNamara in
September, 1961 for an “excellent speech”[77] which contained some of
the ideas which Fulbright’s memorandum condemns.[78]
_The Institute for American Strategy_
As late as April 10, 1961, a National Military-Industrial Conference
sponsored by the Institute was commended by President Kennedy.[79]
These Conferences were criticized in the memorandum.[80]
_American Strategy for the Nuclear Age_
The Institute for American Strategy sponsored a book which was
prepared by the Foreign Policy Research Institute of the University of
Pennsylvania. This book is called _American Strategy for the Nuclear
Age_. The memorandum criticized this book and said that “its total
effect can be said to be contrary to the President’s program.”[81] The
book, among other things, brings out that the communists are at war
with us on many different levels, and that we ought to fight back and
win. Is this against the President’s program?
Among the contributors to the book are: J. Edgar Hoover, Hanson W.
Baldwin, Henry A. Kissinger, Lieut. General Arthur G. Trudeau, Walt W.
Rostow, Dean Acheson and David Sarnoff.
_233 Talks_
One Captain was mentioned in the memorandum as having given 233 talks
to civilians on the “dangers of internal communism.” As I do not know
what the Captain said, I do not know to what extent I would agree or
disagree with him. But the fact that he gave 233 talks is not within
itself a criticism. In fact, it shows that he was very zealous in
carrying out his oath to defend America against domestic enemies.
The Senator made at least seventy-five talks in Arkansas in the fall
of 1961, in the interest of _his_ re-election to office.[82] Doubtless
he will make other such talks. A man who is that zealous in behalf of
his own re-election to office ought not to be critical of a Captain for
making so many speeches for America and against the internal enemy—who
is also an external enemy—communism.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 3,t.
[36] _Ibid._, p. 13437, col. 1,b. President Eisenhower said:
“Accordingly, should departmental instructions be so phrased as unduly
to prohibit desirable military participation in these educational
efforts respecting the Communist menace, I suggest that your committee
recommend their restudy with view to appropriate revision. The Reds are
well aware of the integrity, patriotic motives, and high qualifications
of our military. I suspect they would be delighted if we should prevent
such people from spreading the truth about Communist imperialism.
“Pertaining at least indirectly to this subject, I have heard of
accusations alleging that military education is so narrow as to make
service personnel incapable of grasping the whole complex of dangers
confronting our country. It is hinted that the entire officer corps
has become politically infected, and prone to be disloyal to the
Commander in Chief. I, for one, want to be on record as expressing my
indestructible faith and pride in our armed services—even though their
loyalty, patriotism, and breadth of understanding needs no defense from
me or anyone else” (_Military Cold War Education and Speech Review
Policies_, Part 1, p. 7.)
“I believe, therefore, that your committee will render valuable service
by rejecting the recent spate of attacks upon the competence and
loyalty of the military and by disapproving any effort to thrust them,
so to speak, behind an American iron curtain, ordered to stand mutely
by as hostile forces tirelessly strive to undermine every aspect of
American life.” (_ibid._, p. 7).
Admiral Arthur W. Radford also thought that the military ought to
be used in the cold war. He further emphasized that attacks on the
military could hurt morale and that it was the duty of civilian
authorities to defend the military against “unwarranted and unjust
civilian attacks” (_ibid._, part 2, pp. 707-708).
[37] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 3,t.
[38] _Congressional Record_, August 3, 1961, p. 13517, col. 2,m.
[39] Quoted in _Human Events_, 1961, p. 867. Lt. Gen. Edward M.
Almond wrote: “Fulbright’s thesis ignores the fact that last year
there were 1,521 officers of the armed services engaged in studies at
civilian institutions of higher learning which dealt with educational,
scientific, economic, and political subjects; these all have a
relation to national strategy. In addition to this number there are
some 2,918 other officers engaged in special studies in languages,
medical sciences, engineering sciences and management courses. This
thesis in the Fulbright memorandum further ignores the fact that
each year some 500 officers of senior grade attend the service war
colleges and universities where they study the very topic that the
nuclear age demands solution of. This topic is studied intensively.
Furthermore, the Fulbright thesis ignores the fact that nowhere is
there such an intensive study made to prepare any politician (before or
after his election to office) for the task ‘to put their own ultimate
solutions into proper perspective in the President’s total strategy
for the nuclear age.’” (_Military Cold War Education and Speech Review
Policies_, Part 2, p. 714.)
[40] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 2,b.
[41] Quoted in the _Congressional Record_, June 12, 1961, p. 9404, col.
2,m.
[42] Reprinted from the July 24, 1961 issue of the _News and Courier_,
Charleston, S. C., _Congressional Record_, July 31, 1961, p. 13177,
col. 3,b.
[43] _Congressional Record_, September 15, 1961, p. 18455, col.
2,b.-3,t.
[44] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13402, col. 1,b.-2,t.
[45] _Congressional Record_, April 26, 1951, p. 4402, col. 2,m.
[46] _Ibid._, p. 4402, col. 2,t.
[47] _Ibid._, February 8, 1960, p. 1978, col. 3,b.
[48] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 2,t.
[49] Speech before the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce, Little Rock, Nov.
8, 1961. _Arkansas Gazette_, Nov. 9, 1961, p. 2A.
[50] _Congressional Record_, July 27, 1961, p. A5795, col. 1-2. Japan’s
view of MacArthur is illustrated in the fact that Japan gave him their
“highest decoration for foreigners,” _Congressional Record_, June 25,
1960, p. A5518, col. 2,b.
[51] Quoted in the _Congressional Record_, August 19, 1949, p. A5439.
[52] _Congressional Record_, January 25, 1949, pp. 532-533.
[53] As quoted in the _Congressional Record_, August 8, 1962, p.
A6084, col. 1,t. See Speaker McCormack’s tribute in the _Congressional
Record_, August 16, 1962, p. A6243. Even the _Arkansas Gazette_ paid
tribute to him. Editorial, August 19, 1962.
[54] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 2,t.
[55] The Fulbright memorandum quoted a statement of Dr. Benson
concerning the John Birch Society. It is important, however, to realize
that this statement was made at a time when Dr. Benson was not aware of
the radical positions which Mr. Robert Welch had taken on some matters.
These radical positions Dr. Benson repudiates. Furthermore, his
commendation was of their stated long-range purpose “to work for less
government, more responsibility and a better world,” and their purpose
to inform citizens concerning communism. Is Senator Fulbright against
these aims?
[56] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13438, col. 1,b.
[57] See his open letter of July 25, 1961 to Congressman Trimble.
[58] _The Reporter_ article has been reprinted in the Senate Internal
Security Subcommittee, _The New Drive Against the Anti-Communist
Program_, pp. 57-63.
[59] _Arkansas Gazette_, December 28, 1961, p. 3A.
[60] Mike Newberry, _The Worker_, August 13, 1961, p. 5, col. 1,m.
[61] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, pp. 13438-13439.
[62] _Ibid._, p. 13438, col. 1,t.
[63] _Arkansas Gazette_, August 6, 1961.
[64] _Arkansas Gazette_, August 6, 1961.
[65] James William Fulbright, “The Price of Peace Is The Loss of
Prejudices”, _Vogue_, July, 1945. Reprinted in Louise E. Rorabacher,
_Assignments in Exposition_. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1946, pp.
197-198.
[66] _What Is Communism?_ pp. 19-20.
[67] _I Chose Justice_, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950, p. 137.
[68] As reprinted in Louise E. Rorabacher, _Assignments in Exposition_,
p. 198.
[69] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, pp. 13438-13439. William
F. Buckley, Jr., has announced the publication of a study of _The
Committee and Its Critics_. “National Review”, 150 E. 35th St., New
York 16, N.Y.
[70] _Ibid_, June 22, 1961, p. A4722.
[71] See J. Edgar Hoover, _Communist Target—Youth_. Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1960. House Committee on Un-American
Activities. _The Truth About the Film “Operation Abolition.”_
Washington: Government Printing Office, 961, parts 1,2.
[72] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13439, col. 1,t.
We wish that the Senator had been well read enough to have known that
a decade ago Mr. Philbrick warned Americans against becoming extremely
radical rightwingers! “The most important single thing is to avoid
behaving the way a Communist says the individual must behave in a
capitalist society. If the Communist had his way, he would force all
non-Communists to the extreme right, toward fascism and state control.”
(_I Led Three Lives_, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1952, p.
300). “If we adhere to our traditional American dream of a society of
freedom, of personal rather than state responsibility, of individual as
well as collective intelligence, and of civil rights rather than rigid
civil controls, then we will have disproved the Communist theory of the
inevitability of capitalist deterioration.” (_ibid._, p. 301).
[73] On the back of the jacket of Mr. Philbrick’s book.
[74] See jacket of Dr. Schwarz’s book _You Can Trust the Communists_,
Englewood, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1960.
[75] _Arkansas Gazette_, October 18, 1961, p. 5A.
[76] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13439, col. 2,t.
_Ibid._ pp. 13436, col. 3,b., 13439-13440.
[77] Committee on Armed Services, _Defense Secretary McNamara on S.
Res. 191_, Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, p. 152.
[78] See the entire speech reprinted in _Defense Secretary McNamara on
S. Res. 191_. pp. 154-162.
[79] Quoted in _Congressional Record_, August 10, 1961, p. 14405, col.
3,t. A copy of the program of that Conference is reprinted beginning on
p. 14405, col. 3,b.
[80] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, pp. 13439-13441.
[81] _Ibid._, p. 13436, col. 3,b.
[82] _Arkansas Gazette_, July 11, 1962.
Chapter V
THE PROTRACTED CONFLICT CONCEPT CRITICIZED
One of the main ideas attacked in the memorandum was the concept of
protracted conflict.[83] This concept, with other materials, was
presented in the handbook entitled _American Strategy for the Nuclear
Age_. The memorandum stated that this handbook contained basic material
for implementing the 1958 directive of the National Security Council.
“Although scholarly, and worth attention as elements of strategy,
its total effect can be said to be contrary to the President’s
program.”[84] What is the concept of protracted conflict?
_Protracted Conflict_
“The West can hope to defeat the Communists only by giving battle on
its own chosen terrain. It must carry the battle to the vital sectors
of Communist defense. To do that it must learn to counter the strategy
of protracted conflict—to manage conflict in space and in time.
“The development of proper Western attitudes toward protracted conflict
will be immensely difficult. The Communists possess a mentality that
is much better suited to protracted and controlled conflict than that
of the Western peoples. The West has neither a doctrine of protracted
conflict nor an international conspiratorial apparatus for executing
it. What is more, we do not want such a doctrine or such a political
apparatus, for it would be a tragic piece of irony if the men of
the Free World, in trying to combat the Communists, should become
like them. Some of our ‘weaknesses’ vis-a-vis the Communists are
irremediable: we cannot turn ourselves into a conflict society, nor can
we assign to the government and, in the last resort, to the police the
discipline of our conscience. It is within these limitations—which are
the ramparts of civilized self-restraint—that we are forced to cope
with Communist perversity.
“Pericles long ago was confronted with a similar problem. As the
leader of the open society of Athens, locked in an irreconcilable
conflict with the garrison state of Sparta, he recognized a relatively
simple fact which many of the theorists of war in the nuclear age have
overlooked, namely, that there are subtle alternatives to the risky and
blunt strategy of engaging the enemy in direct and decisive military
action. In the protracted conflict known as the Peloponnesian War,
Pericles chose to pursue an extended strategy which was designed to
avoid a showdown battle while wearing down, by a campaign of economic,
political, and psychological attrition, the enemy’s will to resist.
Lidell Hart pointed out that the Periclean plan was simply a war policy
aimed at ‘draining the enemy’s endurance in order to convince him that
he could not gain a decision’. In today’s protracted conflict the
United States must maintain and use its power for the same ultimate
purposes: to turn the tide of battle against the Communists, to induce
them to overextend themselves, to exploit the weakness of their system,
to paralyze their will, and to bring about their final collapse. Within
the framework of mutual deterrence, both sides can employ the strategy
of protracted conflict, and we can do so quite effectively without
the dispensation of a jealous and demanding dogma of conflict for
conflict’s sake.
“A psychopolitical offensive, directed against the Communist citadel
itself, offers the West its best chance for winning the battle for its
own survival and for spoiling the Communist strategy for the subversion
of the uncommitted world. Although the currents within the uncommitted
world are running against the West, the West need not despair of
holding its remaining positions once it has forced the Communists on
the psychopolitical defensive by engaging them on the most favorable
terrain, namely, the Communists’ own ‘peace zone’.
“It is rather in the psychological arena than in its technological
workshop that the West has displayed its most alarming shortcomings.
Objectively, Western strategy has been far more effective than the
sensational charges of its critics will have it. It is improbable that
either side from now on will be able to achieve decisive technological
superiority for more than a temporary, even brief, period. No doubt,
our military posture is susceptible to a great deal of improvement. But
an exaggerated zeal for improvement, especially when it is triggered
by pained surprise at the latest ploy of communist psychological
warfare or considerations of domestic advantage, might prove to be
‘counterproductive’ in developing our real range of power. Do not
let us pour the baby out with the bath water. What we need now more
than anything else is an understanding of the comprehensive, complex,
subtle, and consistent strategy of our opponent—and the calm resolution
to draw the practical consequences.”[85]
Now let the reader raise this question. If one is opposed to this
concept of protracted conflict is he not in reality opposed to firm,
unyielding opposition to communism?
_Secretary McNamara Seems to Accept Protracted Conflict_
Secretary of Defense McNamara realizes that if we lose the war with
communism it will be total defeat. He also recognized that the
Communists are out to conquer the world and that there is no indication
that they will change.
This necessitates educating our troops in the nature of Communism as
well as the nature of the freedom which we enjoy. As the Secretary
himself put it: “There is no true historical parallel to the drive
of Soviet Communist imperialism to colonize the world. This is not
the first time that ambitious dictators have sought to dominate the
globe. But none has ever been so well organized, has possessed so many
instruments of destruction, or has been so adept at disguising ignoble
motives and objectives with noble phrases and noble words.
“Furthermore, there is a totality in Soviet aggression which can be
matched only by turning to ancient history when warring tribes sought
not merely conquest but the total obliteration of the enemy.
“Soviet communism does not seek the physical obliteration of a
conquered people, although it would not hesitate to do so, in my
opinion, if this would serve its ends. But it does seek the total
obliteration of their customs, their social structure, their political
structure, their religion and their freedoms. Everything and everybody
must be remolded according to a blueprint laid down by Lenin and
altered only for the purposes of ruthless efficiency by Stalin and the
present-day leaders.
“There is nothing too sacred—friendship, integrity, church or
family—that it escapes the attention of the Soviet Commissar or the
Communist bureaucrat.
“Soviet communism seeks to wipe out the cherished traditions and
institutions of the free world with the same fanaticism that once
impelled winning armies to burn villages and sow the fields with salt
so they would not again become productive.
“To this primitive concept of total obliteration, the Communists have
brought the resources of modern technology and science. The combination
is formidable. Twentieth century knowledge, when robbed of any moral
restraints, is the most dangerous force ever let loose in the world.
And the entire literature of Soviet communism can be searched without
turning up the faintest trace of moral restraint.
“If the free world should lose to communism, the loss would be total,
final, and irrevocable. The citadel of freedom must be preserved
because there is no road back, no road back to freedom for anyone if
the citadel is lost.
“These are not new convictions with me. I have held them for many
years. I was deeply impressed and horrified by the human misery and
destruction that Hitler was able to create. Hitler’s philosophy was
based on the concept of total obliteration and Hitler lost. But the
years since the end of World War II have demonstrated that Soviet
communism is operating from a far stronger position than Hitler ever
held.
“In 1949, 12 years ago, I read an article in Foreign Affairs magazine
which analyzed the writings of Stalin and quoted him at length. It
was clear from these quotes that the Communist world had no intention
of living forever in peace with the world of freedom. One of Stalin’s
favorite quotations from Lenin states this point and, as translated and
published in Foreign Affairs, this is what he said:
‘We live * * * not only in a state but in a system of states, and the
existence of the Soviet Republic side by side with the imperialist
states for a long time is unthinkable. In the end either one or the
other will conquer. And until that end comes, a series of the most
terrible collisions between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois
states is inevitable.’
“It is obvious that the aggressive goals of Soviet communism have not
changed, for Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev, has said that our
grandchildren will live under communism.
“I cite this material because I want you to know the spirit in which
I believe the education program of our Defense Establishment should
be conducted. The threat is clear and it is immediate. Our fighting
men should know the positive values of the freedoms which the Nation
is calling them to defend, and they should know the nature of Soviet
communism which seeks to take them away.
“One of my most vivid recollections is that of a colleague in the Ford
Motor Co. calling me out of my office a few years ago. He asked that
I drop the work in which I was engaged to hear an analysis of the
behavior of U. S. soldiers of war in North Korea, and I heard with
amazement the story of prisoners who had cracked and become informers;
men who had written articles for Communist newspapers; men who had
cooperated with their captors.
“These American soldiers did not understand the Communist threat. They
had not been taught to value the freedom of individual choice, which
is at the basis of our form of society. They had not been taught what
happens when the spirit of individual freedom and free inquiry is lost.”
“I believe we suffered during the Korean war because we did not stress
with sufficient force and vigor the realities of freedom and the threat
of communism.
“As Secretary of Defense, it is my policy that the members of the
Military Establishment be educated in the role that they are playing
in the battle against communism, through knowledge of the strength of
our democracy, as well as the nature of the threat we face. We are
prosecuting a vigorous program and we intend to step it up.”[86]
Is not this analysis, in brief, but a presentation of the concept
of protracted conflict which is advanced by Dr. Barnett, and the
Institute for American Strategy, and which is condemned in the
memorandum?
Since there is a total threat certainly we should meet it on every
level on which it faces us. And yet, according to the article from the
_Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists_, which was the longest reprint
in the memorandum, if we act in the light of the realization of the
nature, tactics and threat of Communism which is outlined by the
Secretary, we shall split the world and be in more serious trouble!
In other words, we must be careful lest we do something to make the
Communists mad! As a matter of fact, their philosophy and ambitions
have made them mad. They are angry unto death with us because we exist
as a free people.
_Senator Fulbright Repudiates Protracted Conflict_
How does the _Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists_ view the possibility
of our waging protracted conflict? The _Bulletin_ and the memorandum
are resolutely opposed to our so doing. The memorandum said that
the handbook—which advances the concept—undermines the President’s
program.[87] The _Bulletin_ said: “The significance of ‘American
Strategy for the Nuclear Age’ lies in its analysis of the international
situation and its appeal for direct action. To a very large extent,
the theme depends on the particular estimate of Soviet intentions that
is presented and the particular prophecy of the Communist future that
is forecast. Several contributions stress the persistency, strength,
and versatility of ideology in the evolution of Soviet communism but
nowhere is there adequate treatment of the forces that limit Soviet
policy, and thus limit the projection of its ideological motivation.
There is ample evidence, for example, of instability in the Soviet
leadership and of ideological differences between the Russians and
their Chinese colleagues. The diverse effect of these forces is
highly problematical, but they do suggest that Communist policy is
far less monolithic than the concept of protracted conflict presumes.
