Time to Think Again
EDITORIAL Time to Think Again From 1947 to 1950, U.S. foreign policy seemed clearly defined. It was a policy of resistance to Communism through attempts to rebuild social and economic health in...
...The aim of such discussion should be the exploration of alternative democratic policies which can better insure that we never face a horrible choice between thermonuclear war and surrender to totalitarianism...
...Because we agree with Atomic Energy Commissioner Thomas E. Murray that atomic weapons have wrought a fundamental change in man's relation to nature, we approach the subject of "Alternatives to the H-Bomb" in a spirit of deep humility...
...Against the backdrop of the Soviet atomic bomb, the Chinese intervention in Korea made World War III a real possibility for the first time...
...the tragedy of China underscored this objection and, at the same time, laid bare the difficulties of universal application...
...Many who supported the policy's broad lines felt that reconstruction of the status quo ante bellum was useful in the short run but would be inadequate in the long haul...
...The editors of The New Leader do not agree with every word that will be spoken here, nor do we necessarily endorse the total attitude of any individual article...
...But we do think that within each article is some real contribution, either toward an understanding of present policies or toward their improvement...
...Many believed the policy could not work unless it was unstintingly and universally applied...
...It is the belief of The New Leader, therefore, that nothing is as vitally needed today as an earnest re-thinking and re-discussion of the basic issues of the global struggle by men of democratic persuasion throughout the world...
...The Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift, the North Atlantic Treaty and the Technical Assistance Program all contributed to saving Western Europe, and the last of these has made a modest contribution to freedom's cause in Asia, Africa and Latin America...
...We hope you will do likewise...
...It was a policy of resistance to Communism through attempts to rebuild social and economic health in war-torn areas, to extend military aid to nations threatened by insurrection, and to forge institutional links between the principal democratic governments...
...Despite these obvious successes, inherent in the large measure of agreement achieved on this policy was the glossing over of many larger issues...
...Ever since, the basic Western policy has become more and more one of cautious drift...
...Many believed that the policy lacked the clearly-conceived higher purposes necessary to win the common people of the world...
...These contradictions, sharply accelerated by the events since the fall of 1950, have gradually destroyed the policy and fragmented the community of feeling which produced it...
...To this end, The New Leader has invited conservative, liberal and socialist political and cultural leaders in America, Britain and Europe to submit their views...
...The present crisis in Indo-China has graphically demonstrated the profound disorientation of both the statesmen and the peoples of the West...
...With the single but all-important exception of China, that policy was applied in a consistent manner and met the most serious challenges presented to it...
...Finally, there were those who felt the policy could work only so long as there was no real possibility of evenly-matched nuclear war...
...It has been clearly inadequate to meet the challenges posed by Stalin's death, the momentous revolts in the Soviet world, the political retrogression in many free nations, and the development of a Soviet hydrogen bomb which Washington has conceded was better built than our own...
...Not all who supported the policy shared the belief of its framers that the creation of "situations of strength" in the West could induce the Kremlin to negotiate reasonable settlements of world issues...
Vol. 37 • June 1954 • No. 26
