Alternatives to the H-Bomb

...The demands are simple and democratic in purpose and are of a kind with which everybody with a democratic orientation can be in accord...

...It would be presumptuous of me to try to blueprint the political, spiritual and intellectual words best suited to the corrosion of the Soviet system...

...Why do we build hydrogen bombs at the present time...

...The overriding yet frequently forgotten fact about the people behind the Iron Curtain is that they are people like everybody else...

...At present, he is on the staff of Radio Free Europe...

...Most people recognize that, to a large extent, they are coercing us already...

...On the other, we call them ice-cold cynics, out for power and domination only, believing nothing...

...As Chester Bowles so rightly says, ideas, not threats, will stir men's souls...

...Obviously, there is no end to coercion except total victory or harmonizing of purposes...

...Nobody will deny that modern weapons and modern communications permit a degree of control which makes the old-fashioned type of rebellion impossible...

...Here again...

...The objection which I should like to anticipate is the oft-made claim that the people of, say, Poland or Bulgaria are helpless against the foreign oppressors, no matter what they know or think or feel, and no matter what the free world does...

...The right word can certainly do more and better things than the H-bomb...

...While there may not be anything new about the idea of substituting persuasion for force, the word for the sword, the weakness of the principle is that it is not widely enough recognized, not yet sufficiently believed in...

...One moment we take solace from the fact that the Soviet military machine is shot through with disaffected elements, incapable of maintaining efficient lines of communication through the hostile satellites, and poorly equipped compared to our own...

...There are, of course, cultural and traditional differences between various nations...

...The misinterpretation is that we can make the Communist world disintegrate by some Open Sesame, some advertising gimmick...

...Naturally, such a disintegration cannot in the least resemble an act like, say, the storming of the Bastille...

...The satellites alone cannot accomplish the task of self-liberation...

...But just as the totalitarian state has invented new devices for its defense, it is, I think, also subject to new forms of corrosion...

...After all, there is no reason why the truth should not make them free...

...We have taken many looks at the "enemy" nations...

...To see the people behind the Iron Curtain more clearly, to see them as they are and as they see themselves, and then to help them join their strivings with ours...

...The alternative to the H-bomb is effective international persuasion...

...We build them because we fear further inroads, by war or otherwise, on the part of the Communist world into what is left of the free world...

...a spirit of hope and compassion rather than one of cynicism and self-righteousness...

...Therefore, an attempt to view the peoples on the other side of the fence a little more objectively must precede any further attempt at more successful persuasion...

...Essentially, we must persuade them of two things: first, that we have the intelligence, imagination and fundamental decency to make new, constructive, democratic contributions to a post-Soviet world: second, that they can and must...

...It can just as well be argued that they might gain in pride, determination and even power if this were confidently expected of them...

...Konrad Kellen has been engaged in international propaganda and information activities for almost ten years...

...The third fact is that, like other people, they will be most easily influenced by a simple human voice calling for a simple human purpose, rather than by a synthetic voice compounded of cloying sweetness and the roar of circus lions...

...Obviously, the walls of the Kremlin will not crumble before the democratic trumpets unless what we have to say (or display) is in fact so sensible, constructive and attractive as to be sufficiently persuasive...

...I don't mean our propaganda services specifically, but the free world at large...

...There is no alternative to the H-bomb except a change of attitude, of drive in the Soviet world...

...What is the real difference between the two...

...And there is good reason to assume that the Communist leaders are deterred by our possession of the H-bomb...

...Does this mean appeasement of the Soviet rulers...

...But, curiously, most of us have never made up our minds as to what we "really think they are like...

...One thing is certain: No matter how efficient the weapons of tyrannical repression may be, they still require people to operate them—people who are somehow persuaded that it is better to use them than not to use them...

...Communication is not enough...

...It is hard, of course, to deal with peoples effectively unless one has to some extent balanced one's opinions about them...

...Over Radio Free Europe, for example, a campaign is now being conducted encouraging the people of Czechoslovakia to address ten demands to their government...

...This is the thirteenth article in the series launched by Lewis Mumford in our June 28 issue...

...On the one hand, we say that the men in the Kremlin rule the Soviet Empire with an iron hand, and that the people under their control are powerless to assert their own inclinations...

...Their opportunists, like other opportunists, usually do not like to go beyond a certain limit...

...Although many millions behind the Iron Curtain may be reluctant to follow the Soviet leaders, they nevertheless provide the platform on which their leaders operate...

...a primary belief in people, in the individual, rather than primary reliance on guided missiles or military alliances...

...It is often argued that the people behind the Iron Curtain would resent it if we intimated that they must themselves, sooner or later, withdraw the foundations of power from their present leaders...

...They do not even mention the H-bomb...

...a clear preference for cooperation over any kind of domination...

...Thus, there is no realistic alternative to the H-bomb except a harmonizing of purposes between ourselves and those with whom we are now contesting...

...I think it is this: In coercion, a person is made to act in a certain way against his better judgment or inclinations...

...This is probably quite true...

...In persuasion, his very judgments and inclinations are changed, and consequently his course of action as well...

...Yet, we consider such efforts as the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberation extremely valuable, because they demonstrably reach the people...

...What can persuasion, if successful, accomplish at best...

...To this change, which may be nearer than we think, the West must be midwife as best it can, by talking at all times with sense and decency to the people caught in the totalitarian trap and leaving the rest to them...