Indeed, like other major powers, the Soviet Union is also limited by
external forces. Within the framework set by the editors of ‘American
Strategy,’ however, any attempt to take advantage of these forces in
order to insulate an area from big power confrontation, or to seek a
resolution of differences on an ad hoc basis of mutual interest, would
be tantamount to appeasement.
“The nonmilitary techniques advocated by Barnett and several other
contributors (such as Strausz-Hupe and William Kintner) clearly
recognize a grave deficiency in American Strategy, but they hardly
cover the full spectrum of alternatives open to the United States.
None of these suggestions includes the full use of either traditional
diplomacy or innovating methods of settling disputes. At the same time,
they contain an element of militancy that raises serious problems,
geared as they are to setting up a savage dichotomy between the
Communist and the Western World, and of making almost every issue a
matter of irreconcilable competition.
“It is difficult to see how these tactics can do anything but intensify
international tensions and, short of a complete collapse of the Soviet
bloc (which the editors would surely discount), increase the likelihood
that force will be used. Indeed, the more intense the conditions of
rivalry become, the greater the inclination will be to reassess the
major premises of our strategic doctrine, including our renunciation of
preventative war, and to begin to incorporate provisions for offensive
military action in the calculus of our planning. The editors fail to
consider whether the provocative nature of the policies they openly
advocate can be restricted to the nonmilitary spheres for very long.
Indeed, they seem to assume that the Communists will back down under
pressure—a highly dangerous assumption.
“Perhaps the most fundamental criticism that can be made of the book is
that it fails to analyze the impact of a policy of protracted conflict
on our domestic institutions. Barnett’s program of action, for example,
would require large sums of public funds used with little public
accountability, a wide network of secrecy and security in government
operations, a cold war orientation in our schools and universities—in
short, a stunting of pluralism, a curtailment of individual liberties,
and a weakening of politically responsible government. The editors
of ‘American Strategy’ seem to see no alternative to confronting the
Soviets with strong opposition at every turn. Indeed, they appear more
concerned with virility than freedom, as if strength and courage were
goals in themselves. This, together with the somewhat static nature of
their view of history and the militant nature of their recommendations,
justifies further inquiry about the men and the organizations who
advocate a strategy based on these premises.”[88]
What shall we say to these things? _First_, it must be recognized that
we are at war, and that the concept of protracted conflict is based on
this obvious fact of present-day life. In other words, this concept
takes seriously the words and deeds of the Communists which say that
they are fighting to conquer and to rule the world, and that we must
act accordingly. The memorandum shrinks from accepting this fact and
its implications. Ivo Duchacek, a member of the Czech Parliament until
the Communists took over, said: “Nobody likes to accept the idea that
we cannot get along with our fellow men if we try hard enough....
When I look back at my own practical experience in Czechoslovakia
where cooperation with the Communists was tried on both national and
international levels, I realize that the basic mistake was our wishful
thinking that communism had fundamentally changed under the influence
of its 25-year experience and under the impact of World War II.”[89]
According to James Reston, who has been close to the President,
President Kennedy came to office with the idea that he could work out
reasonable arrangements with the Communists and put an end to the angry
dialogue which has been going on.[90]
It is not of our choosing, it is not to our taste, but the fact is that
the Communists are at war with us. It does not take two to start a
war, and the Communists have started a war whether we like it or not.
As Edgar Ansel Mowrer, one of the nation’s outstanding students of
world affairs, put it: “Communists play to win.... The West, including
the United States, want only to call the game off. It fails to admit
that this is a real war which it can win only if it gives it No. 1
priority and stops considering it just another problem like smog or
juvenile delinquency,”[91] Roscoe Drummond said: “It is my conviction
that we will continue to lose this war called peace as long as we try
to conduct it on a basis of business as usual, politics as usual and
defence as usual.”[92]
Congressman Hosmer observed that “we can freeze to death in cold war as
easily as we can burn to death in hot war.”[93]
Roscoe Drummond has underscored the fact that although we are at war,
we are not acting in the light of that unpleasant reality. “It is my
conviction that the time for words has passed, that the moment is at
hand when it is not enough to say what needs to be done—but to do what
needs to be done before it is too late.
“It is my conviction that the time has come when the American
Government and the American people must act on the reality that we are
not at peace, but at war, though a different and more difficult kind of
war than we have ever faced; that, as the Overstreets have put it, we
are in a war called peace and that there is nothing peaceful about it.
“At this stage we are losing, not winning—and we are not yet strong
enough to win.”
“In New York last week, President Kennedy declared that ‘every new
piece of information, every fresh event, have deepened my conviction
that the survival of our civilization is at stake—and the hour is
late’.”[94]
_Second_, the intensification of international tensions is going on
today because the Communists are pushing even harder for the conquest
of the world. Any so-called easing of international tension would
be equivalent to a boxer relaxing in the middle of the fight. For
tension to be relaxed in reality would necessitate the cessation of the
communist drive for world conquest. In other words, it would mean that
the Communists had ceased to be Communists.
That communism, and not the waging of protracted conflict by the
non-communist world, is the cause of the existing tension is recognized
by President Kennedy. Thus he told editor Adzhubei, of _Izvestia_, that
the root of the conflict is the Soviet’s efforts “to communize, in a
sense, the entire world.”[95]
As the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, of the British
Government, said to the United Nations General Assembly on September
27, 1961, “the world is divided by an ideological chasm.... And when
one side advertises its intention to destroy the way of life of the
other, then you cannot have true collective security.”[96]
George E. Kennan, now Ambassador to Yugoslavia, and at one time
Ambassador to the U.S.S.R., has summarized in his book _Russia and the
West_ what the communists are saying to us through their words and
their deeds. Roscoe Drummond presented it in his column as follows:
“We despise you. We consider that you should be swept from the earth
as governments and physically destroyed as individuals. We reserve
the right in our private if not in our official capacities to do what
we can to bring this about: to revile you publicly, to do everything
within our power to detach your own people from their loyalty to you
and their confidence in you, to subvert your armed forces, and to work
for your downfall in favor of a Communist dictatorship. But since we
are not strong enough to destroy you today ... we want you during this
interval to trade with us; we want you to finance us; we want you to
give us the advantages of full-fledged diplomatic recognition, just as
you accord these advantages to one another.
“An outrageous demand? Perhaps. But you will accept it nevertheless.
Driven by this competition, which you cannot escape, you will do what
we want you to do until such time as we are ready to make an end of
you.* * *”[97]
Mr. Kennan also quoted a resolution of the Communist International
which said: “The Comintern will not let its freedom be hampered by any
obligation whatever. We are deadly enemies of bourgeois society to the
last breath, in word and in deed and if necessary with arms in hand.
It is the historical mission of the Communist International to be the
gravedigger of the bourgeois society.”[98]
Roscoe Drummond commented as follows on this resolution. “Mr. Kennan is
here describing Communist policy and purpose toward all non-Communist
governments formulated in the 1930’s, which hasn’t changed in the least.
“It is the same today—in Korea, in Laos, in Viet-Nam, in the Congo, at
the conference table in Geneva. To the Communists, U. S. aid to the
legitimate government of South Vietnam is ‘aggressive’ because the
Communists recognize no non-Communist government as ever legitimate.
“We are not at peace with the Communists. We are engaged in a war
called peace by the Communists. We can’t afford to think or act
otherwise for 1 second.”[99]
The _Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists_ does not realize that our
resistance to Communism does not set up a “savage dichotomy between the
Communist and the Western World”. This dichotomy or division exists
but it has been set up by the ideology and actions of the Communists.
We _wish_ that it were not so, we _wish_ that they would change, but
wishing does not make it so. It is a fact of life which we should
realize, and which we fail to realize only at our peril. The Communists
in the _Communist Manifesto_, which they consider to be an up-to-date
document, and many times since have stated that they are irreconcilably
at war with us.
Lenin, who is stressed today, said: “We are living not merely in a
state, but in a system of states, and the existence of the Soviet
Republic side by side with imperialist states for a long time is
unthinkable. One or the other must triumph in the end. And before that
end supervenes, a series of frightful collisions between the Soviet
Republic and the bourgeois states will be inevitable. That means that
if the ruling class, the proletariat, wants to hold sway, it must prove
its capacity to do so by its military organizations.”
“As long as capitalism and socialism exists, we cannot live in peace;
in the end, one or the other will triumph—a funeral dirge will be sung
over the Soviet Republic or over world capitalism.”[100]
Mao Tse-tung speaks in no uncertain terms about their revolutionary
triumph. “In human history, antagonism between the classes exists as a
particular manifestation of the struggle within the contradiction. The
contradiction between the exploiting class and the exploited class:
the two mutually contradictory classes coexist for a long time in one
society, be it a slave society, or a feudal or a capitalist society,
and struggle with each other; but it is not until the contradiction
between the two classes has developed to a certain stage that the
two sides adopt the form of open antagonism which develops into a
revolution. In a class society, the transformation of peace into war is
also like that.
“The time when a bomb has not yet exploded is the time when
contradictory things, because of certain conditions, coexist in an
entity. It is not until a new condition (ignition) is present that the
explosion takes place. An analogous situation exists in all natural
phenomena when they finally assume the form of open antagonism to solve
old contradictions and to produce new things.
“It is very important to know this situation. It enables us to
understand that in a class society revolutions and revolutionary wars
are inevitable, that apart from them the leap in social development
cannot be made, and the reactionary ruling classes cannot be overthrown
so that the people will win political power. Communists must expose
the deceitful propaganda of the reactionaries that social revolution
is unnecessary and impossible, and so on, and firmly uphold the
Marxist-Leninist theory of social revolution so as to help the people
to understand that social revolution is not only entirely necessary but
also entirely possible and that the whole history of mankind and the
triumph of the Soviet Union all confirm this scientific truth.”[101]
The cold war and the danger of hot war come, according to the
Communists, only because we resist their so-called inevitable conquest
of the world. As Hugo Pauk, a Communist in the Ruhr, told Dr. John
R. Van de Water, “You must also understand that unless you accept our
Communist way of life, war is inevitable.”[102]
If we did not resist communism there would be no cold war—only
enslavement and death. For the cold war is their term for our
resistance to communism. In one of the leading communist journals,
_International Affairs_, we read that: “The aggressive imperialist
forces have let loose upon the world their horrible offspring—the
cold war. Its purpose was to keep the people in a state of constant
fear, to persuade them that war is inevitable, and to compel them to
spill more and more money into the bottomless pit of the arms race.
The cold war was to help the doomed forces of the old world to retain
their positions and hold back the surging advance of social and
national-liberation movements, to prepare war against the Socialist
camp, that untiring champion of world peace.”[103]
“The Socialist countries have set themselves the task of eliminating
war from the lives of nations for all time—a goal for which the best
minds in the world have striven for centuries. Proceeding from the
analysis of the real balance of power on Earth, the 21st Congress of
the C.P.S.U. stressed that this problem could be solved even before the
complete victory of Socialism, with capitalism still extant in a part
of the world.”[104]
“To establish durable peace on Earth is no easy task, of course. There
are influential forces outside the bounds of the Socialist world whose
riches and privileges depend on the arms race, on the preparation
and unleashing of wars. These forces will not give in without
desperate resistance and will do everything to prevent a relaxation
of international tension. It will take the utmost effort of all the
peace-loving forces in the world to turn into reality the existing
possibility of achieving an international _detente_ and putting an end
to the cold war.
“N. S. Khrushchev’s visit to the United States is another brilliant
proof of the fact that the Soviet Government and Communist Party are
doing everything to terminate the cold war.”[105]
These quotations show that, as a matter of fact, with the Communists
every issue is a matter of irreconcilable competition in the sense that
they are not out to make reasonable agreements which they will keep
with integrity, but that every discussion is another front on which
they are fighting us. Any agreement is made only because they have to
make it or because in some way it contributes to their total program of
victory.
The quotations which we took from the memorandum are saying that if we
firmly resist Communism we are apt to have trouble! The Senator should
raise the question: What trouble will there be if we do not firmly
resist Communism and win this war for freedom?
International tension exists because of Communist aggression. Of
course, if we ceased resisting they would enslave us, and kill
millions, but this hardly seems like a desirable way to lessen tensions.
The fact that the Communists are waging protracted conflict on us is
the provocative factor in the world situation. Why is it that the
memorandum speaks of “the provocative nature of the policies” of those
who call on us to awaken to the fact that the Communists have declared
protracted war on us, and that we should wage protracted conflict for
victory and freedom—yes, and for survival.
Concerning those who advocate that we wage this protracted conflict
the _Bulletin_ says: “Indeed, they seem to assume that the Communists
will back down under pressure—a highly dangerous assumption.” Does
the _Bulletin_ and the Senator think that the Communists will back
down if we retreat? Or if we are not firm? Does he think that the
Communists have not been encouraged by the success which they have had
hithertofore on their road to world conquest? Does he suggest that
we relieve pressure by backing down? Does he think that the road of
retreat is the road to survival? If we are not to put on increased
pressure, what are we to do? Does he think that the Communists respect
anything other than firm pressure?
Does the Senator believe, or does he not, that the Communists are
intent on world conquest? If the Senator believes that the Communists
are waging protracted conflict to conquer the world, why did he include
the article from the _Bulletin_? If he does not believe that they are
waging protracted conflict to conquer the world, we ask: Can America
afford public servants, men who help shape national policy, who think
that the Communists are not trying to conquer the world? On the other
hand, can America afford public servants who, if they believe that the
Communists are out to conquer the world, criticize those who agree
with them, and who also say that we ought to act accordingly and wage
protracted conflict to defeat Communism?
Does the Senator believe that we should refuse to act in the light
of the realization that the Communists are out to conquer the world?
In other words, since the Communists are waging war on us on various
fronts and in various ways, should we not engage them in combat on
these various levels? Or should we leave the victory to them by
default? The Communists have declared war on us, they are at war with
us. They are engaging in protracted conflict against us. What should we
do? Fail to respond? Respond weakly? Fearfully?
Since the _Bulletin_ does not expect the Soviet bloc to collapse, since
it does not think we should meet its aggression in protracted conflict;
just what does it and what does Senator Fulbright propose? Do they
suggest that Communism will back down from world conquest if we refuse
to engage them in protracted conflict? If Communists will not back down
under pressure, will they back down if we yield or refuse to apply
pressure? As a matter of fact, every retreat on our part and every
advance on their part, is viewed by them as proof that their theory of
history is right.[106] Even if we surrendered, they would consider this
as further proof that they have a mandate from history to overthrow all
existing social conditions and to remake man.
In reply to the _Bulletin’s_ repudiation of protracted conflict, we
would say, in the _third_ place, that it should be clearly understood
that there is no evidence that the Communists will change their goal of
world conquest. G. F. Hudson, Director of the Center for Far Eastern
Studies at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University, has said: “Ever
since the early days of the Bolshevik regime, there has been the
expectation abroad that it was just about to settle down, discard
its fantastic ideas of world revolution, and revert to the normal
habits and usages of a national sovereign state in its international
relations.”
“Yet, every time the world has become convinced that the original
creed of Lenin no longer governed Soviet actions and that the policies
of the Soviet Union could be interpreted simply in terms of national
interest and security, like the policies of non-Communist states,
events have provided fresh evidence that the ultimate aim of the
rulers of Russia continued to be the destruction of all ‘bourgeois’
governments.”[107]
In the _fourth_ place, the concept of protracted conflict does not rule
out the use of traditional diplomacy or innovating methods of settling
disputes. But it does ask that we recognize that all of these must be
used as weapons in our war with communism. For it is obvious to every
student that the Communists use traditional diplomacy and innovating
methods as but phases of their warfare against civilization.
It is clear that traditional diplomacy has been tried again and again.
We have even had innovating methods, such as helping enemy countries
with financial aid. We have tried to work through the U.N. Traditional
methods are still being tried. We should continue to use them to the
best of our ability.
Furthermore, the concept of protracted conflict does not rule out the
resolution of some particular differences “on an ad hoc basis of mutual
interest....”
Our _fifth_ observation on the _Bulletin’s_ charges, is that the cold
war is bound to have some effect on our democratic institutions.
However, it will not involve near the dangers that would be created
by putting greater power in the hands of the President—whoever the
President may be at a given time—as Senator Fulbright wants to do. The
_Bulletin_ spoke of funds being spent secretly but it made no comments
on the danger of secret executive agreements.
But there is no reason for protracted conflict to destroy democratic
institutions. We can erect the proper safeguards. Furthermore, the
failure to wage protracted conflict and to win the war we are in
will lead to the destruction of our democratic institutions by the
Communists.
Whether we wage protracted conflict or not, we are engaged in a war.
Even Senator Fulbright speaks of the long twilight struggle and the
influence it may have on the people. But certainly it is better to risk
the possibility of some dangers to our democratic institutions than to
accept the certainty of their destruction if the Communists win.
The Communists leave us no range of pleasant choices. We either win in
the struggle with them or we lose all.
Our _sixth_ observation is that to win this war we must wage it on
every necessary level. We must put the Communists on the defensive
instead of simply reacting to their aggressive moves. As Charles
Malik said: “It is most important that the Communists be put on the
defensive. It is most important that the total arsenal of political,
moral, and spiritual values be bought to bear upon this struggle.”[108]
Even Senator Fulbright has said that we ought to take the initiative
and that a truly tough “approach to Communism is one that meets it with
‘every instrumentality of foreign and domestic policy’....”[109] This
is exactly what the concept of protracted conflict calls for, including
the use of the military in the cold war!
This does not mean that a nuclear war will take place if we wage
protracted conflict; although we might keep in mind that a failure
to wage protracted conflict will result in our defeat, for they will
nibble us to death, or slice us to pieces with the salami tactic. Edgar
Ansel Mowrer has well said: “And whatever one thinks of the cold war,
one fact stands out: The Soviets have made of it a third way, neither
peace nor hot war. And the conclusions seem obvious: If such a third
way exists for communism, does it not also exist for the West?
“It certainly does. Its name is waging freedom. Waging freedom means
that, instead of continuing the military and diplomatic defensive, the
West publicly sets as its goal an extension or recovery of the area of
national determination—the rollback of communism. It means the cool,
calculated, and determined acceptance of the Soviet challenge in the
intermediate field. Above all, it means a complete repudiation of
the thesis that the West has no choice save humbly seeking peace or
accepting nuclear annihilation.
“Most of all, waging peace would mean an end to the present
make-believe in regard to Soviet intentions that dominates too much
thinking. Many, too many, believe, or are trying to believe, that
by some means—a mixture of defensive firmness, magical formula, and
turning the other cheek—the Kremlin can be induced to call the cold war
off.
“For this, with apologies to Prime Minister Macmillan, there is no
shred of concrete evidence. All known facts point the other way—to the
conclusion that the U.S.S.R. is gradually forcing the West back without
fighting by playing upon its nuclear fears, its reluctance to believe
the unpleasant, and its even greater reluctance to overtrump Soviet
military expenditures.
