Is Washington Arming Arab Communists?
ALEXANDER, MARK
Tough talk, isolationist deeds confuse our allies but don't fool the realists in the Kremlin DOES THE U. S. HAVE A POLICY? By Raphael R. Abramovitch Commentators for Pravda and Izvestia seem to...
...He knew Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Molotov and other leading Soviet figures personally, and is the author of several lengthy studies of Soviet life, published in various languages...
...If we add, as has usually been done till now, that we will fight "with all means short of war," we immediately annul the effect of our resolution in the eyes of the Communist chiefs...
...The problem of the survival of world democracy is really inseparable from the problem of breaking the ties between the Administration and the isolationist wing of the GOP...
...The American people must also become conscious of something else...
...Did China and Russia accept this threat at face value...
...There is no similar relation of forces at the present moment...
...And that would mean a major victory for our side...
...We must rid ourselves of this fear...
...Dulles's warning had no basis in fact...
...they can have it...
...One does not have to be an adherent of the Communist theory of innate contradictions among capitalist countries to recognize the existence of real differences and divisions among the various states of the anti-Communist coalition...
...Will Dienbienphu produce the same salutary reaction...
...If there is something even more distressing in the general picture of U.S...
...Moreover, it has to prepare in time and to a sufficient extent, on the one hand, the elements of material and political strength without which no policy can be made, and, on the other hand, the international factors in the context of which every foreign policy must be conducted...
...Dulles nor the "plain talk" of Mr...
...One could not help being deeply moved when reading the account of a meeting of a bipartisan Congressional committee dealing with the world-shaking problem of dispatching another 200 U.S...
...The only way to break this vicious circle is to make them believe we are serious that if they want a war...
...too, are China and the Soviet Union...
...But the precise meaning of this warning was never clearly stated...
...But the common awareness of the imminent danger stemming from inherent Communist aggressiveness will keep these states together...
...Nevertheless, a chain of individual setbacks and defeats may accumulate as a result of the failure to think through our whole strategy military, political and ideologic also that we may be capable of meeting any emergency in any part of the globe...
...Several correspondents at Geneva now speak of a second Munich...
...Washington never had any real intention of getting involved in a global atomic war with China and the U.S.S.R...
...But neither the more generally phrased formula of Mr...
...At the same time, no alternative or substitute was prepared to meet the very real Communist threat in Indo-China...
...But we have also learned something about the American people since then...
...There was nothing at alla facade of policy instead of a realistic one, and a complete vacuum of power and will...
...Who could believe that the Commander-in-Chief of the United States armed forces would so completely surrender his authority to Congressional committees, and what can we think of such committees...
...For those of us who lived through the setbacks, defeats and humiliations of 1938 to 1940Munich, the "phoney war" in France, Dunkirk the days of Dienbienphu evoke parallels and bitter reminiscences...
...Raphael R. Abramovitch has been a leading figure in the struggle for a democratic Russia for five decades...
...No Munich is necessary...
...They were not deceived by what they considered a bluff, and acted accordingly...
...That means that we will have to experience many more Dienbienphus without being able for fear of provoking a major war to check incessant Communist infiltration and aggression around the globe...
...According to the televised speech by Vice President Richard Nixon, its underlying idea was that the United States would no longer permit its forces to be nibbled away piecemeal in a multitude of local wars...
...We saw the almost miraculous resurrection of the will and fighting power of America after Pearl Harbor...
...His last New Leader article, "The Outlook at Bermuda," published last December 7, predicted little result from the Bermuda and Berlin conferences, and named Southeast Asia as the West's principal danger spot...
...Generally, the public interpreted "massive retaliation" to mean dropping A-bombs on China in case she openly intervened in Indo-China...
...Events vindicated the appraisal of the Chinese Communists...
...Dulles and Nixon made their public statements, what practical ways of realizing their intentions did they have in mind...
...So why should they worry and be cautious...
...again, the "sleeping giant" arose and stopped the powerful enemy...