...Perhaps this would be a blow to the captive peoples, but, like any straightforward word, it may in the long run make the recipient appreciate the frankness, raise his self-esteem, set him thinking about his problems in new terms and help him to operate on a more realistic basis...

...Their slaves, like most slaves, yearn to be free...

...This human variable in the political equation is the Achilles Heel of the dictators...

...What can lead us to find the best ways of persuasion...

...As far as the Soviet leaders are concerned, we are also of two minds...

...They are forcing us to devote a huge portion of national resources, brains, manpower and money for military purposes, when they could be better used elsewhere...

...The truth, it is generally recognized, is a powerful weapon, but we must be sure to define the truth in our own minds...

...But, as we are not willing to attempt to change the Soviet leadership by force, we must persuade the people under their rule, with whom we can and must achieve harmony, to do it themselves...

...How can that be done...

...I think we can leave out the alternative of total victory, as the purpose of this symposium is to search for a way of solving present problems constructively and peacefully...

...The first prerequisites of international persuasion are the same as those of interpersonal persuasion, namely honesty and frankness...

...mainly through their own efforts, change their form of government and find a way to deny all support to those who now govern them...

...For example: If by any chance we should make up our national mind that we are not going to send troops to free the people behind the Iron Curtain (and I don't say that we have), we should tell them so...

...But their "men of iron" are as vulnerable as all other "men of iron...

...For those with whom we are contesting are not just the leaders but the large state bodies under their control...

...By way of conclusion, I would like to anticipate one likely objection and one likely misinterpretation...

...Conversely, it is our logical target...

...In fact, I am not talking about the propaganda services at all...

...The alternative to the H-bomb is the word...

...This may have been true ten years ago, but a lot has been learned in the meantime...

...We cannot reach harmony of purpose with those leaders, so we would like to see them overthrown...

...All that is left, therefore, is persuasion...

...But I believe that such words would unmistakably have to reflect a genuine disregard for racial differences...

...The second is that, being human, they are susceptible to persuasion...

...Nothing less than a disintegration of the Soviet system and the erection of a political structure behind the present Iron Curtain with which we could live in harmony and trust, for a common purpose, without H-bombs...

...On the other hand, the enemy leaders are now also building H-bombs, in order to get around our negative coercion and to coerce us...

...somehow the peoples of Russia and Asia must be reached with persuasive effect...

...It is still more difficult to persuade them and to harmonize one's purposes with theirs...

...And, apparently, they are the most effective and persuasive type of communication yet addressed to the world behind the Iron Curtain, judging from the strong reactions of the people and the regime...

...The bombs, it is correctly reasoned, are a "deterrent," a device of negative coercion, so to speak...

...There is nothing really new about this...

...Just because the controls of the modern, totalitarian state go so much further than anything heretofore, they are so much more intolerable and require so much more collective compliance...

...but the next moment we speak of their 175 crack divisions in the West alone, their air armadas, their unlimited resources, their firm control over a bloc of 800 million people...

...How successful it can be depends on the ideas it attempts to convey and the emotions it attempts to stir...

...Why should we talk to the people, or take heart in their response, if we have such complete faith in Soviet repressive power...

...What needs to be done, then, is to induce such heterogeneous yet cohesive bodies as entire peoples to change their collective political personalities...

...The first is that the people behind the Iron Curtain do not like the life they are currently forced to lead—they cannot fail to want a change...

...This is asking a great deal, but the world is in great trouble and nothing short of a great effort on both sides promises any success...

...One day we mesmerize ourselves by staring at the "cracks in the Kremlin wall," while the next we insist that only more and more H-bombs can save us...

...On the one hand, we are inclined to describe them as fanatics, and Communism as their religion...

...It means the very opposite...

...This article, of course, represents his personal views...

...I do not mean to imply that our propaganda services at present talk with such a synthetic voice...

...Then, in the Communist as well as the uncommitted world, good men might begin to "associate," as Bowles calls it, and Soviet rule over the millions behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains might begin to disintegrate...

...He might have added: as will the attitudes and basic purposes from which such ideas spring...

...The totalitarians are more aware of the word's explosive force—hence their merciless persecution of it...

...We do not want to do that by intervention, as that would mean war...

...Their idealists, like those of other times and places, have certain strengths and weaknesses...

...At the moment, in the wake of a war where force was needed, it is greatly underrated and its potential impact only dimly grasped, at least in the Western world...

...In order to try to persuade somebody to change his view, it is first necessary to take a good look at him and size him up...

...We cannot do it by coercion...

...If this is true (and all evidence reaching us from behind the Iron Curtain, no matter how contradictory in other respects, confirms that it is), three simple facts emerge...

...I refer to the people in the free world, high and low, who must continue their efforts to find and strike a better chord that will evoke stronger and stronger responses behind the Iron Curtain...

...We will approach a child differently from a man, a hardened villain differently from a misguided fool...

...Specifically, what should be the goal of our efforts at persuasion, if we are to bring the desires and actions of the captive peoples into eventual accord with our own...

...Other contributors thus far have included Hans Kohn, Norman Thomas, Denis Healey, Chester Bowles, Reinhold Niebuhr, William I. Nichols, Salvador de Madariaga, Eric Hoffer, James Burnham, Philip Rieff and Hans Thirring...

...They are forcing our hand, in many other ways...