“_West Has Best Hand_”
“Yet curiously enough, even in such an intermediate struggle, the
stronger cards are on the side of the West. The Kremlin can play upon
the reluctance of a free people to accept a long and costly diplomatic
and arms-building struggle. But the West can count upon much more—the
fact that so far as is known, communism is popular in no country where
it has firmly fixed its claws—not even in the U.S.S.R. as hundreds
of thousands of defections from the Soviet Army during World War II
demonstrated.
“To be brief: The West has it in its hands to adopt a third policy, a
policy of waging freedom short of major war—and outlasting the Kremlin
at its own chosen game. For the West has several times the economic
resources and in addition the overwhelming moral resource of the appeal
against Communist tyranny. It can, if it chooses, chivvy and harry
Moscow to the point of exhaustion and despair. It can win without
fighting provided it has the courage and the stamina.”[110]
As James Reston put it: “The choice before the President and the other
leaders of the Western world today is not between the certainty of
destruction and the certainty of Communist expansion, but between
the possibility of destruction if we risk war, and the certainty of
Communist expansion if we don’t.”[111]
Both from Communist theory and from their past actions we know that
they will start some local conflicts, when and if they think they can
get away with it. They will do this regardless of whether or not we use
protracted conflict. As Dr. Ralph K. White, of the U.S.I.A. said: “But
for a well indoctrinated Communist the rational, prudent aggressive
use of force in the cause of Communism is not only legitimate; it is
obligatory. It is an accepted, integral part of his self-image. He
believes with Karl Marx that ‘force is the midwife of every old society
that is pregnant with the new.’”[112]
_Is Victory the Goal?_
The memorandum includes an article which is critical of the call for
total victory. “At a 2-day strategy seminar held in Chicago last
September, Adm. Arthur W. Radford, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, called for ‘total victory over the Communist system—not
stalemate,’ and warned that ‘the minute we become satisfied with the
status quo, we have started down the road to defeat.’ This theme has,
in fact, dominated a series of strategy seminars that have been held
throughout the country during the past 2 years—in New York, Cleveland,
New Orleans, and Wilmington; in California, Massachusetts, Texas, and
Washington, D. C. The chief force behind these meetings of businessmen,
teachers, servicemen, and church leaders has been an organization
called the Institute for American Strategy.”[113]
The Communist is working toward total victory over the non-Communist
world. In dealing with an enemy who seeks total victory over us, and
in the conflict with whom final defeat would be total defeat, can one
win if he does not seek total victory? Well did Jay Lovestone say: “The
war is total. If we don’t fight them down the line, we lose down the
line.”[114]
Total victory does not mean that there will be no more evil in the
world once Communism has been defeated. It simply means, in my view
of it, that we should take the initiative and endeavor to meet and to
defeat them on every necessary level. We all wish that by so doing
on some levels that they will be halted in their onward march and
ultimately cease to be Communists. However, in our battle plans we
should not relax and expect the Communists to cease being Communists.
It would have been a real blessing if Hitler had ceased to be Hitler
and if World War II had not been started. But he wasn’t converted from
the errors of his way, and World War II did take place.
Khrushchev closed the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union in the Fall of 1961 by saying: “Our aims are clear, the
tasks have been set. To work, comrades! For new victories of communism.”
What is wrong with seeking total victory over Communism? This would
include victory over its ideology, its subversive activities and its
other forms of aggression.
Is the call for victory contrary to the President’s program for
survival in this nuclear age? Doesn’t his program for survival
include a program for victory? If such a total victory is not in the
President’s program then the people need to know it. If it is in the
President’s program, what is wrong with backing it and struggling
for it? Senator Fulbright said that the military and the civilian
population should back the President’s program.
Elsewhere Senator Fulbright himself recognized that the challenge is
total, and that the Communists are waging protracted conflict. “We
endure in an era of total crisis.”[115] After speaking of the armies
and navy of the U.S.S.R., Fulbright said: “In addition the Soviet
Union is mounting a world wide trade offensive aimed primarily at us.
Hence the challenge to us is total. It involves the military, the
political, the intellectual, and the industrial. The measures of our
antagonist cannot be countered by half measures or by half-hearted
competition.”[116]
“Since we are now in deadly conflict with a prodigious antagonist, we
can neglect nothing that might assure our security.”[117]
Why, then, take the military out of the cold war? Why, then, did
the Senator criticize in the memorandum the concept of protracted
conflict?[118]
FOOTNOTES:
[83] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, pp. 13439, col. 2,m.-p.
13441, col. 1.
[84] _Ibid._, p. 13436, col. 3,b. point 2.
[85] Walter F. Hahn and John C. Neff, _American Strategy for the
Nuclear Age_, Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1960, pp.
30-31. I agree with Gerhart Niemeyer that the ideological dimension of
the cold war must be emphasized. _Problems of Communism_, Nov.-Dec.
1961, p. 59.
[86] Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, _Defense
Secretary McNamara on S. Res. 191_, Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1961, pp. 3-4.
[87] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13436, col. 3,b. A
government official in a position to know the viewpoint of current
policy-makers, told Edith Kermit Roosevelt that: “The purpose of
American policy is to work for a merger of East and West. It is
believed accommodation can be reached as the two systems become more
alike politically and economically: As the United States adopts a
more collectivist pattern of federal control, while at the same time
a consolidation of Soviet rule makes genocide purges, and other
less-pleasant attributes of the police state unnecessary.” (“Policy of
‘No Win’ Now Official”, _Dallas Morning News_, May 27, 1962.)
[88] _Ibid._, p. 13440, col. 1,t.
[89] _Ibid._, August 2, 1949, pp. A4995-A4996.
[90] Quoted in the _Congressional Record_, October 3, 1961, p. A7922,
col. 3,t.
[91] “Ten Reasons Why Communism is Winning”, _Congressional Record_,
April 25, 1961, p. A2788, col. 2,m.
[92] “War Called Peace: Time for Words Has Passed.” _Congressional
Record_, May 3, 1961, p. A3045, col. 3,m.
[93] _Congressional Record_, August 7, 1961, p. 13759, col. 3,m.
[94] _Congressional Record_, May 3, 1961, p. A3045, col. 3.
[95] _Arkansas Democrat_, November 28, 1961, p. 1, _Arkansas Gazette_,
November 29, 1961, p. 1.
[96] “Speech Delivered by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to
the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, September 27, 1961,”
mimeographed copy of the speech, p. 2.
[97] _Congressional Record_, June 19, 1961, p. A4545, col. 3,m.
[98] _Ibid._, p. A4546, col. 1,t.
[99] _Ibid._, p. A4546, col. 1,t.
[100] Quoted in Department of State, _Soviet World Outlook_, July 1959,
p. 96.
[101] Mao Tse-tung, _On Contradiction_, Foreign Language Press, Peking,
1952, pp. 66-67.
[102] John R. Van de Water, _Ideologies in Conflict_. Address on June
8, 1951, p. 7.
[103] _International Affairs_, Moscow, November 1959, pp. 3-4.
[104] _Ibid._, p. 5.
[105] _Ibid._, p. 6.
[106] Mao Tse-tung _On Contradiction_, p. 61.
[107] G. F. Hudson, _Problems of Communism_, July-Aug. 1961, p. 31.
[108] _Congressional Record_, Oct. 3, 1961, p. A7894, col. 3,m. See
Frank J. Johnson, _No Substitute For Victory_, Chicago: Regnery, 1962.
[109] _Arkansas Democrat_, November 8, 1961, p. 1.
[110] _Congressional Record_, March 26, 1959, p. A2762, col. 2,m-3,t.
[111] _Ibid._, September 26, 1961, p. A7750, col. 3,t.
[112] Ralph K. White’s speech before the American Psychological
Association, Duplicated copy, p. 4.
[113] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13439, col. 2,b.
[114] Taken from my notes of Mr. Lovestone’s speech, Washington, D.
C., November 4, 1961. Congressman Judd said: “Mr. Chairman, nobody
has ever yet won a struggle military or otherwise, by being only on
the defensive and announcing ahead of time that he is not trying to
win.” _Freedom Commission and Freedom Academy._ Washington: Government
Printing Office, 1959, p. 123.
[115] Senator Fulbright, _Congressional Record_, March 28, 1960, p.
A2707, col. 2,b.
[116] _Ibid._, p. A2708, col. 2,t.
[117] _Ibid._, p. A2709, col. 1,m. Congressman McCormack of
Massachusetts said: “As long as the Communists adhere to dialectic
communism and their ultimate intent for world revolution and world
domination, as long as the dominating influence of communism is its
dialectic aspect, the dominating and controlling power or influence of
international communism, they have got to keep on going, and going,
and going until their (sic) either conquer the world or blow up.
International communism as presently constituted cannot permanently
survive in any part of the world there are free men and women.”
(_Congressional Record_, January 22, 1959, p. 951, col. 2,t.)
[118] In the author’s judgment, there are some who want the military
out of the cold war, because they fear that the military is for the
hard line against communism, i.e. for victory over communism. This,
they fear, will start a war. Several years ago Arthur M. Schlesinger,
Jr. wrote an article on the future of democratic socialism in the
United States. In it he advocated some ideas which, he said, the State
Department had been somewhat following for some time. Among these ideas
were: (a) The U.S.S.R. will get over its “messianic intoxication.”
(b) We must contain her so that she will not run the risk of the
aggression that might prove a general war. (c) We must not engage in
an anti-Soviet crusade. (d) We must not “permit reactionaries in the
buffer states to precipitate conflicts in defense of their own obsolete
prerogatives.” (e) We must demonstrate to the U.S.S.R. that we have
no aggressive intentions toward the U.S.S.R. (f) We must back the
non-Communist left, since—the implication is—such governments will not
be apt to engage in an anti-Soviet crusade. In this way, perhaps we can
stave off general war and give the U.S.S.R. time to undergo a change of
heart. See the _Congressional Record_, Feb. 6, 1962, pp. A881-A884. A
reprint.
This approach would not only mean that we should encourage neutralism
in at least some nations, but it would also mean that an anti-communist
crusade in America should be defeated.
It would mean that we should not seek victory over communism.
It would encourage the salami tactics of the Communists who will try to
see to it that each slice they cut off from the non-Communist world is
not large enough to precipitate a general war.
Chapter VI
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THE PRINCIPLE PROBLEM?
Senator Fulbright takes a dim view of the American people. He indicates
that the curbing of the people, or the manipulation of the masses, may
be the primary problem of the President. The masses are all potential
McCarthyites who are easily infected with the virus of extremely
radical rightwingism. “In the long run, it is quite possible that the
principal problem of leadership will be, if it is not already, to
restrain the desire of the people to hit the Communists with everything
we’ve got, particularly if there are more Cubas and Laos. Pride in
victory, and frustration in restraint, during the Korean war, led to
MacArthur’s revolt and McCarthyism.”[119] This is the most charitable
interpretation of McCarthyism which the Senator has ever made. For
in effect he is saying that McCarthyism is the result of the desire
for victory over Communism, and the frustration which comes when the
leaders try to restrain people from winning this victory.
We think that the principal problem is Communism and not the American
people.
The memorandum went on to say that the people cannot be trusted on
foreign policy. They tend to “obey the impulse of passion” and “to
abandon a mature design for the gratification of a momentary caprice.”
Thus the Senator thought that if foreign aid was “laid before the
people in a referendum, it would be defeated.” The Senator obviously
does not want what _he thinks_ is the people’s will to be carried out.
The people want simple solutions, they want to scourge devils or lash
out at the enemy.[120]
The Senator, it is plain to see, does not have a very high opinion of
the American people and their ability to govern themselves. Is not
this a lack of confidence in our republican form of government?
_How Much Is the Senator For Civilian Control?_
Senator Fulbright says that he has a “strong belief in the principle
of military subordination to civilian control.”[121] So does this
reviewer. Furthermore, civilian control ultimately means the
_sovereignty of the people_. Thus it ultimately means the civilian
control of the President and of all other politicians and statesmen.
Does the Senator believe as strongly in the civilian control of
politicians as well as of the military? It does not seem that the
Senator is too well pleased with this bedrock principle of our
constitutional system. In a TV interview July 30, 1961, he said,
concerning the question of Red China and the U. N. and the recognition
of Communist Outer Mongolia, that: “The sentiments of this country have
been developed to such a pitch our President has no freedom of action
in this field.”[122] Again: “... we will not recognize Red China,
because of the price of dissension within our own ranks at home; it is
too great to pay ... I think we have no freedom of action in this field
because of domestic politics.”[123]
If he thought that he could get by with it would the Senator thwart the
will of the people concerning Red China and Outer Mongolia? Would he
like to have the freedom to act in these matters contrary to what he
knows to be the will of the people?
As a matter of fact, the Senator wants us to recognize Outer Mongolia.
He thinks that it might help us learn more about the relationship
between the U.S.S.R. and Red China. Obviously he would urge the
President to recognize Outer Mongolia if he thought that the people
would stand for it.
The American people, in my judgment, have good reason to be against the
recognition of Outer Mongolia. _First_, around five thousand of her
troops fought Americans and the U.N. forces in Korea.[124] _Second_,
it is one of the oldest of the satellites of the U.S.S.R. _Third_,
it is recognized as a loyal Communist country by Red China. For
example, a Communist paper recently carried an article entitled: “China
Salutes Fraternal Mongolia.”[125] In trade talks around the first of
March, 1961, it was emphasized by Peking that the cooperation between
Mongolia and China was “on the basis of the principles of proletarian
Internationalism.” Marshall Malinevsky, who is chief of the Russian
Army, “described the bond between Mongolian, Chinese and Russian Armies
as ‘cemented in blood’.” _Fourth_, the Premier of Outer Mongolia in
a broadcast on April 24, 1961, emphasized their loyalty to Lenin.
Furthermore, he said: “In their struggle for building a new life,
our people always leaned and continue to lean upon the disinterested
all-around aid of the Soviet Union, the first country of triumphant
Socialism.” _Fifth_, if we recognize Outer Mongolia, Japan will likely
do likewise. This will help increase the sentiment of neutralism in
Japan.[126] _Sixth_, it would have a bad psychological effect in Asia.
The Foreign Secretary of the Philippines, Felix Berto Serrano, said
that it would be “an example of the softening of the U.S. attitude
toward Communism in this part of the world.” The Foreign Minister of
Thailand, Phanat Khoman, said that it would have an adverse affect on
free world morale.[127]
The Senator thinks that if the people were given a choice in the
matter, they would defeat foreign aid. He may or may not be right. But
is he not saying that what he thinks is the will of the people should
not rule in this matter?
_Attitude Towards America_
The Senator attacks those individuals who, he says, run down America.
“Implicit in much of the propaganda of the radical right is the
assumption that our free society is permeated with corruption and
decay.”[128]
There is much that is right in America. We believe that it is the
greatest country in the world. The principles on which it is founded
are the principles which when followed produce progress and prosperity.
On the other hand, there is enough crime, corruption and decay to cause
all thoughtful Americans real concern. For example, J. Edgar Hoover has
called our attention to these matters countless times.
We shall not enter into a discussion of this except to point out that
the Senator himself has some hard things to say about America.
In the speech at Stanford University he said: “In the last few years
American statesmen and scholars have been turning their thoughts
toward an effort to re-define the national ‘purpose,’ to interpret our
national life and politics in terms of goals. The genesis of this quest
for a clear national objective was a feeling that somehow the American
people had strayed from their historic course into a blind alley of
aimlessness and frustration. In an era of unexampled affluence, the
American people, by and large, are not happy. In the years since World
War II, we have attained our private purposes almost too well at home,
but beyond our personal material needs we have not yet recognized an
objective or purpose which inspires our real interest. At home we
have become immersed in the crass delight of extravagant consumption,
puerile faddism, and callow amusements.”
“The quest for a definition of the national purpose has been generated
by this sense of malaise. If our people were engaged in vigorous
and meaningful activity, it is quite possible that we would not now
be troubling ourselves with a quest for abstract definition and
articulation.”[129]
Rightwing extremism, he says, has great appeal to the American public,
and in times of crisis it has “great mass appeal”. The people are the
ones who need to be restrained in our conflict with communism. The
people do not have enough understanding to back an adequate foreign
policy.[130] The people are misled by simple solutions and need some
devils to scourge. “The radicalism of the right can be expected to
have great mass appeal during such periods. It offers the simple
solution, easily understood: Scourging of the devils within the body
politic, or, in the extreme, lashing out at the enemy.”[131]
On September 1, 1960, Senator Fulbright said: “I believe that such
a study would conclude that America’s trouble is basically one of
aimlessness at home and frustration abroad.”[132]
In the light of these contentions of the Senator, he is hardly the one
to defend America against the charge, which he says is made by the
“radical right,” that our “free society is permeated with corruption
and decay.” Has the “radical right” said anything harder about America
than has the Senator? If not, why should they be classified as radical,
and the Senator not also be grouped with them in this matter.
_The Manipulated Masses?_
Not only does the Senator think that the problem is to restrain
the people, but that the people should be “directed” into backing
whatever the President’s program happens to be. He does not trust
the people; his statements make this clear. They must be “directed”.
“Fundamentally, it is believed that the American people have little,
if any, need to be alerted to the menace of the cold war. Rather,
the need is for understanding of the true nature of that menace, and
the direction of the public’s present and foreseeable awareness of
the fact of the menace toward support of the President’s own total
program for survival in a nuclear age. There are no reasons to believe
that military personnel generally can contribute to this need, beyond
their specific, technical competence to explain their own role. On the
contrary, there are many reasons, and some evidence, for believing
that an effort by the military, beyond this limitation, involves
considerable danger.”[133]
Frankly at times we are not sure what is the President’s own total
program. It has vacillated, for example, concerning Laos and Cuba. Are
we to be “directed” into it, as the President unfolds it, or shapes it,
from time to time?
Senator Fulbright has attacked the competency of the people. He laid
down in his secret memorandum, in our judgement, the ideological basis
for a program of Pavlovian conditioning of the American people to
accept whatever is decided on in the White House, the State Department
and by a small group of advisors.[134]
The Senator thinks that the people are susceptible to radicalism. He
says that extremely radical rightwingism “already has great appeal to
the public. In the future it may well have much greater appeal.”[135]
So the problem is to “direct” them into the President’s own total
program. This program, the Senator implies, _is quite different_ from
the general program for victory and survival which is discussed in the
memorandum and repudiated as being rightwing. For he thinks that the
rightwingers are raising an obstacle to the “public acceptance of the
President’s program.”[136]
Carried out to its logical conclusion, we believe that the memorandum,
and the way in which it was formed and implemented, introduces a
new concept into our government, a concept which would replace the
Constitution and the sovereignty of the people. The President, the
State Department and a few advisors are the ones who through their own
will and wisdom formulate the policies which shall be followed. This
they are to do independently of the people, for the people are too
deficient in understanding; they are so immature that they follow the
momentary caprice; they tend to obey the impulse of passion and thus
the “Radicalism of the right can be expected to have great mass appeal
during such periods” as the “long twilight struggle”. Furthermore,
our age is complex, therefore, the public must either be ignored or
conditioned so that they will follow the leader. In directing the
people into the President’s program, the military should engage in the
cold war only to the extent that it can help do this in explaining
their own strictly military role. After speaking of the need for the
direction of the people’s awareness, that there is a danger, into
support for the President’s program, he said: “There are no reasons
to believe that military personnel generally can contribute to this
need, beyond their specific technical competence to explain their own
role. On the contrary, there are many reasons and some evidence, for
believing that an effort by the military, beyond this limitation,
involves considerable danger.”[137] Does this mean that when the
military cannot be used as a rubber stamp it must not be used in waging
the cold war?
