STATE DEPT REVEALS OWN REALISM, NAIVETE
STOUT, JONATHAN
State Dept Reveals Own Realism, Naivete By JONATHAN STOUT WJUHUROIW. V. C ONLY Of A IMMOOMCr eould the naivete ef its thptoeaaiic leadership be exposed vrWh esch merciless honesty as is done...
...Bordering on the disputed territory of Ruthenia, which is inhabited by a Ukrainian-speaking population, it could make its influence felt in Czechoslovakia and in Hungary...
...Marshall and Acheson...
...The Why Not Law of politics is the law of political realism...
...The committee likewise believes that the recent appearance of a democratic German program under tacit Russian patronage might serve to give the Communists control of the democratic movement, and therefore establish a Russian hegemony in Germany, unless AngloAmerican support encourages the moderates to participate and make the movement genuinely democratic...
...As one example, in a confidential document on the 'Policy Toward the Settlement of Territorial Disputes in Europe...
...Well, with the Yankees you get more, what with the World Series money and so forth, than you do playing with the White Sox...
...The Poles then could only say Why...
...Roosevelt...
...It is not generally recognized that U.S...
...Hitler liked the Reds, or that the Reds liked Mr...
...All three are noteworthy in that they possessed a lar-sighted understanding of the real nature of the Soviet Union...
...The Reds like to be told what to do because their teacher has taught them to do what they are told...
...Hitler, and Mr...
...People here vote so that they can tell the man they vote for what they want him to do...
...A man *» my position can't be a member of a political party In: aim Fogartyism is a movement all its own, and instead of being a Democrat or a Republican or a member of Mr...
...Stalin...
...Posession of this Carpathian frontier would probably assure the Soviet Union of a large voice in the affairs of Central Europe...
...By March 1943 the conviction was reached that a definite answer to the basic question whether such cooperation would be forthcoming should be obtained as toon as practicable...
...It hurt their initiative...
...But you take Russia...
...Now, one of the laws in politics is called in the vulgar, the Law of Why Not...
...But can they do ij...
...They are like my brother-in-law, O'Halloran, when he was a boy...
...So there you have it...
...And then, maybe they will get out of last place...
...And in politics, people getting together according to my Law of Why Not are not off-color...
...They have been trying to tell the country what to do for a long time...
...But still, Mr...
...The strategic significance of the alternative boundaries in Eastern Galicia lies in their location with respect to the Carpathian Mountains...
...In a formerly confidential document, "The Political Reorganization of Germany," included in the new State Department book, the HullWeUes-Sexie view is expressed as follows: "The committee is of opinion that, in the long run, the most desirable form of government for Germany would be a broadly-based democracy operating under a bill of rights to protect the civil and political liberties of the individual...
...But if I did join a political party, I would not be a Republican, not that I have anything against the Republicans, which I haven't, but then, what is the use of joining a political party thai loses instead of wins...
...It is as good a way as any for the Republicans to get some votes because, alter all, the teacher of the Reds is a mighty powerful man, and over in Russia he can get two or three hundred million votes any time he wants...
...His first is to serve the people...
...Eastern Europe t>r.c the Far East is implied in such statements as the following: "The United States should maintain its declared policy that individual territorial questions should be settled preferably within the framework of the general structure of peace...
...Riding an elephant to Washington is rougher than rough-riding, and since Theodore the Roosevelts have not been riding elephants...
...V. C ONLY Of A IMMOOMCr eould the naivete ef its thptoeaaiic leadership be exposed vrWh esch merciless honesty as is done in the State Department's TM ease book, Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation...
...singly or in combination, could defend themselves against the Soviet Union, would be small...
...Hitler...
...Stalin said Why Not to Mr...
...A harmony of policy between the British, and American Governments on the one hand and the Soviet Government on the other...
...Nevertheless, these were, of necessity, speculations...
...But every politician doesn't get the votes he wants to get...
...Consideration should be given to the advisability of transferring minority populations as a means of making the boundary settlements more stable...
...China...
...AMERICAN DIPLOMACY falls into two markedly conflicting phases: the first between 1939 and the beginning of 1944—the Hull-Welles-Berle period...
