THE STATE OF U. S. WORLD POLICY
An Editorial The State of U. S. World Polity ASSESSMENTS of national foreign policies, L in this time of turbulent crises, can no longer be permitted to wait for the academic historians and...
...Some weeks ago, he told the press coyly that there were Russian leaders who were anxious to cooperate with the U.S...
...But in that case, we would not be faced, as we have been for a number of years, with a cold war...
...At this late date, they asked, is the U.S...
...If truth be told, ironic credit must be given to the dictators of the Kremlin...
...But peace is not to be bought from dictatorial storekeepers like yards of linen...
...it is significant that his opinions have changed considerably, that he has strongly supported the necessary American countermeasures in the cold war...
...This would be true, perhaps, if there were men of good will on the Soviet side...
...we, and the American people, have that same desire and it is our most fervent wish...
...it would make consoling headlines—but the complacency that we might derive from the lies we would be told, would only bring us closer to war...
...It did not buy peace from Hitler...
...At the time of the Yalta, Teheran and Potsdam conferences, the Soviet Union was already preparing for the post-war blitzing by diplomacy and terror of Europe...
...In the heat of cold-war conflict, new policies thrived...
...Acheson will be remembered, and properly so, as one of the group that formulated disastrous counsel for the State Department...
...President Truman's desire for peace is admirable...
...The countries of Europe, painfully being welded into a policy of Western concerted action, felt themselves abandoned...
...we need to know the facts...
...It is no credit now to those who found us "hysterical,'' just as it reflects little credit on those who during an earlier period found us hysterical in regard to our warnings against Nazi designs against mankind...
...What is most apparent is that our policy of unstinting resistance to Soviet aggression must be maintained and strengthened...
...At stake is not so much the reputation of the individual policymaker and administrator but the security of the nation...
...Later reports asserted that the President has merely, been relaying an American diplomatic note in which this information had been voiced, not by Russian leaders, but by some refugees who had escaped from the Russian sphere...
...The long-expected resignation of the ailing Mr...
...But there is some evidence that this kind of thinking has not yet been wholly deserted by Harry Truman...
...But American policy has evolved...
...An Editorial The State of U. S. World Polity ASSESSMENTS of national foreign policies, L in this time of turbulent crises, can no longer be permitted to wait for the academic historians and their a posteriori evaluations...
...Much of this, no doubt, w^s to be expected...
...the USSR's intent was clear and T/if Nrw Leader, as many have conceded since then, was practically alone in pointing to the ideological handwriting, like so many obscene bathroom scrawls, on the wall...
...In addition, it is reported that he was recommended to the President by retiring Secretary Marshall and ex-President Hoover, two of the staunchest anti-Stalinist Americans...
...THE APPOINTMENT of Acheson brings these questions to the fore...
...What have been our accomplishments, tailings, luccesses and debacles...
...They above all, by their quest for aggressive accomplishment which?seems incapable of satiation, taught the State Department and the American people what was the score...
...The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, and the allied enterprises that sprouted about these policies, such as the Voice of America, have provided the most trenchent answer yet to the conquest by terror of Stalin's state...
...What it important is that the emphatic American position of resistance be not weakened but strengthened...
...But so did others who have since seen the light...
...Unlike a number of totalitarian governments in our time, both recent and present, the United States has not followed an aggressive "blueprint," a chart for world conquest...
...As spokesman for that position, Acheson can be depended upon to give this policy its most vigorous and intelligent application...
...In addition, partisan considerations must be minimized...
...In the long run, appeasement is the shortest road to war...
...Critical summations and appraisals must be made regularly, without regard for the calendar, and severely...
...The slogan of this kind of thinking seems to be the President's unfortunate remark about Joe being, basically, a good kind of guy...
...Press inquiry succeeded in eliciting no names...
...Its direction must be toward a strengthening of American intransigeance to Soviet aggression, and not a policy of appeasement redlvivus...
...We don't think, and happily, that the American people can swallow this vision of a kind, patriarchal dictator...
...With the coming to power of Secretary Marshall, the earlier confusions were somewhat clarified...
...There has been a great deal of naivete in this development, to be sure...
...The American people have a right to expect that President Truman, Dean Acheson and the State Department, as their spokesmen, Will continue our policy from that point...
...play a stronger, direct role m the , affairs of the)State Department, now that/ Marshall is gone, and it is imperative that the President strip himself of what remaining delusions he may have of the character of the Soviet regime...
...There is little reason to believe that Acheson will revert to his earlier, position...
...Neither do we believe that the millions in Soviet concentration camps, the ranks of the murdered opposition, the subjugated millions in Europe, would really appreciate this Booth Tarkington version of world affairs...
...to go over our heads and negotiate directly with the Kremlin...
...The Truman and Marshall doctrines have provided us with a good start...
...A Vinson mission would brings assurances...
...Shortly before Nov...
...The Roosevelt and Truman administrations have records of many deeds and words which are far from circumspect...
...It is understandable that their fears of national security in a widening Stalinist Europe should have been aroused, h is pleasant to remember that it was Secretary Marshall who put a quick halt to this quixotic plan...
...What we do find important in this regard is a continuation of the kind of hopeful wishing that characterized the genesis of the Vinson episode, a kind of good American faith that all the problems of the world can be solved by men of good will sitting around a table, giving a point here, taking a point there...
...2, President Truman announced the incredible Vinson Mission...
...Truman's contributions must pay respect to the-intelligence behind the Truman Doctrine, rightly named after the President, and the Marshall Doctrine, which bears the , imprint of the Secretary of State...
...Truman seems likely to...
...It is not particularly helpful at this point to pre-judge the "new" Dean Acheson...
...4. * BUT THERE are other elements in the picture and they are not to be ignored...
...The record, to put it, bluntly, is clouded...
...Marshall seems to provide a logical juncture point for comment on recent American foreign policy...
...it will not buy peace from Stalin...
...Anv assessment of Mr...
...As we have long maintained,, the only, road to peace lies fn the concentrated defense of European and American democracy—in the most concentrated offensive, diplomatic and economic— against Russian aggression...
...It is our belief that President Truman is incapable of producing the names of such amicable Soviet leaders...
...who were anxious to meet with us on an amicable basis...
...Our foreign policy has developed as a response to specific problems...
Vol. 32 • January 1949 • No. 3