It should be remembered that this basically anti-constitutional
concept—against the Constitution in that it distrusts and wants
to “direct” the people, rather than accept the sovereignty of the
people—was set forth in a secret memorandum. The other members of the
Foreign Relations Committee did not see it. It was sent directly to the
President and the Secretary of Defense, and has had an influence on a
very important policy.
Walter Lippmann, who is highly regarded by Senator Fulbright, said that
there was a tendency of Government “insiders” to view the criticism
of the “outsiders” as that of ignoramuses who were not enlightened
by secret files and conferences. He said: “I tell the critic, you be
careful. You will be denouncing the principle of democracy itself,
which asserts that the outsiders shall be sovereign over the insiders.
For you will be showing that the people themselves, since they are
ignoramuses because they are outsiders, are therefore incapable of
governing themselves.
“Furthermore, Lippmann declared that as far as the affairs of the world
are concerned, those who regard themselves as insiders are actually
outsiders since none of them read all of the U.S. papers and they
have no access to the records of foreign governments that are equally
important and if one is to have the total wisdom the insiders indicate
they have.”[138]
_An Out-Moded Constitutional System?_
Senator Fulbright seems to want to change our system of government
so that it will be run by one man, the President. He has unlimited
confidence in the President as a man who is above partisan politics
and who is of high moral calibre _by virtue of the fact_ that he is
President. He views our constitutional system as out of date. Thus in
his Stanford speech, July 28, 1961, he said:
“The President is hobbled in his task of leading the American people
to consensus and concerted action by the restrictions of power imposed
on him by a constitutional system designed for an eighteenth century
agrarian society far removed from the centers of world power. It is
imperative that we break out of the intelligent confines of cherished
and traditional beliefs and open our minds to the possibility that
basic changes in our system may be essential to meet the requirements
of the twentieth century.
“The ability of this nation to preserve the value system which
constitutes the core of our national interest has come to depend
principally on our ability to cope with world wide revolutionary
forces. If we are to deal with these forces successfully, we must be
able to act quickly and decisively on the one hand and persistently and
patiently on the other. ‘Our American task,’ wrote Walter Lippmann in
a recent article, ‘is to generate superior national strength. For this
we must have a powerful and purposeful National Government.... There is
no getting away from the fact that, as Lord Acton said, power corrupts.
But also, there is no getting away from the fact that powerlessness
invites confusion, demoralization, and defeat.’
“The fact that is needed is Presidential power. He alone, among elected
officials, can rise above parochialism and private pressures. He
alone, in his role as teacher and moral leader, can hope to overcome
the excesses and inadequacies of a public opinion that is all too
often ignorant of the needs, the dangers, and the opportunities in our
foreign relations.
“Public Opinion, wrote Lippmann in _The Public Philosophy_,
consistently lags a generation behind in its attitudes and assessments
of international relations. The tyranny of public opinion, he says,
imposes upon our policy-makers a ‘compulsion to make mistakes.’
The poet Yeats was not wholly wrong when he laid down this harsh
pronouncement on public opinion: ‘The best lack all conviction—the
worst are filled with passionate intensity.’
“These views may be extreme but they are not wholly without merit,
and I point to them in order to stress the point that public opinion
must be educated and led if it is to bolster wise and effective
national policies. Only the President can provide the guidance that is
necessary, while legislators display a distressing tendency to adhere
slavishly to the dictates of public opinion, or at least to its vocal
and highly organized minority segments.”[139]
Lippmann’s statement concerning the “insiders” and “outsiders” ought to
be recalled in this connection. We should also remember his criticism
that President Eisenhower was a defeatist who lacked faith in our
people and in our system.[140] Why, then, should he contend that what
is needed is more Presidential power? Why should Senator Fulbright
maintain the same thing?
In a news conference in Washington, President Eisenhower said on May
10, 1962, that: “I believe that the problem of the Presidency is
rarely an inadequacy of power. Ordinarily, the problem is to use the
already enormous power of the Presidency judiciously, temperately and
wisely.”[141]
With all due respect to the President of the United States, whoever he
may be at any given time in our history, we do not believe that any
President is wise enough, knows enough or is good enough to occupy the
position to which Senator Fulbright would elevate him. Of course, with
the attitude which Fulbright has toward the masses, it is logical that
he should accept the Fuhrer (Fuhrer means “leader”) principle. The
masses must look to _the leader_. He must be their teacher and their
moral leader.
“We got rid of kings back there in 1776, Senator.”[142] The Senator
talks like a reactionary who wants to go back to kings and their
“divine right” to rule.
Senator Fulbright thinks that legislators are slaves of public opinion,
but the President is exempt from such. We ask: In our Republic
shouldn’t the legislators and the President be subject to public
opinion under law? If they are not to be responsive to the will of the
people within the framework of our constitutional government, to whom
and to what are they to be responsive?
Has the Senator from Arkansas forgotten that less than two years
ago President Kennedy was a Senator, and thus a legislator; and
legislators, according to Fulbright, display a “distressing tendency
to adhere slavishly to the dictates of public opinion, or at least to
its vocal and highly organized minority segments.” Just because this
particular Senator was elected President did he therefore become so
transformed that he rose above “parochialism and private pressures”?
Did he become overnight the “teacher and moral leader”, the “only” one
who can “provide the guidance that is necessary”? Does the Senator
think, if Nixon had been elected President, that automatically on
his shoulders would have descended the wisdom, the knowledge and the
unlimited goodness which would be necessary in one who is to be our
Leader in morality, our Teacher and our Guide? As a matter of fact,
we know that the Senator does not believe that Mr. Nixon, if he had
been elected, would have metamorphized into the Leader which Senator
Fulbright claims that the President by the very nature of the case
becomes. On February 1, 1960, Senator Fulbright reprinted in the
_Congressional Record_ an article by James Reston which was critical
of Mr. Nixon. Senator Fulbright said of the article that “it is seldom
in this stolid and humorless era that an observer of our political
scene sees through the absurd double talk of so much of the political
speeches with which we are entertained.” Reston, however, had done so
concerning Mr. Nixon.[143] And yet, Senator Fulbright’s concept of the
Presidency is such that he must believe, if he follows his position to
its logical conclusion, that Mr. Nixon would have ceased all double
talk, and have become the teacher and the moral leader of the nation if
he had been elected!
Did Senator Fulbright think that President Truman was the moral and
educational leader of the people just because he was President? Of
Truman he said in 1951: “For a long time we have been walking on
opposite sides of the street, neither of us nodding to the other. He
has often thought me wrong and unspeakable, while I have sometimes
thought him wrong and incomprehensible.”
“I have spoken with him on official business only once in several
years.”[144]
Senator Fulbright did not think that because President Eisenhower
was in the office of President that he was therefore qualified as
the leader and teacher of the people. He thought that Eisenhower was
confused and engaged in the lucrative business of making and selling
tranquilizer pills.[145] He spoke of the absence of leadership on the
part of the President.[146] A veto message was described as “unworthy
of his great office and beneath the dignity of the Congress to which
it was sent. It is not factual. It is intemperate. It was obviously
designed to catch newspaper headlines and radio and television news
blurbs.”[147] The President himself; the Senator said, was unaware of
the vastness of the Soviet challenge. “In defense, in our domestic
economy, and in our foreign relations, the administration seems to
be unaware of the depth and scope of the Soviet challenge. There is
no evidence that the administration is now or ever will be willing
to urge the American people to take in one notch on our belt to deal
with a Soviet challenge which confronts us in missiles, arms, and just
downright capacity to produce.”[148] “I believe that the people of
America will rise to the needs of our situation if they are clearly
told what is at stake. They certainly would be willing to be taxed
if it is necessary to survival. But I am not sure the administration
agrees with even that simple proposition.”[149]
With high commendation, Senator Fulbright inserted an article by Joseph
Alsop into the _Congressional Record_ which indicated that he thought
that President Eisenhower did not have, to say the least, the balanced
judgment necessary for guiding aright the ship of state. Of a reason
advanced by the President concerning test bans, Alsop said: “Surely
this singular choice of reasons for a high policy decision of truly
immeasurable import, reveals a mind gripped by one idea to the point
of total obsession. Surely it shows a man driven by a single purpose
almost to the point of mania.”[150]
Senator Fulbright further charged that President Eisenhower did not
have the proper attitude toward Congress and that he did not take
them into his confidence. Perhaps the Senator thought that there were
too many secret memorandums floating around! At any rate he said: “I
believe that a great deal of this stems from the President’s attitude
toward Congress, particularly toward the Democratic Members of
Congress. He has shown very little disposition to take them into his
confidence, now or at any other time.
“I believe that legitimately leaves many people with the feeling that
we do not know all that we ought to know. I asked Mr. Kohler about the
letter which Khrushchev had written, and Mr. Kohler said flatly that
he could not discuss it. I said that it had appeared at least in part
in the Herald Tribune, and that it was strange indeed that it could
be revealed to Miss Higgins of the New York Herald Tribune, but not
to a committee of the Senate. He said that he could not discuss it.
Apparently he was under orders not to discuss it in any respect with
the committee. That did not leave a very good taste in my mouth. It is
a mystery to me why a letter, unless it was specifically agreed that
Mr. Khrushchev considered it a personal and confidential letter, should
not be released. Having been released, or leaked, as the new term is,
to the Herald Tribune, I do not know of any reason why it should not be
made available to the committee, and to the public, for that matter, in
a more official manner than the way in which it was.
“With reference to the statement of the Senator regarding what Mr.
Tsarapkin said, I have only seen a summary of it which Mr. Farley
brought to me and said:
“‘This is all that can be released now.’
“I do not quite understand why that should be true. Maybe the Senator’s
explanation would be a violation of an understanding. That is possible.
However, I must agree with the Senator that a little more frank
discussion, and taking the public into their confidence, certainly the
Senate of the United States, particularly the Committee on Foreign
Relations, would be a very healthy step.”[151]
Senator Fulbright also thought that President Eisenhower was forcing
uniformity of viewpoint in his administration. Men under him were
either muzzled or suffered the consequences. Or at least the Senator
indicated this in an insertion, with high praise, of an article by
Joseph Alsop which said: “In this administration, uniformity of
viewpoint is virtually enforced. Independent-minded persons who do
not take their viewpoint, readymade, from the White House have always
been condemned as non-team players. Soon or late, they have always
met the fate of General Gavin, General Ridgway, and Gen. Maxwell D.
Taylor.”[152]
As late as March 22, 1960, Senator Fulbright, in a speech before the
Annual Dinner of the Harvard Club of Washington, D. C., commended
a high military official for disagreeing with the President. And,
furthermore, Senator Fulbright seems to cast scorn on the idea that
it was not for Generals to reason why! As the Senator put it: “Gen.
Bernard Schriever has also said that there is ‘very much evidence’
that Russia has greatly strengthened its bomber defenses. But the
aircraft that might not be able to get through may not even be able to
demonstrate their impotence. ‘For,’ states Gen. Thomas Power, Chief of
the Strategic Air Command, ‘our bomber bases are vulnerable to surprise
attack.’
“Generals are not to reason why. Their Commander in Chief complains
that, ‘too many generals have all sorts of ideas.’
“Yet mankind moves on ideas. Men with ideas are the makers and shakers
of the world. The larger their number serving the country the more
fruitful and vigorous the country. But few men of ideas come to
Washington. They are not likely to seek service in a government which
is scornful of their kind.”[153]
The Senator seemed to agree with the idea that “President Eisenhower
leads a dangerously sheltered life as Chief Executive of the
Nation.”[154]
Lyndon B. Johnson also commended, on February 16, 1960, the idea that
public debate by military officials was good. He reprinted a letter
from a Harvard professor, Henry A. Kissinger, that: “The President
says he deplores public argument by military experts regarding our
defense policy. Prior to this, he had called his critics parochial and
had invoked his superior expertise in the subject. It is impossible,
of course, for laymen to pass judgment on a debate of such technical
complexity. They have a right to insist, however, that the categories
of the debate be properly put.”[155]
In the light of these considerations, it is a serious question as to
what has happened to Senator Fulbright within the last year or so that
has led him to think now that President Kennedy is in office, that
the office of the Presidency has automatically raised the President
above the temptations and mistakes that not only beset legislators—and
Kennedy was a Senator less than two years ago—but also above those
which beset Eisenhower. What makes the Senator, in the light of his
previous criticisms of Eisenhower, think what is needed in this country
is more power for the President? After all, the Senator might reflect,
President Kennedy will not be President forever, and what if after we
have conferred far greater powers on the President, while Kennedy was
in office, someone like Eisenhower or Truman, of whom the Senator was
so critical, became President!!
In denouncing those whom he labeled as “fanatics” and “extremists” of
the right, in a speech in Los Angeles on November 18, President Kennedy
said: “They call for a ‘man on horseback’ because they do not trust
the people.”[156] And yet, Senator Fulbright calls for more power for
the President, because the people are so ignorant that they need the
Leader. Wouldn’t this position make the Senator, in this matter, akin
to the rightwing “fanatics”? As Joseph Alsop said, in regards to a
position President Eisenhower had taken, “perhaps it would have been
better to assert, at the outset, that it is always wrong for any nation
to trust any leader, instead of trusting the hard facts.”[157]
Former President Herbert Hoover has indicated that more than one loss
to communism has taken place because the man in the position of the
Presidency, along with his selected advisors, entered into agreements
without an opportunity being given to the Congress or to the people to
know of, to discuss or to pass on these matters. “Executive agreements,
Mr. Hoover said, had spread communism over the earth, turned over the
Baltic States to Soviet Russia, partitioned Poland at the Teheran
Conference, surrendered 10 nations to slavery at Yalta and set in
motion the communization of Mongolia, North Korea, and all China. One
result of these ‘unrestrained Presidential actions’ is a worldwide
shrinking of human freedoms. Another has been a steady encroachment on
powers of the legislative branch by the executive.”[158]
Senator Fulbright would lead us away from our constitutional system
to a system wherein the power would be concentrated in the hands of
the President. “The power that is needed is Presidential power.” “Only
the President can provide the guidance that is necessary....” But
this is not to lead us to a newer and higher form of government, than
that of our so-called out-moded “eighteenth century agrarian society”
constitutional system. It is to lead us back to the concept of
dictatorship, of the Fuhrer.
The leader, of course, would have his small, select group of advisors.
In such a set-up, government by secret memorandums would likely be the
order of the day.
We trust that Senator Fulbright, who is influential in the present
administration, will not influence President Kennedy to accept this
concept of our constitutional system, nor this idea of the role of the
President.
The Senator knows that power tends to corrupt and that absolute power
corrupts absolutely, for he himself once said: “Wherever there is power
there is the possibility that it will be used and the danger that it
will be misused. This assumption, expressed in Lord Acton’s maxim that
‘power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,’ is common
to all effective democracies. This principle is one of instinctive
distrust of power itself wherever it exists. It has nothing to do with
the motives of any group or individual who may wield it. It has been
directed against big business, big labor, and big government, and now,
inevitably, it is directed against our big Military Establishment.”[159]
Why, then, does the Senator want to give to the President far more
power than the Constitution now allows and the President now has? For
what does the President need more power?
_Backing the President_
The Senator said that the need is for the public to be directed into
the support of the President’s own total program.[160] Does this apply
to the Senator?
As a candidate, President Kennedy said he would do something about
Cuba. He was going to do something, i.e. back an invasion. But Senator
Fulbright’s opposition to our backing an invasion had an influence,
according to some, on the President which helped induce him to modify
his plans. Thus the invasion was doomed to failure.
President Kennedy emphasized that we would stand firm in Berlin.[161]
On a TV program on July 30, 1961, the following exchange took place:
“Mr. Scali. In any negotiations over Berlin, Senator, would you be
willing to accept any concessions on the part of the West which closed
West Berlin as an escape hatch for refugees in any way?
“Senator Fulbright. Well, I think that that might certainly be a
negotiable point. The truth of the matter is I think the Russians have
the power to close it in any case. I mean we are not giving up very
much because I believe next week if they chose to close their borders,
they could, without violating any treaty right I know of. We have no
right to insist that they be allowed to come out. As I said I don’t
understand why the East Germans don’t close the border because I think
they have a right to close it. So why is this a great concession? You
don’t have that right now.”[162]
The question dealt specifically with the West making some concessions
which would close the escape hatch. The Senator thought “that might
certainly be a negotiable point.” He made it clear that we could not
negotiate with them as to whether they had the power to close it, so he
was not implying we should negotiate concerning their power; nor, as
he also put it, their right to close the escape hatch. The only thing
left to negotiate was, as the question specifically said, whether the
West should make any concessions “which closed West Berlin as an escape
hatch for refugees in any way.” In other words, the Senator indicates
that we should negotiate as to whether or not the West should help—by
making concessions on our part, since obviously we could not make
concessions for the Russians—close the escape hatch and thus in effect
whether the West should help the Communists guard the prison house in
which the Communists have their slaves.
The East German Communists made use of the Senator’s statements, and
commended him. On August 3, 1961, in East Berlin _Neues Deutschland_
had the following heading for an article: “U. S. Senator Against Trade
in Human Beings.” He was quoted as saying that: “the East Germans have
the right to close their borders.” The paper stressed that the Bonn
government was very much upset with Senator Fulbright’s proposal, as
they put it, to hold “serious negotiations on Berlin with the USSR.”
On August 4 the same paper said: “But the man seems to be a realistic
politician.” “Apparently Fulbright is aware of the fact that the
man-trap of West Berlin is an untenable situation, that it must and
will be closed.”
We wonder whether the President felt that the Senator’s speech upheld
the President’s position on Berlin.
The Senator later explained that this was not what he meant. It was,
however, what he said. We quote the entire explanation which was made
in the Senate on August 4, 1961.
“Last Sunday, I appeared on the ABC network television and radio
program, ‘Issues and Answers.’ In the course of that program one of
the exchanges led to an unfortunate and erroneous impression of my
views. When asked if I thought the West should make any concessions
on the question of the flight of East German refugees to West Berlin,
I responded that this, too, is something that could be discussed,
because—and this is the point—the East Germans have the ability to
control travel _within_ East Germany.
“The imposition of tighter travel restrictions by the East Germans
on travel of East German citizens within East Germany could restrict
access of East German citizens to all of Berlin, thus depriving a large
number of potential refugees from East Germany (as distinguished from
East Berlin) of this convenient means of escape.
“As I pointed out in the TV and radio interview, I know of no
agreements to which the Western Powers are party which prohibit the
East Germans from restricting the travel of East German citizens within
East Germany (outside of Berlin). It is to that point of reference that
my response was intended in the interview.