...It's the same in politics...
...The volume teUs why and hew the Lnited States was caught sqr surer iee by the postwar split between the Soviets and the democratic world...
...During the next year and a half of its activity, the [Political] subcommittee [of which Berle and Welles were the principal members, with Berle the most active] reached the further conclusion that Soviet cooperation on principal international problems would be essential, and as discussion proceeded, the assumption was accepted that such cooperation would be proffered because of the interests of the Soviet Union itself...
...THE HULL-WELLES-BERLE era was succeeded by that of Stettinius...
...The committee therefore recommends that the United States Government adopt, in the interest of fostering moderate government in Germany, [a policy looking] to the earliest possible reconciliation of the German people with the peace, end to the assimilation of Germany, as soon as would be compatible witn security considerations, into the projected international order...
...The Committee further recommends that the Soviet Government be invited to give its support to a new democratic experiment...
...The huge land mass of China ;nd its 400,000,000 people might not have fallen to communism, and perhaps even Eastern Europe might have avoided Soviet domination, had the farsighted and prudent influence Of Hull, Vv dies, Berle and Dunn remained in the ascendancy...
...And, of course, that is the way the Reds all over are taught to vote, because Mr...
...Aeain...
...Fogarty offers Mow hie preacription—on* of many—for bringing the COP out of nowhere, or tending it nowhere you can take your choice...
...Suppose I was a baseball player...
...why our diplomatic leaders failed to foresee this development...
...If they had the votes, that's what they would do...
...Because the Republicans like to tell, and not to be told...
...The possibility that any of the nations of Eastern Euiope...
...Wallace's Progressine party, I am a Fogartyite...
...Realism now vanishes from the State Department, and the naivete which has led to the present sad state of affairs begins to dominate...
...The Soviet Government, in turn, would be in a position to use the Communist strength in Germany to the great disadvantage of the internal political peace of Germany and to the comparably great advantage of Russian interests...
...u * THE QUESTION OF VOTES is a matter of how you leach people to vote...
...and why the cold war is being conducted under conditions more favorable to the Soviet Union than to the democracies...
...published this past weekend...
...Hitler got together, why couldn't the Reds and the Republicans get together just for a little while...
...In case of friction Germany would be in a position to hold the balance of power with disastrous results both for treaty limitations and for political stability . at home...
...dated July 23, 1944, a donothing policy on the territorial problems of Poland...
...Appearing Wee the winged Pemuj from out of nowhere, Mr...
...While this policy implies the postponement of decisions until after the cessation of hostilities, we should recognize that it may be possible and desirable to settle certain territorial disputes before that time...
...A minimum of bitterness against the peace terms...
...They have had plenty of experience in telling the country what to do...
...And in anotber once confidential document, on the Polish-Soviet frontier, dated March 26, 1943: "Should the Soviet Union desire to play an active role in Central Europe, it would prefer Line 'A' (the line farthest west) to the other suggested boundaries...
...These days you can't have any governor or senator ride an elephant to Washington...
...Hitler said Why Not to Mr...
...Do you think that Mr...
...Which would I rather do, play with the Chicago White Sox or sit on that bench with the New York Yankees...
...The Reds are taught to vote for somebody who is going to tell them what to do...
...But they can't get the votes...
...The relationship of the various claimant states to the Allies is a factor to be considered but should not unduly influence the American position on any given territorial problem...
...The strategic position of the Soviet Union in the face of a potentially hostile Polish-Rumanian bloc or larger East European grouping would be very strong...
...Because a man in politics has two big purposes...
...Republicans and Reds By JONATHAN TITELESCU FOG ARTY My Name Is Fogarty is the title of the first oook, iusi pnottsnee to come from the smoking typewriter of a new Hen who it JuHnti to roar aplenty est the literary front (as long as there remain* one] —Jonathan Titeieucu Fogarty...
...If the Republicans do this, why, they will not only get votes, but they will get the kind ^of votes they want...
...Poland and Rumania would be deprived of the common frontier they possessed between 1920 and 1939...