...True, the U.S...
...When Messrs...
...We must tell ourselves, and make it unmistakably clear to our enemies, that we are irrevocably determined not to permit any further Communist advances, and that we will enforce our decision at any cost...
...I doubt it...
...There was no army available for immediate departure to the theater of the war...
...The might of the United States coupled with that of Great Britain, the NATO powers, Yugoslavia, and the anti-Communist states of Asia is at least a match for the Soviet bloc...
...The Congressional committee rejected the President's request...
...Instead, the U.S...
...kept the first half of Mr...
...But Washington did not keep the second half of the pledge the only one that counted in politics: It did not counter the Chinese move by "massive retaliation...
...First of all, I have been unable to discern any definite "American policy" in connection with the struggle for Indo-China...
...Despite talk in Europe and Asia about American imperialism and aggression, we here know that there is not a single country in the world less desirous of assuming the role of a world leader and less eager to be the protector of all the oppressed and menaced of the world...
...If we do...
...Almost a decade later, in the tragic days of June 1950, we witnessed once more the awakening of the American people to the danger of Communist aggression in Korea...
...They never stop before the danger of a war so long as they know that we will do so...
...Of course, there was the famous statement by Secretary Dulles about the "massive retaliation" to which Communist China would be subjected if she dared to intervene openly in the Indo-China war...
...at the same time, they will naturally regard the United States as their protector and leader...
...The original Munich was caused mainly by the military weakness of the democratic powers in Europe as compared with the rapidly growing military might of the Third Reich and the neutralist position of the U.S.S.R...
...By Raphael R. Abramovitch Commentators for Pravda and Izvestia seem to think that, "despite the initial setbacks to the United States, the backers of American policy are very powerful and very determined and do not give up easily...
...It did not do so for the simple reason that the massive blow was never seriously intended...
...would counter such aggressions by massive blows at a time and place of its own choosing...
...Not for a moment did the Communist masters of China stop the Indo-China-bound stream of men, supplies and materiel (including radar-controlled anti-aircraft batteries and Soviet-made trucks with the label of the Vyacheslav Molotov factory...
...It becomes a policy only if the country has a concrete and practical idea on how to put its stated intentions into effect...
...we have chosen the only way to make war impossible and compel world Communism to shrink back...
...foreign policy during the last weeks of Dienbienphu's heroic agony, it is the history of Mr...
...Nixon's pledge: It did not "let itself become involved" in a local war...
...A leader of the Russian Social Democratic party, he was a member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist International from 1923 to 1940...
...There is no earthly reason why the democracies should capitulate on any major point to the blackmail, direct aggression or infiltration of world Communism...
...Nixon represented something one could call a policy...
...there was little or no political consent in the United States itself to sending an army abroad...
...aviation mechanics to Indo-China...
...The shrewd, cynical men in Peking and Moscow realized all along that the popular interpretation of Mr...
...If we, the democracies, are reluctant to risk a major war and are trying to avoid any encroachment which would provoke such a war, so...
...That is: So long as we are paralyzed by the fear of A-bombs or H-bombs descending upon our cities from launching platforms in Moscow, we become psychologically incapable of successfully waging even small wars against Communism's inevitable aggressions...
...A declaration of intentions is not a policy, only a pious wish...
...I must confess that I find this Soviet estimate too flattering...
...This must be done convincingly and earnestlywhich means we must make all preparations necessary for a major emergency...
...I do not think there will be a Munich at Geneva...
...The deeper cause of the undecided, hesitant policy of the present administration and its verbal but not real readiness to fight out world issues with the Communist bloc lies in the paralysis of the Eisenhower Administration by its political ties with that wing of the Republican party which remains isolationist at heart and is more concerned about a balanced budget than about keeping Asia out of Communist clutches...
...Dulles's pathetic efforts to improvise in a few days some kind of policy which could be a substitute for the vacuum created by his own government...
Vol. 37 • May 1954 • No. 20