“I certainly did not intend to imply that the West should execute any
agreement whereby the West would assist in enforcing any restriction
imposed by East Germany on travel within East Germany nor that the West
should consider changing existing agreements and consent to closing
West Berlin to refugees wishing to enter.
“The right of persons to move freely within all sectors of Berlin is
entirely another matter and is guaranteed by post-war agreements signed
by the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. I do not
consider such right to be negotiable.”[163]
According to Constantine Brown, Germans and other Europeans have raised
the question: “How can we reconcile what your President tells us with
what his own important party leaders and especially the chairman of
the most important Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Fulbright, says
in public, on the floor of the Senate and in radio and television
interviews?”
“The suspicions of what may be termed a schizophrenic foreign policy
started some time ago when Senator Mansfield, the majority leader, and
later Senator Fulbright urged negotiations on Berlin after Mr. Kennedy
had taken a formally strong stand on that very matter.”[164]
We wonder if the Senator has set the public a good example of clearly
and wholeheartedly backing the President’s program in such matters as
we have mentioned?
In a review of some of our history Senator Fulbright took the position
that it was important for the people themselves to bring to bear
pressure on the President, instead of always following the leader.
“Moreover, throughout the whole of this process, while much was done
by the action of individual Presidents, a great deal was done as a
direct result of congressional action or by the direct play of public
pressures, rising from a people whose life was being progressively
democratized.
“The key point is that the conduct of foreign affairs did not appear
to be an elite function, limited to specialists in and around the
Executive. Neither the electorate nor the Congress was ever overawed
by the Executive claim to exclusive knowledge, or its claim that it
would be against the national interest to disclose the facts relevant
to a foreign policy decision. Foreign policy was debated in remote
frontier outposts as well as in seaboard cities, with a shrewdness and
a knowledge of great power rivalries that astonishes any modern reader
who browses through the records of these debates preserved in our
National Archives.”[165]
Now that the Senator’s secret memorandum has been made public,
the people can study it, debate it and continue to exercise their
sovereignty. It is through knowledge and action based thereon that
the civilian control can be maintained over the government and thus
over the military. Those who do not believe that our constitutional
system is out of date will surely want to examine closely the Senator’s
position.[166] In fact, the Senator himself once emphasized the
necessity of debating issues. “Too many people are given a practical
veto over policy. There is an inhibition of the kind of free debate out
of which a fundamental national agreement emerges.” “Nonpartisanship
does not mean the absence of debate on foreign policy.” “I do not think
it is possible for a democratic country to have a viable, effective
policy unless it is founded on the widest possible public discussion.
Debate is a necessary ingredient of policymaking.”[167]
FOOTNOTES:
[119] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 2,t.
[120] _Ibid._, p. 13437.
[121] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13436, col. 2,b.
[122] _Ibid._, August 1, 1961, p. 13219, col. 2,t.
[123] _Ibid._, p. 13219, col. 2,m.
[124] _Commercial Appeal_, August 1, 1961. Report of speech of
Congressman Frank J. Becker. This same news item said that Senator
Fulbright was for the recognition of Outer Mongolia.
[125] _Peking Review_, July 14, 1961, p. 7.
[126] See the American-Asian Educational Exchange’s recent report on
Communist China and Asia, July, 1961. See also _The Worker_, October 1,
1961, p. 6. _World Marxist Review_, July 1961, p. 3.
[127] _Chinese News Service_, August 1, 1961, pp. 3-4. For some
additional comments see Thomas J. Dodd’s speech in the _Congressional
Record_, August 2, 1961.
[128] _Congressional Record_, August 21, 1961, p. 15357, col. 3,m.
[129] Speech of Senator Fulbright before the 1961 Summer Cubberly
Conference of Stanford University, Stanford, California, July 28, 1961.
Mimeographed copy, pp. 1-2.
[130] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 2,m.
[131] _Ibid._, p. 13437, col. 2,m.
[132] _Ibid._, September 2, 1960, p. A6708, col. 2,b.
[133] _Ibid._, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 2,b. Dr. Robert T.
Oliver, of Pennsylvania State University, expressed his opinion on
October 24, 1961, that: “Democratic and totalitarian governments are
becoming more and more alike in their methods of governing—through the
manipulation of public opinion by control of secrecy and publicity.”
(_Congressional Record_, Jan. 15, 1962, p. A141, col. 2,t.)
[134] See Edward Hunter, speech on the Manion Forum. 1961. Reprinted in
the _Congressional Record_, Feb. 6, 1962, pp. A906-907.
[135] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 1,b.-2,t.
[136] _Ibid._, p. 13437, col. 1,b. See also p. 13436, col. 3,b.
[137] _Ibid._, p. 13437, col. 3,t.
[138] _Ibid._, January 18, 1960, p. 578, col. 3,m. Dr. Robert T.
Oliver, who served over twelve years in the inner councils of the
government of Korea, dealing with matters of foreign policy, said: “On
the whole, however, the significant facts concerning all the major
international issues are completely available to anyone who takes the
trouble to keep up with the news.” (_Ibid._, Jan. 5, 1962, p. A140,
col. 3,b.)
[139] Speech of Senator Fulbright before the 1961 Summer Cubberly
Conference at Stanford University, Stanford, California, July 28,
1961, pp. 7-8. When he was a Senator, Kennedy made it clear that
the Presidency conferred no wisdom in his criticism of Eisenhower.
(_Congressional Record_, June 14, 1960, p. 11630, col. 3,t.) The
question is raised in my mind as to whether or not Senator Kennedy,
who spoke of the “missile gap” and other “gaps” in our defenses during
the campaign for President, was really that ignorant of our defense
posture? Yet, within a few months after he became president—and
certainly before anything that his administration did could have
changed the picture basically—we “learned” that there was no “missile
gap” and that our defense posture was strong. (See the article by David
Lawrence in the _Congressional Record_, Jan. 16, 1962, p. A241, cols. 2
and 3.)
Senator Fulbright himself said “In a democratic system, such as ours,
the people do have much to say about policy, and they decide who shall
govern them. How, may I ask, can our people be expected to discharge
their duty as citizens of a self-governing republic, if they are not
told the truth about their affairs? It would be easier, more pleasant,
and I am sure more popular, to join those who pretend that all is
well, that the summit meeting was a triumph for the West and that the
Japanese fiasco only demonstrates once again the viciousness of the
Communists.” (_Ibid._, June 28, 1960, p. 13672, col. 2,m.)
[140] Column of February 11, 1960. _Congressional Record_, February 19,
1960, p. 2761, col. 3,t.
[141] _U.S. News and World Report_, May 21, 1962, p. 15.
[142] _Evening Tribune_, San Diego, California, Editorial, August 14,
1961.
[143] _Congressional Record_, February 1, 1960, p. 1519, col. 2,m,
Senator Fulbright once accused Nixon of “deceiving the American
people”. Quoted in _The Arkansas Historical Quarterly_, Winter, 1961,
p. 328.
[144] _Congressional Record_, April 26, 1951, p. 4409, col. 3,m.
[145] _Ibid_, September 9, 1959, p. 17250, col. 3,m.
[146] _Ibid._, April 24, 1959, p. 5932, col. 3,b.
[147] _Ibid._, August 12, 1959, p. 14272, col. 1,m.
[148] _Ibid._, March 18, 1959, p. 3948, col. 1,m.
[149] _Ibid._, p. 3948, col 1,b.
[150] _Ibid._, February 8, 1960, p. 1978, col 3,m.
[151] _Ibid._, March 28, 1960, p. 6207, col. 2,m.
[152] _Ibid._, February 8, 1960, p. 1978, col. 3,b.-p. 1979, col. 1,t.
[153] _Ibid._, March 28, 1960, p. A2708, col. 2,m.
[154] _Ibid._, March 28, 1960, p. A2708, col. 2,b.
[155] _Ibid._, February 16, 1960, pp. A1250, col. 3,b. A1251, col. 1,t.
[156] As quoted in the _U.S. News and World Report_, December 4, 1961,
p. 4, col. 1,b.
[157] _Congressional Record_, February 19, 1961, p. 2769.
[158] _Congressional Record_, August 16, 1954, p. A6075, col. 3,m.
See the entire speech in Herbert Hoover, _Addresses Upon the American
Road_, August 10, 1954, pp. 74-84.
[159] _Ibid._, August 21, 1961, p. 15357, col. 1,t. Speech before the
National War College, August 21, 1961.
[160] _Ibid._, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 3,t.
[161] Compare Constantine Brown, _Congressional Record_, September 5,
1961, p. A6963.
[162] _Ibid._, August 1, 1961, p. 13218, col. 2,t.
[163] Statement by Senator Fulbright before the United States Senate,
August 4, 1961. It is regrettable that the right to move freely within
all sectors of Berlin has been abrogated by the Communists without any
negotiations. J.D.B.
[164] _Congressional Record_, September 5, 1961, p. A6963, col. 2,m.
[165] Speech by Senator Fulbright at the 10th anniversary banquet of
the _Reporter_ magazine. April 16, 1959. _Congressional Record_, April
17, 1959, p. 5543, col. 2,m.
[166] Compare Constantine Brown, “Remaking the Constitution?” _Ibid._,
September 12, 1961, p. A7150, col. 2.
[167] Senator Fulbright, _Congressional Record_, April 17, 1959, p.
5542, col. 3.
Chapter VII
WHO IS THE DEFEATIST?
One reason that was given for the banning of “Communism on the Map”
from military installations was that it was defeatist. If a diagnosis
of the dangerous situation we are in is defeatism a doctor should not
diagnose a serious disease. It is not a defeatist film, although it
does show that we are in real danger. Senator Fulbright himself said:
“We are confronted by the most formidable and resourceful adversary
ever to have challenged us...”[168] President Kennedy on October 12,
1961, stated that mankind is in the most dangerous situation the human
race has ever been in.
An examination of some of Senator Fulbright’s positions shows that
he is a defeatist in that he indicates that we should not try to win
victory over communism. The Senator does not think in terms of victory
over the communist enemy; although he seemed to think in terms of
victory, and that immediately, over the military in his effort to knock
them out of the cold war!
The Senator does not seem to understand the principle set forth by
Anthony Harrigan, director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute,
that: “As important to a navy as new ships and late-model weapons is a
victory psychology. In the last analysis, it is the will to win that
turns the tide of battle. The great conflicts of former centuries
are replete with illustrations of the truth that the nation that is
emotionally dedicated to victory is the nation that triumphs, even
though its weapons may not be a match for the enemy’s weapons. To
cite only one example, the outnumbered airmen of the Royal Air Force
defeated the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain because they had the
will to win.”[169]
_Victory not Sought_
Senator Fulbright said that both “World Wars ended in total victory,
but the world is far less safe for democracy today than it was in 1914,
when the current era of upheavals began. One of the principle lessons
of two World Wars is that wars, and total victories, generate more
problems than they solve.”[170] What if we had lost these wars? The
trouble was not that we won the wars but that we failed to keep the
peace after the wars were won.
Senator Fulbright, to be consistent, should take the position that
we should not fight communism even if war is forced on us, since he
says that war and victory create more problems than they solve. The
Senator says that he is not for total victory, and by that he means
such a victory as we won in World War I and World War II, and that
even if we won we would have the additional problem of what to do with
victory![171]
What is it but defeatism for one to say that we should not seek victory
over communism, and that if we did win it would create more problems
than it would solve?
_Defeatism concerning Cuba_
In the campaign for the Presidency, John F. Kennedy said that he
would do something about Cuba. The Monroe Doctrine calls on us to do
something about Cuba. The influence of Senator Fulbright, according
to Charles J. V. Murphy, helped bring about a change in plans which
contributed to the “fatal dismemberment of the whole plan.”[172] The
Senator thought that the invasion was a bad thing to do even if we
succeeded. World opinion would label us as an aggressor, and we would
have to support Cuba after we had thrown out Castro, and this would be
a drain on our Treasury![173] It is strange that the Senator did not
think of such arguments when U.N. troops, with United States support,
waged war on Katanga. Furthermore, the Senator approved the State
Department’s action in the show of force of American troops, ships and
planes off the coast of the Dominican Republic in the fall of 1961.[174]
Fulbright is such a defeatist that he thinks that we cannot do much
about Cuba, and that communist-controlled Cuba seems to be here to
stay[175].
The rejection of the idea of victory over communism may be the reason
that Edgar Ansel Mowrer, on returning to the United States after being
in Europe, wrote: “In short, I find the Washington official attitude
one of basic defeatism hidden behind a hot air screen of talk about the
historical trend being on our side.”[176]
FOOTNOTES:
[168] Stanford Speech, p. 11.
[169] “The Will to Win”, _Congressional Record_, August 29, 1961, p.
A6794.
[170] _Congressional Record_, July 24, 1961, pp. 12280-12281, col. 3,b.
The Senator thought that possible action on our part might provoke the
Soviets to an unrestricted nuclear arms race. At the very moment he
was saying this, the Communists were finishing their preparations for
renewed atmospheric testing, although we had not prepared for such and
had not “provoked” them into doing this! When will some people learn
that the driving power of communist activity is not reaction to our
moves, but a positive program of world conquest based on their world
view.
[171] Same as 3.
[172] _Congressional Record_, September 7, 1961, p. A7040. Senator
Fulbright thought that it violated the OAS Charter. This statement in
the quotation concerning Kennedy’s change of plans, does not imply that
Senator Fulbright had anything to do with planning or executing the
project.
[173] _Arkansas Gazette_, July 30, 1961, p. 5E. This quotation from the
_Gazette_ is based on the Senator’s speech of July 24. _Congressional
Record_, July 24, 1961, p. 12281.
[174] _Arkansas Democrat_, December 4, 1961.
[175] _Congressional Record_, June 29, 1961, p. 10874. The Senator
once said that he did not know whether Castro was a Communist or not,
but the main thing was that we must be patient and understanding and
drive him toward the Communists. We must not confuse communism with
nationalism, he said. He reprinted an article by Walter Lippmann which
attacked the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee for indicating
that Castro and his revolutionists were pro-communist. _Congressional
Record_, August 11, 1959, p. 14100, _New York Times_, August 12, 1959.
[176] Edgar Ansel Mowrer, “Washington Attitude is one of Defeatism,”
_Congressional Record_, July 23, 1962, p. A5660.
Chapter VIII
SENATOR FULBRIGHT AND WORLD OPINION
From some of the Senator’s remarks one can draw the conclusion that we
are in a “popularity contest” in _the_ court of world opinion. This
implies that if we are more popular with world opinion than are the
Communists we shall win.
For the United States to liberate Cuba from the control of the
communists would, the Senator thinks, result in “the alienation of most
of Latin America, Asia and Africa.”[177]
Robert Murphy has written: “I was in Brazil at the time of the unhappy
Cuban operation. Apart from the apathy of the mass I was a bit startled
to be told that the reason the United States failed to intervene openly
in Cuba was because our government feared it would provoke war between
the U.S.S.R. and the United States. I found little or no recognition
of the consistent effort our government has loyally made through the
years to adhere to a policy of non-intervention. We have done this on
moral grounds and by observing the rule of law in an effort to work in
harmony with and as a good neighbor of the members of the Organization
of American States. When I urged these reasons I was met by polite
incredulity. I found that our government was actually blamed in the
last analysis for permitting the Cuban attempt to fail but given little
or no credit for restraint and non-intervention. President Kennedy’s
statement warning that our patience is not inexhaustible and that
the government of the United States will not hesitate to meet its
primary obligations was like a timely ray of brilliant sunshine in the
gloomy atmosphere. I gained the distinct impression that those Latin
Americans with whom I talked, who are not unfriendly to the United
States, would have welcomed successful intervention in Cuba because
they fear the expansion of Castroism in South America and doubt it will
be stopped without intervention. The test in their minds seemed to
be that it succeed. There was evidence of understanding on their part
that both under a reasonable interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine as
well as because of the severe provocation by Castro that some form of
intervention would be justifiable.”[178]
James A. Farley has spoken thus concerning Cuba, invasion and world
opinion. “In the last year, I have spoken personally and privately
to most of the heads of government in the Far East and in South
America. It is my opinion that as spokesmen for the free world they
are far more in favor of a firm and final position than a policy of
appeasement masquerading as the easing of a series of crises, crises
which the Communists themselves manufacture. These foreign statesmen
are much more aware than some of our own statesmen, of the fact that by
practicing unceasing brinksmanship, Khrushchev is pushing us back into
the abyss of dishonor and disaster.
“It follows that the President has gained free world approval in
drawing the line. He has placed the responsibility where it belongs—on
the Communist aggressor.
“Since President Kennedy has said that we do not intend to abandon Cuba
to Communism, and since the Communists are accelerating their rate of
acquisition there, it may be that the force of the United States may be
necessary to expel them. That decision can be made under American law
and oath of God by one man alone.
“But it is my conviction that should President Kennedy elect to order
the Armed Forces of the United States into action against Communist
Castro his action would be hailed by the free governments and the free
peoples of the world. In these times of agonizing decision, their
prayers are already with him. Furthermore, even more important than the
preservation of the Western Hemisphere, the avoidance of global War may
well depend upon giving unmistakable evidence to the Kremlin that to
the extent that it believes itself on the way to world conquest it is
in fact on the road to global war.
“It is a fact that we may have to accept such war in defense of our
liberty. We must not conceal this from ourselves and, still less,
should we conceal it from our enemy. The peace of the world may
well depend on the reeducation of Mr. Khrushchev, because if war he
seeks he has found the way in which to make it inevitable. The fact
is, freedom will not be edged off this earth by Mr. Khrushchev’s
brinksmanship.”[179]
_What is World Opinion?_
On the news broadcast on Sept. 22, 1961, David Brinkley implied that
the foreign policy advisors who were so concerned about world opinion
were not very wise. He spoke of the “vague and formless thing called
world opinion—whatever that is.”
_There is no such thing today as “world opinion.”_ There are many
different views, aims and ambitions. Whose “world opinion” shall we
court? Africa? Which tribe in Africa? Which Nation? Nkrumah? Or the
freedom lovers he has jailed? The neutrals, are they the ones we should
court? The Soviet manner of “courting” seems to be more successful with
many of them than ours!
Arthur Krock of the _New York Times_ has pointed out that the concept
of “world opinion” ignores the fact that hundreds of millions have no
knowledge whatever of exterior events.[180] And yet, as he pointed
out, in some matters affecting our national security we have paid more
attention to “world opinion” than to the warnings of experts. He has
special reference to the three year test ban, without inspection, which
we gave to the U.S.S.R.
Yet Senator Fulbright says: “World opinion is a civilizing force in the
world, helping to restrain the great powers from the worst possible
consequences of their mutual hostility.”[181] This hostility is mutual
only in the sense that after our countless words and deeds of good
will, the Communists still hate us. They are inherently hostile to
all that stands in their way of world conquest. They have said that
they are our irreconcilable enemy, and then they have proceeded to
treat us in this light. The hostility is mutual only in the sense that
we have been waking up to the fact that this is an enemy bent on our
destruction.