...The committee is under no illusions as to the difficulties in the way of creating an effective democracy in Germany...
...THE REALISTIC THINKING of Hull, Welles and Berle foresaw the possibility that the Soviet Union might be pursuing aims and objectives of its own quite different from those envisioned by the democratic opponents of the Axis...
...That's what I'd do, if I were a member of the" Grand Old Party...
...In such weasel-worded language, the pro-appeasement clique (by that time in the ascendancy in the State Department) repudiated the Polish Republic as our ally and then turned it over to the tender mercies of the Soviet Union, and stalled any thought of action by the United States to prevent Eastern Europe from being engulfed by the Soviet Empire...
...He brought the teacher an apple every day...
...He can just buy the sundae and pass the time of day with her, and then go his way and she hers, and there if no harm done and nothing has been off-color...
...But if they get the votes of voters who want to tell them what to do, that's going to be ticklish...
...Why not get together wi.th the Reds...
...This is all a matter of votes...
...That is why I applied the political law of Why Not...
...Well, first of all, I would get together with the Reds...
...So then, how would I run the Republican party...
...e THE ABOVE SHOWS wh>t the Republicans ought to do...
...on case 102, it states: "That the Soviet Union would probably cooperate in regard #f problems concerning ex-enemy countries, at least so far as military occupation is concerned, was a view early adopted...
...If Mr...
...Byrnes...
...the second from 1944 to the end of 1948 —the period of appeasement of Russia...
...Only at the end of the year did I discover how he got that apple...
...First of all, if I were a Republican, I'd gettxTthe top quick, because what the Republicans need is somebody Ukemyself who is a friend of everybody...
...But just for purposes of thinking through some political questions, what would 1 do if^Latere a Republican...
...Take this country...
...diplomacy was not as naive in 1939, when it began its postwar planning, as it became in IMS when the war ended...
...His second, to get votes...
...But the Republicans, you say, don't like the Reds...
...Stalin and Mr...
...Stalin has tattght his Russians to vote for him so that he can fell them what to do...
...Do you think that if the Chicago White Sox could find nine Red Indians who would win Hie pennant for them, they wouldn't say, why not sign up the Red Indians...
...Well, every politician serves the people...
...The State Department's new volume giver a good, if oblique example of the thinking of Hull, Welles and Berle in page 55: "The possibility that the Soviet Union would share in the postwar decisions was also taken into account practically from the start of research in the late spring of 1941, despite the Nazi military successes on the Eastern Front during the second half of 1941 and in 1942...
...EVERYBODY KNOWS that I am not a Republican...
...A tolerable standard of living...
...The committee believes that there is a marked disadvantage, both from the viewpoint of political warfare against National Socialism and from the viewpoint of preparing the democratic forces of Germany for action, in the failure of the United States and British Governments to announce their support of future German democracy...
...There is no dispute about that...
...Now, let's look at the Republicans again...
...They didn't want him to tell them what to do...
...The transition from realism to naivete coincided with the departure from the State Department of Secretary Cordell Hull, Under Secretary Sumner Welles, and Assistant Secretary Adolph Berle...
...The freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned and the political and economic aspects of proposed solutions should be given more weight than historic or strategic claims...
...A man does not have to marry every girl he buys a chocolate sundae for, does he...
...It suggests that there are three conditions under which a new democratic experiment might survive: "1...
...Now you see why the Reds are good votes for the Republicans...
...But as I say, my position aa leader of Fogartyism prevents me from being a Republican...
...In such cases the solution adopted should, if possible, be based on the same permanent factors which we expect to govern the territorial disputes reached after the war...
...Stalin is their teacher...
...That's why the Republicans are still mad at the late Mr...
...Central and Western European nations may look with some apprehension on the extension of Soviet 'territory' so far to the west...
...Their departure—and, subsequently, lhat of Assistant Secretary James C. Dunn to become Ambassador to Italy— deprived the State Department of the lew realists who might have prevented Yalta, Teheran and similar costly mistakes...
...He didn't buy it...
Vol. 33 • April 1950 • No. 13