How has the U.S.S.R. been responding to world opinion? How has world
opinion helped civilize the Communists in Russia or in China, or in the
United States?
What is world opinion doing to civilize Castro? Did world opinion keep
the U.S.S.R. from renewing the bomb tests?
As Senator Prouty said: “Twenty-four so-called neutral nations were
sitting in the jury box at Belgrade when the Soviet Union announced its
intention—since carried out—to resume nuclear explosions.
“And what was the verdict of this jury we have been so assiduously
courting? ‘Not quite guilty’.
“Nehru said: I am not in a position and I suppose no one else here is
in a position to know all the facts underlying the decision—military,
political or nonpolitical, whatever they may be.
‘But I know this decision makes the situation much more dangerous. This
is obvious to me. Therefore, I regret it deeply.’
“President Tito of Yugoslavia said he understood why Moscow had decided
to resume nuclear testing; Nasser was simply shocked. The rest were
eloquently silent.
“The shrieking shame on you, Russia, hoped for by the White House,
turned out to be a whispered version of ‘Miss Otis regrets she is
unable to lunch today.’
“About the only character missing from the very tragic comedy in
Belgrade was the fictional creation of Lewis Carroll who said: ‘I am
very brave generally only today I happen to have a headache.’
“Joseph Alsop nailed to the wall for all time the naive code of leading
U.S. policy-makers—the code that lets a synthetic world opinion—not
enlightened self-interest—shape the policies of this Nation. Alsop said:
‘If you listen to persons of this school of thought you might suppose
that foreign policy could be conducted on the principle of Sir
Galahad—“my strength is as the strength of 10, because my heart is
pure.”
‘The truth is, alas, that naked power counts far more in this sad world
than virtuous intentions.’
“Mr. Khrushchev did not give a hoot about world opinion. He was
brutally frank about his reason for resuming nuclear weapons tests
at this time. According to the New York Times, Khrushchev told some
leftwing British visitors, he is doing it to terrorize the Western
Powers into negotiations on Berlin, Germany, and disarmament—on his own
terms.”[182]
Eric Sevareid, who as far as I know has never been accused by Senator
Fulbright of being a rightwing radical, had this to say of the
Communists as they read about the concern of some Americans for “world
opinion”. “Surely they adore reading the worrying, hair-shirt arguments
that the United States must not do this or that because it will offend
‘world opinion’, knowing as they do that there is no such thing in the
moralistic sense—the proof of which is that after all their crimes,
including Hungary, they enjoy more influence and respect in the world
than ever. They must love the British-American notion that the bosses
of the new ‘neutral’ nations are somehow more high-minded and spiritual
than those of the committed nations.”[183]
“The gamesmen in the Kremlin must smile in their sleep as they realize
how deeply ingrained is the American illusion that a ton of wheat can
offset a ton of Communist artillery shells, that a squad of Peace
Corpsmen is a match for a squad of guerrilla fighters.
“But I hope they frowned a bit when they read the angry retort of
Defense Secretary McNamara when he heard for the umpteenth time the
pious theory that the Communists were gaining in Laos and South Vietnam
because the regimes there are ‘unresponsive to the people’s needs.’ A
burning sense of reality on a short fuse can make a quiet man shout (as
I’m afraid it makes me shout these days), and McNamara shouted that
the Communists are gaining in those countries for very simple reasons
known as guns, bombs, fighters and threats.
“Frightened people in a score of desperate countries want to be on
the winning but not necessarily the moral side; and we have to start
winning soon. We are going to lose in several more places before we do.
We may as well face the fact that we will also lose in places we cannot
afford to lose, until and unless we are willing to fight, no matter the
reproving editorials in the Manchester Guardian, no matter what the
temporary backlash of world opinion may be.
“The relations between nations are not the same as those between
individuals. We can afford to lose everything—except respect for our
strength and determination. Lose that, and Khrushchev won’t bother to
sit down and talk again even to say no.”[184]
The Senator who is so impressed with “world” opinion does not think
that the President should be too impressed with opinion in the United
States. Instead of being influenced by public opinion, Senator
Fulbright thinks that the main problem of the President may be to
restrain the American people from too vigorous a response to Communist
aggression and gains and the resulting losses for the non-communist
world.
Winning the victory over those who would enslave the world is far more
important than what Nehru, or Latin America thinks.[185] Goa shows that
Nehru thumbs his nose at “world opinion.” Nehru, of course, is one of
the “neutrals” whose “world opinion” some in America have courted.
Edgar Ansel Mowrer said that aside from a major war, “the next
strongest weapon in the cold war is prestige.” He said that this was
largely “a matter of military power—and the readiness to use it.” The
crushing of the Hungarian revolt hurt the popularity of the U.S.S.R.
but increased its prestige.[186]
James A. Farley on July 8, 1960 said: “Any American administration
which refuses to protect American citizens and American property in any
quarter of the globe, on the ground that its action will be called
Yankee imperialism, has in effect struck the flag. Let us not perform
the disgraceful act of offering the American people a spurious dove of
peace, when every page of recent history identifies it as the white
flag of cowardly surrender.”[187] Just before this he stated: “I have
traveled as much abroad as almost any man in this party. I, too, value
the opinion of the world. But I am sure that sound policy cannot be
based on loss of self-respect.”
FOOTNOTES:
[177] _Congressional Record_, June 29, 1961, pp. 10874-10875.
[178] Address of Robert Murphy, Commencement Exercises, Boston College,
June 12, 1961, pp. 8-9. Also reprinted in the _Congressional Record_,
June 13, 1961, p. A4314, col. 2,t.
[179] _Congressional Record_, June 12, 1961, p. A4237, col. 2,b.-3,t.
General Carlos P. Romulo said: “But what is significant to the
peoples outside this country is that in these 16 years you have not
succeeded to make Soviet Russia recede or retreat one inch from any
of her ill-gotten gains.” (_Congressional Record_, Feb. 15, 1962, p.
A1134, col. 3,t.) The Republic of China Chapter of the Asian Peoples’
Anti-Communist League has spoken of the weakening of confidence in the
United States on the part of Southeast Asian countries as a result of
our actions in Laos (_Free China and Asia_, March, 1962, p 2. See also
the _Congressional Record_, March 7, 1962, p. A1714).
Burmese Army leaders think that the Chinese Communists will take
Southeast Asia in a few years; therefore, they lean toward them
(_Newsweek_, May 21, 1962, p. 17.)
George E. Sokolsky has pointed out that not only Cuba, but aiding our
enemies and alienating our allies in certain instances has damaged our
prestige (“The National Image,” _Searcy Daily Citizen_, May 3, 1962, p.
4.)
[180] _Arkansas Gazette_, September 5, 1961.
[181] _Congressional Record_, July 24, 1961, p. 12281, col. 2,b.
[182] _Congressional Record_, September 19, 1961, p. 19015, col.
2,t.-3,m.
[183] _Congressional Record_, June 29, 1961, p. 10891, col. 1,b.
[184] _Ibid._, p. 10891, col. 2,m.
[185] Compare Marguerite Higgins, “Power and Popularity,”
_Congressional Record_, September 5, 1961, p. A6963.
[186] _Congressional Record_, June 25, 1960, p. A5506, col. 3,t.
[187] _Ibid._, August 22, 1960, p. A6153, col. 3,m.
Chapter IX
_IS COMMUNISM A MATTER OF POLITICS?_
The 1958 directive of the National Security Council ordered the
military into the cold war. In their participation in the cold war
they had to deal with the history, the philosophy, the strategy and
the tactics of communism. Since communism had endeavored to extend
its influence throughout the world in a thousand and one ways, their
tactics also involve the use of individuals, who are not Communists, to
extend their influence whenever possible. An analysis of their tactics
certainly involves analyzing how they have worked through the united
fronts, the communist fronts, through infiltration and in other ways.
Since communism does not work in a vacuum void of people, some people
who were not Communists were unwittingly involved in certain aspects of
the manifold operations of the Communists.
Would it be political to take an actual case history and to show
how the Communists have operated? Of course, such an analysis would
take on a different hue if the analyzer impugned the _motives_ of
the individuals who were involved. But the point here is that it is
impossible to show fully how the Communists work without giving some
concrete cases. When it is shown that even patriotic Americans have
been duped—and surely the Senator would not say that none of them have
been duped—it emphasizes the care which all need to exercise lest we in
turn be duped.
We are not contending that the military become a spokesman for varying
points of view in American politics. The 1958 directive did not
authorize “political propaganda”. As Senator Thurmond said: “I think
our people in uniform generally should not speak promiscuously on all
subjects, but they are entitled to tell their own military personnel
and entitled to tell the civilian population the aims, the methods
of operations, and the dangers of the enemy. The enemy today is
communism.”[188]
And yet some have raised a false issue, whether they are conscious
of it or not, and have said that Senator Thurmond is in favor of the
military educating America on politics. The _Arkansas Gazette_ said in
an editorial on August 4, 1961, that: “Mr. Thurmond, we are compelled
to observe, has not examined the implications of his doctrine that the
military should assume responsibility for the political education of
the American people—nor have Senator Goldwater and Karl Mundt.”
“Senator Fulbright just about said it all when he remarked to Senator
Thurmond recently in a Senate debate:
‘The Senator from South Carolina, who opposed federal aid to education
because he feared federal control of education, apparently wants the
military to educate the people.’
“There you have it. The right wing evangelists—the Thurmonds, the
Goldwaters, the Mundts, and the Alfords, who daily preach the dangers
of central control—are prepared to concede the point which has in so
many places resulted in dictatorial government: That the military is
and ought to be a means of political control and influence.”[189]
Is not the _Arkansas Gazette_ implying that communism is just a matter
of politics, and that Senator Thurmond is wanting the military to
educate the public in politics just because Senator Thurmond wants the
military to help educate the public with regard to the dangers, aims
and tactics of the enemy, communism?
Senator Fulbright has stated that his memorandum was directed against
the involvement of the military in partisan political propaganda. “For
all these reasons I strongly oppose political propaganda activities by
military personnel directed at the public. If we are to maintain our
political freedom and the Constitutional system which distinguishes
us from totalitarian dictatorships, we must retain civil control over
the military. This principle lies at the very core of our heritage of
freedom and Constitutional government.”[190]
If engaging in the cold war, in obedience to the directive of the
National Security Council, is engaging in political propaganda, the
military not only has no right to educate the public, but it also has
no right to educate the troops in any subject pertaining to the cold
war.
No one who knows the nature of the Communist menace can say that
instruction in this area is dabbling in partisan politics. Furthermore,
Senator Fulbright himself in his vote for the Peace Corps Act voted for
an amendment made by the Senate. “The Senate amendment, section 8(c),
included a provision that ‘training hereinabove provided for shall
include instruction in the philosophy, strategy, tactics, and menace of
communism.’
“The House bill did not contain a similar provision.
“The managers on the part of the House accepted the Senate language.
The Peace Corps officials have given assurance that such training
is already required in every Peace Corps training curriculum. There
appears to be every reason to give statutory recognition to this
requirement.”[191] The Peace Corps, the Senator says, is “part of the
cold war.”[192]
If the military in teaching the public concerning these matters is
engaging in partisan politics, then the Peace Corps is giving partisan
political indoctrination to members of the Corps. Unless Senator
Fulbright is willing to say that the Peace Corps should become a
center of partisan politics, he must say that such instruction is not
political. If this is partisan politics, towards what party would the
head of the Peace Corps, the President’s brother-in-law, be expected
to slant this “partisan political” indoctrination? But if it is not
political when done by the Peace Corps, why is it political when done
by the military?
We wonder why the Senator is involved in this basic contradiction? He
voted for training the Peace Corps in the above matters, will he vote
for the military to do the same? No, he will not, for his memorandum,
in effect denies them this right. If he says that it is right for the
troops to be taught the above, but not for the military to teach the
public—because they should not engage in political propaganda—then why
teach political propaganda to the troops? Yet his memorandum, which he
says was against political propaganda by the military, was against
the 1958 directive of the National Security Council. But the National
Security Council basically did not authorize instruction in any fields
other than those covered in the above instructions to the Peace Corps.
Although the Senator may not be aware of it, it is a part of the
Communist Party line to view anti-communism education conducted by the
military as partisan politics. It so happens that the Communists are
wrong about this. Communism, in both its internal and external aspects,
is not a matter of party politics.
We remind the reader that the Senator does not object to radical
statements only, but the entire concept of the military’s participation
in the cold war. He objected to the directive of the National Security
Council which put the military into the cold war.
The policy of the President is against the recognition of Red China.
Does the Senator think that it would be dabbling in politics for a
military spokesman to oppose the recognition of Red China and to give
reasons for his opposition?[193]
The author is against the military educating the public or the troops
in partisan politics. When a military official oversteps the proper
bounds, his mistake can be dealt with without abolishing, in effect,
the 1958 directive of the National Security Council. In curing a cold
the doctor does not decide that one must kill the patient. That would,
of course, get rid of the cold, but we can’t say that it helps the
patient. One can throw out dirty bathwater without throwing out the
baby with it.
FOOTNOTES:
[188] _Congressional Record_, August 17, 1961, p. 15030, col. 2,m. Also
in “Excerpts from Speeches by Senator Strom Thurmond on Efforts to Gag
Military Anti-Communist Speeches and Seminars,” p. 35, col. 1,t.
[189] _Arkansas Gazette_, August 4, 1961, p. 4A.
[190] “Statement of Senator J. W. Fulbright Relating to a memorandum
submitted by him to the Department of Defense,” p. 6.
[191] House of Representatives, 87th Congress, 1st Session, Report No.
1239, _Peace Corps Act_, September 19, 1961, p. 21.
[192] _Arkansas Democrat_, November 28, 1961.
[193] Both the Senate and the House have more than once gone on record
as being opposed to the recognition of Red China. For example see 87th
Congress, 1st Session, S. Con. Res. 34, July 28, 1961.
Chapter X
THE MEMORANDUM AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY LINE
The Communists thought so highly of Senator Fulbright’s memorandum
that they reprinted several columns of it in _The Worker_ for August
27, 1961. It is not often that a Senator of the United States receives
this type of “recognition”. Dr. Benson, Dr. Barnett and Herbert A.
Philbrick, for example, have never received such an “honor”, and it is
unlikely that they shall receive such an “honor” in the future.
The Religious Freedom Committee, Inc., which is well known for its
defense of pro-communist causes and persons, calls on people to rally
behind the Senator from Arkansas. As it views the struggle: “On the
one side are the liberal elements in church and state; on the other,
an alliance of fundamentalist religious groups, the military, and
reactionary elements in the Congress and in the financial and business
community.”[194] If the Religious Freedom Committee, Inc. thought that
the Senator’s memorandum was damaging to internal communism, it is my
judgment, based on their record, that they would not defend it.
We are not suggesting that the Senator wants this type of support, but
he is espousing a cause which Communists and pro-Communists consider
worthy of support. He ought to make a serious investigation of this
question: Why do pro-Communists and Communists support the memorandum?
There are those who are not pro-Communists who support the memorandum,
this we realize; but the Senator ought to find out why pro-Communists
support it.
Gus Hall, the General Secretary of the Communist Party in the United
States, makes it clear that one of the main objectives of the Communist
Party is to defeat what he calls the “ultra-Right”. Certainly anything
on the center, or to the right of center, would be “ultra-Right” to
Gus Hall. He includes Dr. Benson and many others. He indicates that
Communists have hopes of defeating the “ultra-Right”. “If the tactical
problem is solved correctly, it will be possible to slam shut the door
on the ultra-Right, defeat it, and force a shift in policy upon the
Administration itself in the direction of peace and democracy.”[195]
_The Communist Line_
Of course, we realize with J. Edgar Hoover that there may be times
when the Communist Party line coincides with some objective sought by
a non-Communist or anti-Communist group. “Because communism thrives
on turmoil, the party is continuously attempting to exploit all
grievances—real or imagined—for its own tactical purposes. It is,
therefore, almost inevitable that, on many issues, the party line
will coincide with the position of many non-Communists. The danger of
indiscriminately alleging that someone is a Communist merely because
his views on a particular issue happen to parallel the official party
position is obvious. The confusion which is thereby created helps the
Communists by diffusing the forces of their opponents.”[196]
A person, however, who finds some of his views parallel those of the
Party needs, of course, to examine his views to see whether or not they
are non-Communist views which the party has taken merely to gain favor
with the masses, or for some other reason, or whether or not they are
views which can only help communism instead of freedom. One should also
ask: How does the Communist try to use this for his own ends? Then one
can try to work for the legitimate goals in such a way that no comfort
is given to the Communists.
When one points out that a position parallels the party line, and when
one shows in what way or ways the position advances communism, one
does not need to go into the motives of the non-Communist who advances
this position. It is unnecessary, in order to deal with any concrete
issue, to know why the person takes a particular position. Regardless
of motives, one can be convinced that certain things do advance
communism. This can be pointed out without entering into the question
of motives. We, therefore, are not attacking Senator Fulbright’s
motives, but his judgment.
The Senator, we regret to say, has accused some people of misquoting
the memorandum in order to get headlines. “I regret the continued
misquote of this memorandum by extremist groups and conservatives
seeking headlines.”[197] We cannot sanction any misquotations, but
neither do we endorse this judging of motives.
There are many things, however, in the Communist line which can hardly
be said to fall into the category of legitimate objectives. The careful
reader will ask: Does this or that item fall into this category?
Even, however, when it does not, we need not deal with the motives
of non-Communists who follow this or that aspect of the line. We can
oppose their judgment in the matter. We emphasize that if they blunder
us into slavery it will be slavery just as certain as if they had taken
us into slavery with their eyes open.
There are several points in the memorandum which are included in the
current Communist line.
_Communism as Politics_
The Fulbright memorandum implies that the military is engaging in
politics if it follows the 1958 directive of the National Security
Council, and participates in the cold war by instructing the people
concerning the history, philosophy, strategy and tactics of communism,
including the internal menace. It assumes that this is partisan
politics. If this is not the assumption of the memorandum, why does
the Senator say that the purpose of the memorandum is to uphold the
principle of the military’s subordination to civilian control, and
that there “has been a strong tradition in this country that it is
not the function of the military to educate the public on political
issues.”[198] His memorandum is a challenge of the National Security
Council directive of 1958 which put the military into the cold war to
alert the people on the menace and nature of the enemy—communism.
If, on the other hand, the memorandum is not against the military
alerting the civilian population concerning communism—in both its
external and internal threat—then why doesn’t the memorandum protest
against just the abuses of the directive instead of seeking the
elimination of the directive?
Gus Hall, General Secretary of the Communist Party, agrees with
the position that for military officials to expose the workings
of communism in America and elsewhere is to engage in political
discussion. For Gus Hall maintains that the Communist Party is simply a
political party. “A very important lesson is to learned from this. No
matter what one’s attitude may be towards the Communist Party, it must
be recognized that the fight for its rights as a political party is a
matter of defending the Bill of Rights and all democratic rights, and
is the concern of all, especially of all left, democratic, and peace
forces, and not of the Communists alone. This is an old lesson, but
sometimes it has to be learned anew.”[199]
_Restraining the “Radicals”_
Senator Fulbright thinks that in “the long run, it is quite possible
that the principal problem of leadership will be, if it is not
already, to restrain the desire of the people to hit the Communists
with everything we’ve got, particularly if there are more Cubas and
Laos.”[200] This is because the people are infected with the “virus of
rightwing radicalism”, and also since “radicalism of the right can be
expected to have great mass appeal during such periods” of crisis.[201]
When one takes this to its logical conclusion it means that the Senator
must think that the main problem is to fight the so-called “rightwing
radicals”.
That the “ultra-right” is at least one of the main problems is also
the judgment of Gus Hall, General Secretary of the Communist Party.
“However, the situation requires that the main direction of the
attack should be at the war-mongering and fascist forces, who are
pressuring the Kennedy Administration further to the Right. At the
same time, every policy or action of Kennedy that plays into the hands
of the Right should be sharply opposed and criticized, building up
the pressures upon the Administration for a change of policy in the
direction of peaceful coexistence and defense of democracy.”[202]
_The Masses Susceptible to “Rightwingism”_
Senator Fulbright thinks that in the “long twilight struggle” ahead
that the people may become frustrated and that under such circumstances
“radical rightism” will appeal to them even more strongly than at the
present.[203]
Gus Hall, General Secretary of the Communist Party, has more or less
the same fear. “We need to be aware that when people in large numbers
become disillusioned or panicky there is always the danger that they
may be entrapped by the demagogy of the ultra-Right, especially when
their leaders become the instruments or allies of monopoly. For
example, the recent statement of the AFL-CIO executive council, drawn
up by professional anti-Communists, supports the most aggressive
warlike incitement in the so-called Berlin crisis, and even urges the
resumption of nuclear testing.”[204]
_Protracted Conflict_
The memorandum takes the position that the concept of protracted
conflict will lead to war, that it is an element of radical
rightwingism, and that we must seek some sort of accommodation with
communism instead of engaging in protracted conflict to defeat it.[205]
The Communists have made it one of their objectives to utilize their
influence, in any way that they can, toward getting the Kennedy
administration to seek an accommodation with communism, i.e., to
refuse to try to roll back the tide of Communist advance. Thus Gus
Hall write: “It is of course true that these maneuvers, pretenses, and
concessions are forced upon him by the strength of the world peace
forces, by the deterioration of imperialism, by the declining world
prestige and position of U. S. imperialism in particular, and by the
deep-rooted peace and democratic sentiment of the American people.
“But the fact remains that the Kennedy administration has not closed
the door to accommodation to these world realities, as the ultra-Right
wishes it to do, and this involves a certain recognition of the new
necessities of the present-day world at home and abroad. This is an
important difference, which the forces for peace and democracy must
recognize and exploit in order to bring about the required change in
national policy.”[206]
That the Communists want the administration to take the position that
communism is a world trend which cannot be resisted is made clear from
another statement. “Continuing rebuffs and defeats for the cold war
and interventionist policy (most recently in Cuba and Laos) confront
the dominant monopoly power with a choice, essentially between two
alternatives. One is to end the cold war and to seek some form of
accommodation to the socialist and national revolutionary world, which
would mean a turn to a policy of peaceful coexistence and peaceful
competition. Such a shift of policy would meet the most urgent national
needs of the country in the present period of world history.
“The other course is to seek to contain and reverse world trends by all
means, including so-called limited war and the ultimate nuclear war.
It is necessary to recognize that the present cold-war policies of the
Administration lead in this direction. However, we must also recognize
that the most aggressive and extreme expression of this suicidal policy
comes from the ultra-Right.”[207]
Thus they are out to influence those whom they consider to be the
liberal forces in the Kennedy administration. “It would be wishful
thinking to assume that all liberal or forward-looking forces in the
Kennedy camp, who must in their way participate in turning the tide,
are equally aware of the double role played by Kennedy. These elements
can become an effective positive force once they realize it is
necessary to fight Kennedy’s cold war and anti-democratic policies in
order to defend democracy and to close the door to the extreme Right
and defeat the threat from that direction.”[208]
_Cuba_
The Senator, as we have seen, was extremely disturbed by the Cuban
invasion, and he opposes any direct efforts on our part to overthrow
Castro. Gus Hall is also disturbed about the matter, although at
least some of his reasons are different. Hall did think that it was
immoral for he said that the decision to invade Cuba was “criminal
and reprehensible”. “It is also of significance that Kennedy decided
not to back up the emigre invasion of Cuba with direct and open U. S.
military support, as criminal and reprehensible as was his decision
to go through with the military adventure, and as serious as still is
the danger of U. S. imperialist intervention. It is also noteworthy
that Kennedy must still seek to maintain democratic and anti-colonial
pretenses in his dealings with the national liberation movements,
although his objective remains to contain and reverse them. This
creates certain embarrassments for him in world affairs, in view of
anti-democratic measures at home.”[209]
_Self-Destruction of Democracy_
In the discussion and rejection of the concept of protracted conflict,
the memorandum indicates that to engage in protracted conflict, to
meet with strength the Communists at every turn, will undermine
democracy. Thus it said: “Perhaps the most fundamental criticism
that can be made of the book is that it fails to analyze the impact
of a policy of protracted conflict on our democratic institutions.
Barnett’s program of action, for example, would require large sums of
public funds used with little public accountability, a wide network of
secrecy and security in government operations, a cold war orientation
in our schools and universities—in short, a stunting of pluralism, a
curtailment of individual liberties, and a weakening of politically
responsible government. The editors of ‘American Strategy’ seem to
see no alternative to confronting the Soviets with strong opposition
at every turn. Indeed, they appear more concerned with virility than
freedom, as if strength and courage were goals in themselves. This,
together with the somewhat static nature of their view of history and
the militant nature of their recommendations, justifies further inquiry
about the men and the organizations who advocate a strategy based on
those premises.”[210]
Gus Hall is also convinced that the ultra-Right is trying to build
“a garrison state that will seek to drive the country to war and
self-destruction.”[211]
“_French General_”
Senator Fulbright says: “Perhaps it is far-fetched to call forth the
revolt of the French generals as an example of the ultimate danger.
Nevertheless, military officers, French or American, have some common
characteristics arising from their profession and there are numerous
military ‘fingers on the trigger’ throughout the world. While this
danger may appear very remote, contrary to American tradition, and even
American military tradition, so also is the ‘long twilight struggle’,
and so also is the very existence of an American military program for
educating the public.”[212]
Gus Hall, in his discussion of the directive of the National Security
Council is more emphatic than Senator Fulbright. “The entire line
of policy, coupled with CIA and similar training in subversive and
putschist activities, cannot help but create our own ‘French Generals,’
who feel at home in fascist circles, and are ready to lend themselves
to their objectives.”[213]
_National Security Council Directive 1958_
Gus Hall attacks the 1958 directive of the National Security
Council.[214]
The Senator’s memorandum was aimed directly at the directive.[215]
_General Walker_
Senator Fulbright considers General Walker’s case as but an
illustration of the deeper problem of the military’s involvement in the
“rightwing” activities. Thus he wrote: “With respect to the problem
illustrated by the case of General Walker....”[216]
This is also the way that Gus Hall feels about it. “The case of General
Walker was only a symptom of a much deeper affliction.”[217]
_Spread of “Rightwingism” in the Military_
Senator Fulbright thinks that the military has a good deal of
“rightwingism” in it. “Whether these instances are representative of
programs implementing the National Security Council directive is not
known, but the pattern they form, makes it strongly suspect that they
are. There are many indications that the philosophy of the programs
is representative of a substantial element of military thought, and
has great appeal to the military mind. A strong case can be made,
logically, that this type of activity is the inevitable consequence
of such a directive. There is little in the education, training or
experience of most military officers to equip them with the balance
of judgment necessary to put their own ultimate solutions—those with
which their education, training and experiences are concerned—into
proper perspective in the President’s total ‘strategy for the nuclear
age.’”[218]
Gus Hall says: “Another pronounced characteristic of this growing
fascist movement is its spreading influence among the higher military
personnel.”[219] The Draft Program of the Communist Party in the
U.S.S.R. in 1961 also said that the military was involved in the
“fascist” anti-Communist drive.[220]
The Communists have at least two objectives in their attack on the
military. _First_, the military contains some experts in the field of
the cold war, and it is organized so that it can effectively reach all
parts of America. Neutralizing the military in the cold war means that
the Communists have far fewer foes to fight in the cold war. _Second_,
the attack on the military can be used to try to undermine the morale
of the military.
_Two Films_
The memorandum classifies “Communism on the Map” and “Operation
Abolition” as part of the extremely radical rightwing material being
used in seminars.[221]
“Communism on the Map” is also noted in an unfavorable way by Gus
Hall.[222]
Gus Hall also notices in an unfavorable context “Operation
Abolition.”[223] These two films are “obnoxious films.”[224]
Gus Hall evidently is against “Operation Abolition” because it is an
indictment of the Communists and an exposure of how they work and how
they manipulate others.
In a speech in Arkadelphia on October 11 Senator Fulbright’s opposition
to the film is based on the following, according to the _Arkansas
Gazette_.
“One widely distributed film, Fulbright said, tries to show that
the student body of the University of California is ‘ready to
desert the American system’. He referred to ‘Operation Abolition’,
which purports to show that student protests at a House Un-American
Activities Committee hearing last year at San Francisco were Communist
inspired.”[225]
The film tries to show no such desertion by the student body. It
does show that _some_ students from the University were duped. It is
doubtful that many of them really knew that the Communists were using
them. Or does the Senator think that the students knew what they were
doing?
_Fascists_
The Senator views as “fascist” those whom he labels as radical
rightwingers.[226]
Gus Hall also characterizes the “ultra-right” as fascist.[227] And
by the “ultra-right” he is including at least some of the groups
classified by Senator Fulbright as radical rightwingers. For example,
Dr. Benson, Harding College and the National Education Program.
_Frustration and Rightwingism_
Senator Fulbright thinks that frustration in restraint is one of the
reasons that the American people need to be curbed, and that this need
will grow if there are any more Cubas and Laoses.[228]
Gus Hall explains the reaction of what he calls the extreme right
on the grounds that the extreme right wants to turn back the tide
of history (i.e. they want to win the victory over Communism), but
that they are frustrated at seeing the advances of communism. “In the
opinion of the Communist Party, there can be no question but that the
threat from the extreme Right is serious. It arises from a situation
which is new for the United States. This, the most powerful capitalist
country, cannot have its way in a world in which the forces of
socialism, national liberation, and peace are playing a decisive role.
Continuing rebuffs and defeats for the cold war and interventionist
policy (most recently in Cuba and Laos) confront the dominant monopoly
power with a choice, essentially between two alternatives. One is
to end the cold war and to seek some form of accommodation to the
socialist and national revolutionary world, which would mean a turn to
a policy of peaceful coexistence and peaceful competition. Such a shift
of policy would meet the most urgent national needs of the country in
the present period of world history.
“The other course is to seek to contain and reverse world trends by all
means, including so-called limited war and the ultimate nuclear war.
It is necessary to recognize that the present cold-war policies of the
Administration lead in this direction. However, we must also recognize
that the most aggressive and extreme expression of this suicidal policy
comes from the ultra-Right.”[229]
We agree with the Senator that Americans will find it very frustrating
if there are any more Cubas and Laoses. And, _if_ the tide of communism
continues to advance, they will undoubtedly come to the place where
they will demand that we hit the Communists with everything we have
_if_ such is necessary to stop communism.
We do not agree with Gus Hall that the advance of Communism is
inevitable.
In the author’s judgment Senator Fulbright and Gus Hall are right in
saying that there are Americans who are frustrated because of continued
losses to communism. There are people, of course, whose frustrations
are not due to communism itself. However, there are many Americans who
are not extremists but who are frustrated in various degrees because we
have not stopped, not to speak of the fact that we are not winning the
cold war, the advances of communism.
Roscoe Drummond has well pointed out that there is a mounting sense of
frustration because we are always on the defensive in the cold war. He
suggests that the way to overcome this, and to keep extremists from
having any appeal to the masses, is for the President either to take
the diplomatic initiative in the cold war or to show the people that
it is not possible to do so. We have been on the diplomatic defensive
since World War II ended, he affirmed, and unless the President is
able to find the will and the way to take the initiative that the
President “will be leaving the field open to the extremists”.[230]
_If We Wage Protracted War it Will Bring Nuclear War_
A study of the quotation, in the above section, from Gus Hall indicates
that he is saying that we must accommodate ourselves to communism
and its advances, or we shall have limited wars and then a nuclear
war. This is curiously like the line in the _Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists_ that if we meet Communist aggression with a determined
effort to win the cold war we shall likely end up in war.[231]
The Communist journal, _World Marxist Review_, has said that those
who seek for victory over communism are eager for war. Dr. Robert
Strausz-Hupe is quoted as follows: “Our lot is conflict. History
brings us ‘not peace but a sword’.... The ultimate strategy for
freedom, therefore, must be the devolution of Communist totalitarian
governments.... The United States cannot renounce the first use of
atomic weapons.” The _World Marxist Review_ says that: “This incendiary
strategy is elaborated in detail from Herman Kahns _On Thermonuclear
War_.”[232]
Then the _World Marxist Review_ comments: “These are not only the
personal views of Mr. Strausz-Hupe or Mr. Kahn. They are the credo of
the American military, many of whom make no secret of their eagerness
to unleash the dogs of war. Moreover, as the foregoing shows, neither
the ideas nor the ‘total’ war preparations of the U. S. government can
be traced to the so-called ‘Berlin crisis’.”[233]
Of course, the memorandum and the _World Marxist Review_ differ in that
the _World Marxist Review_ says that the military is eager to start
war. The memorandum simply takes the position that the position of
protracted conflict will likely lead to world war.
The effect of each—the memorandum and the _World Marxist Review_—in
this matter is the same. Both of them try to discourage us from waging
protracted conflict and winning the victory over communism.
It is a major Communist objective to convince the non-Communist world
that if they wage cold war that they will end up in a nuclear war. To
strive for victory in the cold war must involve finally nuclear war.
This, we are convinced, is not the case. Continual losses in the cold
war are much more apt to bring us to nuclear war, since Communist
victories in the cold war emboldens them, weakens us and brings more
“neutrals” on to their bandwagon. When the Communists think that they
have the United States sufficiently isolated and undermined it is
quite likely that the Communists will confront us with the demand to
surrender or to be involved in nuclear war.
If we endeavor to win the cold war, and it is my conviction that we
can do so, as our victories in the cold war increase the Communists
will realize that regardless of what a nuclear war will do to us it
will destroy Communism. A nuclear war would immediately destroy the
Communist chain of command. A dictatorship cannot go on with its chain
of command shattered. Revolts will take place in the satellites. The
masses of China would revolt if a nuclear war shattered the Red’s chain
of control in China.
It is the judgment of the author, based not only on the above, but
also on the fact that the Russian Communists have backed down when the
United States government has met them firmly, that the Communists do
not want a nuclear war. In the author’s judgment, short of an all-out
attack we could not force them into a nuclear war, unless they were
ready for one and wanted one. They hope to achieve their objectives
without a nuclear war. But they will resort to such a war if they
are convinced it is absolutely necessary and that war would enable
them to win over us. In which case nothing we could do would stop the
Communists from starting a war unless we surrendered. Furthermore, if
we surrendered this would not guarantee that no nuclear war would take
place. Who knows but what after world victory Communists would fall out
among themselves and one group use the bomb on another group.
In the author’s judgment there is no way to guarantee that there will
not be a nuclear war. But for us to let our policy be determined by an
overwhelming fear of nuclear war will lead us to defeat.
When we think of the millions which the Communists kill _after_ they
take over a country, there is no certainty that more will not be killed
if we surrendered than if we waged nuclear war, if such were forced on
us.
Although there are Americans who do not want us to publicly proclaim
that our goal is to win the victory over the aggressive forces of
communism, the Communists have made clear that they expect to win.
Khrushchev said that Marxism-Leninism when assimilated by the people
leads them to “take power into their hands and build their state.
“This is a mighty force which nothing can resist. And let Mssrs.
Imperialists, Monopolists and various Colonialists—for it is the same
thing——know that no prayers, no incantations can reverse the march of
history to make it move backward. Victory will be ours, comrades!”[234]
The Communists, we see, are not letting the idea that the waging of
protracted conflict, and the aim of victory, will lead to war restrain
them from fighting to win.
_Anti-Anti-Communism_
It is well for us to realize that Communists have been ordered to
intensify their efforts to discredit, to discourage and to destroy
anti-communism. As Edward Hunter pointed out, they know where they are
hurting, and if anti-communism were not hurting them they would not
make anti-anti-communism a prime objective.
The Moscow Manifesto issued by 81 Communist Parties in
November-December, 1960, and which is accepted as providing guidance
for the Communist Party in America,[235] calls for an intensification
of the attack on anti-communists.
“Anti-communism, which is indicative of a deep ideological crisis
in, and extreme decline of bourgeois ideology, resorts to monstrous
distortions of Marxist doctrine and crude slander against the
Socialist social system, presents Communist policies and objectives
in a false light and carries on a witch hunt against the democratic
peaceful forces and organizations.”
“To effectively defend the interests of the working people, maintain
peace and realize the Socialist ideals of the working class, it is
indispensable to wage a resolute struggle against anti-communism—that
poisoned weapon which the bourgeoisie uses to fence off the masses from
socialism.”[236]
The 1961 Congress of the Communist Party in the U.S.S.R. called for
warfare against anti-communism. “The chief ideological and political
weapon of imperialism is anti-communism, which consists mainly
in slandering the Socialist system and distorting the policy and
objectives of the Communist Parties and Marxist-Leninist theory.
“Under cover of anti-communism, imperialist reaction persecutes and
hounds all that is progressive and revolutionary; it seeks to split
the ranks of the working people and to paralyze the proletarians’ will
to fight. Rallied to this black banner today are all the enemies of
social progress: the finance oligarchy and the military, the Fascists
and reactionary clericals, the colonialists and landlords and all
the ideological and political vehicles of imperialist reaction.
Anti-communism is a reflection of the extreme decadence of bourgeois
ideology.”[237] The _World Marxist Review_ for October 1961 carried an
article on “Anti-Communism—a Crime Against the People.”
We have neither stated nor implied that every criticism against every
anti-Communist is an implementation of this directive from the Kremlin.
In the anti-Communist movements in the United States you can find
extremists, some uninformed people, crackpots and a few totalitarians.
However, the anti-Communist movements have no monopoly on such persons.
Thus there may be ample grounds to criticize some individuals, some
organizations, and some positions which are taken. There are criticisms
which are justified and which need to be made.
However, criticism of the crackpots, the mistaken and the
totalitarians is not the only kind of criticism going on today.
Different groups, even widely different groups, are lumped together by
some critics. They are all classified as “extremely radical rightwing”
people and positions. They are all classified as the “ultra-right”.
We are not suggesting that all the extremists who lump together
different anti-Communist groups as “the ultra-right” and “extremely
radical rightwingers”, are responding to the Moscow directive. We are
confident that some are misinformed and misguided; that some see an
opportunity to make political hay; that some have a vested interest
in discrediting those who have compiled and publicized _their_ public
record; that there are others who hate capitalism and oppose those who
defend it; these or other reasons explain the attack of some. Since,
however, the Communists have been working for decades to infiltrate
various phases of American life we can be certain that there are some
hidden Communists who are vigorously engaged in anti-anti-communism.
Who are they? I don’t know who the hidden Communists, or hidden
sympathizers and fellow travelers, are. I doubt that even the FBI could
possibly know about _all_ of them.
It is fortunate, however, that one does not need to know _why_ people
do something in order to evaluate the _actions_ of these people. Thus
although it is certainly not without significance that, so soon after
the Moscow directive, there should be several storms of criticism
of and attacks on various anti-Communists, it would be inaccurate
and unfair to say that they are all implementations of the Moscow
directive. The fact that the Communists are now trying to destroy the
vigorous anti-Communist organizations and individuals, does suggest
to us that we should all endeavor to be fair and precise in our
criticisms, and that we should exercise great care lest we promote the
cause of anti-anti-communism.
FOOTNOTES:
[194] “Religious Freedom News,” October 1961, p. 2.
[195] Gus Hall, General Secretary of the Communist Party, U.S.A.,
_Worker_, July 16, 1961. The entire article is reprinted in the
Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, _The New Drive Against the
Anti-Communist Program_. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1961.
This quotation is from page 47. We shall quote from the article as
reprinted in this Senate publication. Edward Hunter’s testimony is
contained in the above Senate publication. _The Worker_ boasts that it
was among the first to attack the “ultra-right,” Jan. 14, 1962, p. 5.
[196] J. Edgar Hoover, _The Communist Party Line_, Washington, D. C.:
Government Printing Office, 1961, p. 6.
[197] _Arkansas Democrat_, December 4, 1961.
[198] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13436, col. 2,b.
[199] Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, _The New Drive Against the
Anti-Communist Program_, July 11, 1961, p. 50. Most of this publication
was reprinted in the _Congressional Record_, August 28, 1961, pp.
16094-16116. An entire article by Gus Hall is in this Senate report...
[200] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 2,t.
[201] _Ibid._, p. 13437, col. 2,b.
[202] _The New Drive Against the Anti-Communist Program_, p. 49.
[203] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 2,t.
[204] _The New Drive Against the Anti-Communist Program_, p. 48.
[205] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, pp. 13439-13440.
[206] _The New Drive Against the Anti-Communist Program_, p. 48.
[207] _Ibid._, p. 46.
[208] _Ibid._, p. 48.
[209] _Ibid._, pp. 47-48.
[210] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13440, col. 1,b-2,t.
“There have been dire predictions since the end of World War II that an
attempt to defend ourselves would turn America into a garrison state.
But, our defense budget has varied from 40 percent to 5 percent to 15
percent and down again to 9 percent of our gross national product,
and our experience offers little confirmation for such fears.” Albert
Wohlstetter, an official in the Rand Corporation. _Congressional
Record_, June 16, 1960, p. 11911, col. 3,m. “From the radical left, and
sometimes from the radical pacifists, we hear other voices of doom. We
have great armed forces, they say, therefore our freedom is doomed by a
garrison state. Or we have big businesses, therefore democracy is being
strangled by greedy monopolies. We have ‘internal contradictions,’ as
the ideologists love to say—labor versus capital, farms versus cities,
importers versus exporters—and therefore democracy will soon tear
itself to pieces.” (Press Release No. 3910, January 14, 1962. Address
by Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson, U.S. Representative to the U.N.,
before Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith on the occasion of his
receipt of the America’s Democratic Legacy Award, Hotel Plaza, New
York, N.Y.)
[211] _The New Drive Against the Anti-Communist Program_, p. 47.
[212] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 2,b.
[213] _The New Drive Against the Anti-Communist Program_, p. 46.
[214] _Ibid._, p. 46.
[215] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13436, col. 3,b., pp.
13436-13437, col. 3,b-1,t., p. 13437 col. 3,t.
[216] _Ibid._, p. 13438, col. 1,t.
[217] _The New Drive Against the Anti-Communist Program_, p. 46.
[218] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 1,b.
[219] _The New Drive Against the Anti-Communist Program_, p. 46.
[220] _The Worker_, August 20, 1961, p. S7, col. 2,b. _Program of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Draft)_, New York: Crosscurrents
Press, Inc., 1961, p. 50.
[221] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13439, col. 1,t. p.
13438, col. 1,m. col. 2,m.
[222] _The New Drive Against the Anti-Communist Program_, p. 46.
[223] _Ibid._, p. 46.
[224] _Ibid._, p. 46.
[225] _Arkansas Gazette_, October 12, 1961, p. 1B.
[226] _Congressional Record_, August 21, 1961, pp. 15357-15358.
[227] _The New Drive Against the Anti-Communist Program_, p. 46. See
also _The Worker_, November 12, 1961, p. 1. Mike Newberry, _The Fascist
Revival_, New York: New Century Publishers, 1961. This is a Communist
publication.
[228] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col. 2,t.
[229] _The New Drive Against the Anti-Communist Program_, pp. 45-46.
[230] “Extremism Comes From a Sense of Frustration,” _Arkansas
Democrat_, November 28, 1961.
[231] _Congressional Record_, August 2, 1961, pp. 13439-13440.
[232] _World Marxist Review_, December, 1961, p. 25, col. 1,t.
[233] _Ibid._, p. 25, col. 1,b.
[234] Speech at the Fifth World Congress of Trade Unions, December 9,
1961. This is No. 227 press release from EMBASSY OF THE U.S.S.R., Dec.
11, 1961, p. 2.
[235] James E. Jackson, “The General Crisis of Capitalism Deepens,”
_World Marxist Review_, January 1961, p. 38.
[236] Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, _Communist and Workers’
Parties’ Manifesto Adopted November-December, 1960. Interpretation and
Analysis._ Washington: Government Printing Office, 1961, p. 72. The
entire Manifesto is reprinted in this government document, along with
some statements by Communists in America.
[237] _Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Draft)_, p.
50.
Chapter XI
CONCLUSIONS
The _Communist Manifesto_ in its closing words declared war on all
non-Communists. The Communists have continued this warfare even until
now. It will culminate, they are confident, in the complete victory of
communism. Although they want to avoid World War III, _if_ they can
attain their aims without it, they are now waging cold war, as well as
hot war, against us in order to ultimately make possible world conquest.
The present period of peaceful coexistence is but another phase of
their war on non-Communist societies. In the Statement by 81 Communist
Parties in Moscow, November, 1960, this was clearly set forth.
“The policy of peaceful coexistence meets the basic interests of all
peoples, of all who want no new cruel wars and seek durable peace. This
policy strengthens the positions of socialism, enhances the prestige
and international influence of the socialist countries and promotes
the prestige and influence of the socialist countries and promotes
the prestige and influence of the Communist Parties in the capitalist
countries. Peace is a loyal ally of socialism, for time is working for
socialism against capitalism.
“The policy of peaceful coexistence is a policy of mobilizing the
masses and launching vigorous action against the enemies of peace.
Peaceful coexistence of states does not imply renunciation of the class
struggle as the revisionists claim. The coexistence of states with
differing social systems is a form of class struggle between socialism
and capitalism. In conditions of peaceful coexistence favorable
opportunities are provided for the development of the class struggle
in the capitalist countries and the national-liberation movement of
the peoples of the colonial and dependent countries. In their turn,
the successes of the revolutionary class and the national liberation
struggle promote peaceful coexistence. The Communists consider it
their duty to fortify the faith of the people in the possibility of
furthering peaceful coexistence, their determination to prevent world
war. They will do their utmost for the people to weaken imperialism and
limit its sphere of action by an active struggle for peace, democracy
and national liberation.
“Peaceful coexistence of countries with differing social systems does
not mean conciliation of the socialist and bourgeois ideologies. On the
contrary, it implies intensification of the struggle of the working
class, of all the Communist Parties, for the triumph of socialist
ideas. But ideological and political disputes between states must not
be settled through war.”[238]
Communist doctrine, action and aggression, however, has called forth
anti-communism. Those who are for liberty and righteousness are aroused
when they realize the inroads which communism is making throughout the
world. If men are for the traditional values of Western civilization,
for example, they must be against communism which endeavors to destroy
those values.
It is very unfortunate that Senator Fulbright should brand so many
informed anti-Communists as belonging (as Gus Hall puts it) to the
ultra-right,[239] or extreme radical rightwing (as Senator Fulbright
puts it). It is tragic that the Senator has helped knock the military
out of the cold war (one of the prime objectives of the Communists in
America). It also is harmful to the cause of anti-communism and freedom
that he has identified this so-called radical rightwing with fascism.
It does not help military morale to raise the idea of “French Generals”
in America in the future threatening civilian authority.
We hope that the Senator will reconsider and that he will use his
tremendous influence to get the Secretary of Defense and the White
House to disregard his very influential secret memorandum. We are
not asking that mistakes of anti-communists not be pointed out, but
we are asking him not to lump together so many different groups of
anti-communists and label them as “radical rightwingers”. We are not
asking that the military engage in partisan politics, but in view of
the great danger we stand in we are asking that at least some of the
individuals in the military, who are equipped to wage the cold war, be
allowed to help inform and alert the public, as well as the military,
concerning the history, philosophy, strategy and tactics of communism.
The need to meet the enemy in the cold war, and to win over the very
present danger of communism, is a pressing reality; and in dealing with
it we should use all necessary forces without being held back by the
fear that in some distant future some military leaders might get out
of hand. It is not realism to refuse to do what we can, including the
use of the military in the cold war, to meet a very real present danger
because of a fear of a danger which the Senator admits does not now
exist.
The great problems which face us today center in communism and the war
which it is now waging on civilization. We hope that the influence of
Senator Fulbright, and those of like mind, on the President will not
keep him from implementing one of his own statements wherein he said:
“So, therefore, the problem always is, how can the military remain
removed from political life, how can civilian control of the military
remain removed from political life, how can civilian control of the
military be effectively maintained, and at the same time the military
have the right and the necessity to express their educated views
on some of the great problems that face us around the world?”[240]
This, however, it will be impossible for them to do if the Fulbright
memorandum continues to have an influence on the Government.
Let us not lose sight of the basic issues which are involved. _First_,
we have been forced into the cold war by the aggressive acts and
designs of the Communists. _Second_, there is no reason to believe
that the Communists will change their minds and abandon their efforts
to conquer the world and to remake man into the image demanded by
their godless philosophy of life. _Third_, the cold war is a real
war. _Fourth_, the cold war is the major war which the Communists are
now waging against us. _Fifth_, the military has within its ranks
experts on the history, the philosophy, the strategy and the tactics
of communism. _Sixth_, international communism not only operates
outside of the borders of our country, but also inside the borders
through its various agents, including the Communist Party. _Seventh_,
the oath taken by the military binds the military to defend the
country against enemies both domestic and foreign. Communism today is
_the_ foreign and domestic enemy. _Eighth_, informing the troops and
the public concerning communism is not the same as participating in
partisan politics. _Ninth_, there is a need for both the troops and the
public to know more about the enemy who faces us. _Tenth_, civilian
control of the military is not really being threatened. _Eleventh_,
it is possible to deal with a military official who oversteps his
bounds without nullifying the directive issued in 1958 by the National
Security Council. _Twelfth_, the Fulbright memorandum was aimed at
the nullification of this directive and was designed, therefore, to
take the military out of the cold war in the very sense in which
the directive was designed to put the military into the cold war.
_Thirteen_, the memorandum and the Stanford speech introduce a new
concept of government. _Fourteen_, the memorandum is a serious matter
whose implementation hinders, not helps, the United States in the cold
war. Thus the author believes that the memorandum is against the real
interests of Senator Fulbright and all other Americans.
Furthermore, let it be observed, in conclusion, that Senator Fulbright
has recognized elsewhere that the people need to be both alerted
and informed, although at times the Senator seems confused on these
matters. Thus in the memorandum Senator Fulbright said: “Fundamentally,
it is believed that the American people have little, if any, need to
be alerted to the menace of the cold war. Rather, the need is for
understanding of the true nature of that menace, and the direction
of the public’s present and foreseeable awareness of the fact of the
menace toward the support of the President’s own total program for
survival in a nuclear age.”[241]
Does the Senator mean that the American people have already been
sufficiently alerted? Only a year before he doubted that Americans
had yet heeded the warning. He further thought that the President was
failing to sound the warning sufficiently. “We have been warned, but
have we heard? If we should perish it will not be for lack of warning
but for lack of the will to survive.”[242] “Mr. Sprague insisted that
the United States be awakened to the scope of the overall Russian
threat to us. But who is to ring the alarm bell?
“‘There is only one man in the United States that can do this
effectively, and that is the President,’ said Mr. Sprague. He
continued: ‘I believe, and this is a personal belief, that the danger
is more serious than the President has indicated to the American
public.’”[243]
As late as December 1960 the Senator was saying: “The greatest crisis
confronting the West is not Berlin. It is the apathy of the free world
and its incomprehensible unwillingness to look facts in the face.
Evolution and the survival of the fittest are concepts we understand
when applied to plants and animals—but we seem not to realize that
these concepts apply to us.”[244]
Toward the end of April 1961 President Kennedy said: “Our greatest
adversary is not the Russians. It is our own unwillingness to do what
must be done.”[245]
Senator Fulbright agrees that the people need to be informed. “The
successful waging of peace requires a vigorous national administration,
an informed people, and a mature people who know that you cannot be
adult without being willing to pay for what you want.”[246] “The
American people ought to be told the bleak truth about their world,
the character of the forces arrayed against them, and what they must
do, at whatever cost, to survive or even to bring about a state of
high security. They must be told that, however humane their society,
whatever its ideals, this alone will not save them from destruction by
a society armed with the prodigious mechanisms of our times and an
implacable determination to dominate all men.”[247]
Since this is the case, there is no real reason why qualified men in
the military should not be used in alerting and informing America.
FOOTNOTES:
[238] _Statement of the Meeting of 81 Communist and Workers’ Parties_,
November 1960, Toronto 3, Canada: Progress Books. Published for the
C.P. of Canada, pp. 16-17. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, _op.
cit._ p. 64.
[239] Gus Hall, the Communist, in the _Worker_, July 16, 1961.
[240] Excerpts from press conference of President Kennedy,
_Congressional Record_, August 11, 1961, p. 14449, col. 1,m.
[241] _Ibid._, August 2, 1961, p. 13437, col 2,b.-3,t.
[242] _Ibid._, March 28, 1960, p. A2708, col. 1,t.
[243] _Ibid._, p. A2708, col. 3,m.
[244] _Ibid._, February 16, 1961, p. A925.
[245] As quoted in the _Congressional Record_, May 9, 1961, p. 7138,
col. 3,b.
[246] _Ibid._, March 28, 1960, pp. A2708, col. 3,b.—A2709.
[247] _Ibid._, p. A2709, col. 2,t. Senator Fulbright also said: “As
things now stand, however, the Soviets profit not only from their own
energy, but also from our apathy.” (_Congressional Record_, Sept. 9,
1961, p. 17249. Col.3, m.) “Many among us expressed the fear that our
inertia would be overcome—but momentarily, and that, like one who is
awakened from a deep sleep by some minor disturbance, we would again
subside into dreamland.” “Mr. President, I have no idea what must be
done to awaken Americans to the unpleasant facts of life. As unwilling
as I am to face it, perhaps the answer is that we simply do not wish
to be disturbed.” (_Congressional Record_, January 23, 1959, p. 1007,
col. 1,b.) “I believe that such a study would conclude that America’s
trouble is basically one of aimlessness at home and frustration
abroad.” (Speech before the American Bar Association, Sept. 1, 1960.
_Congressional Record_, Sept 2, 1961, p. A6708, col. 2,b.) “... if only
we would stop snoring with our eyes open.” (_Congressional Record_,
May 11, 1959, p. A3890. col. 1,m.) “We might even look forward to the
day when the Soviets become as snug and complacent as we have become.”
(_ibid._, col. 2,b.) “Indeed, we are not even united on the nature and
magnitude of that threat.” (_ibid._, p. A3891, col. 2,m.) Edgar Ansel
Mowrer has written a book entitled, _An End to Make-Believe_. New York:
Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1961.
Mrs. F. D. Roosevelt, on October 17, 1957, said: “It’s not communism
I am afraid of. What frightens me is the complacency of the American
people and their lack of knowledge about communism and its objectives.”
(_New York Herald Tribune_, October 18, 1957, p. 4) In the author’s
judgment, many of the common people today are ahead of some of the
“uncommon” people in their understanding of the nature of the threat.
Transcriber’s Notes
pg vii Changed: the following discusison of the memorandum
To: the following discussion of the memorandum
pg 6 Changed: or military solution.” Congressonal Record
To: or military solution.” Congressional Record
pg 10 Changed: Arthur W. Radford also though that the military
To: Arthur W. Radford also thought that the military
pg 14 Changed: it should be done under civiliain direction
To: it should be done under civilian direction
pg 18 Changed: assaults of political depotism
To: assaults of political despotism
pg 26 Changed: rather than state responsibltiy
To: rather than state responsibility
pg 30 Changed: Within the framework of mutual deterrance
To: Within the framework of mutual deterrence
pg 32 Changed: human misory and destruction
To: human misery and destruction
pg 32 Changed: the imperalist states for a long iime
To: the imperialist states for a long time
pg 34 Changed: It is believed accomodation can be
To: It is believed accommodation can be
pg 35 Changed: of mutual interest, would be tantamont
To: of mutual interest, would be tantamount
pg 49 Changed: International communist as presently constituted
To: International communism as presently constituted
pg 54 Changed: public’s present and forseeable awareness
To: public’s present and foreseeable awareness
pg 56 Changed: therefore incapable of governing thmselves
To: therefore incapable of governing themselves
pg 56 Changed: have no access to the records of forign
To: have no access to the records of foreign
pg 57 Changed: powerful and purposeful National Goverment
To: powerful and purposeful National Government
pg 58 Changed: and certinly before anything
To: and certainly before anything
pg 63 Changed: President Kenndy will not be President forever
To: President Kennedy will not be President forever
pg 65 Changed: expressed in Lord Action maxim
To: expressed in Lord Acton’s maxim
pg 68 Changed: It is rgrettable that the right to move
To: It is regrettable that the right to move
pg 81 Changed: he feared federal control of education, aparently
To: he feared federal control of education, apparently
pg 81 Changed: submitted by him to the Deparment of Defense
To: submitted by him to the Department of Defense
pg 91 Changed: We have ‘internal contraditions,’
To: We have ‘internal contradictions,’
pg 92 Changed: Spead of “Rightwingism” in the Military
To: Spread of “Rightwingism” in the Military
pg 99 Changed: is reprinted in this goverment document
To: is reprinted in this government document
pg 100 Changed: we should exerise great care
To: we should exercise great care
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