Editorial
EDITORIAL The 'New Look' In the Senate on January 22, Senator Albert Gore (D., Tenn.)—assisted by Henry Jackson (D., Wash.), Paul Douglas (D., Ill.) and others—ably analyzed the Administration's...
...Gore noted that "containment" had been designed to meet several types of Communist assault...
...Further "disengagement" is implicit in the Army budget, Gore said, even though there has been "no concrete evidence that the forces of our allies are being built up to a point where they can readily replace our forces overseas...
...Pella...
...Needless to say, nothing will please the Communists more than continued paralysis of the forces of democratic social reform...
...And the able Senators would do well to expand the discussion to include the broader political problems in Europe and Asia which the Administration has not yet begun to face...
...Air Force expansion was recommended long ago...
...Then Senator Gore departed from prevailing theory...
...No Change in Italy Whether or not he wins a Parliamentary vote of confidence for his government, Italy's new left-wing Christian Democratic Premier, Amintore Fanfani, seems unlikely to clear the political air...
...Jackson called the "new look" an invitation to the Kremlin "to concentrate on indigenous forces everywhere and to support these forces in every clandestine manner possible...
...No one questions the sincerity and zeal of the new Premier's reformist convictions...
...As a House member of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy three years ago, Gore said, he had doubted—and now he still doubted?that another atomic bomb or a hydrogen bomb will ever be dropped on an American...
...Whereupon Gore nailed the point down: Would we bomb Moscow if Iranian Communists seized power, or if Bulgarian troops clashed with Greek border guards...
...our setbacks, he said, were due to failures to apply containment, as when we withdrew our troops from Korea without arming the Koreans...
...Gore questioned both policies...
...Thus, if Italy drifts into Communism, we would presumably have to launch a global war or else accept an Italian "people's democracy" as a "normal setback...
...Indeed, Secretary Dulles had left a broad avenue of retreat...
...If we fail to retaliate, would not this big new strategy be revealed as a big bluff...
...The divisions being withdrawn from Korea, we now learn, will not become a "strategic mobile reserve," as advertised...
...Now Gore said that even if "the balance of terror might be sufficient to prevent global war," it is doubtful that "it is sufficient to prevent local aggression...
...To gain the backing of his own party, Fanfani has had to include much of the Christian Democratic right wing in his cabinet...
...Russian or Communist city...
...Compared with containment, the "new look" is nebulous in its provisions for meeting local aggression and subversion...
...Production of atom bombs is old stuff...
...These criticisms deserve a serious answer from the President...
...they will simply be disbanded...
...He had said: "It is normal that at some times and at some places there may be setbacks to the cause of freedom...
...Now Aldisio is to serve under Fanfani in the equally crucial post of Minister of Industry and Commerce...
...The new Minister of Foreign Trade, Giordano dell'Amore...
...What was new in the "new look," Gore asked...
...and others—ably analyzed the Administration's "new look" foreign policy...
...And Douglas asked pointedly: "What would be the probable effect upon the brown, yellow and black peoples of the world if, in reprisal for an attack by the Chinese, let us say, in Indo-China, we were to bomb Peking...
...Earlier, Jackson had quoted the testimony of Admiral Radford in 1949, when we still had a virtual atomic monopoly: "I do not believe the threat of the atomic blitz will be an effective deterrent to war or that it will win that war in such a way that it can be followed by a stable, livable peace...
...He felt that "when two great powers have the capacity to obliterate with one weapon the largest cities in each other's domain, they will not be so foolhardy as to resort to such use...
...Minister of Agriculture: and Silvio Garva, Minister of the Treasury...
...In order to secure the backing of conservative interests in the Christian Democratic party, however, he has had to take men into his official family who seem likely to doom him to the same do-nothing social policy followed by his predecessor...
...in fact, just the opposite appears to be the case...
...Gore commented: "If this policy has a real meaning, it is a threat to convert local aggressions into a world war...
...Nor is there satisfactory evidence that the Communist threat has substantially diminished...
...If so," Gore said, "World War III, the very thing we have hoped to avoid, would be upon us...
...One such appointee is Salvatore Aldisio, wealthy Sicilian landowner and bitter foe of the Government-sponsored land reform, whose designation as Minister of Agriculture resulted in the ouster of Premier Giuseppe Pella...
...has strong ties with banking and commercial interests...
...Other leading right-wingers are Attilio Piccioni, Foreign Minister: Ciuseppe Mediei...
...Gore found two new elements: (1) drastic reduction of our ground forces and their gradual withdrawal from world danger-spots, and (2) "the open, if implied, threat to retaliate with atomic weapons...
...I should not like to see the United States of America place its key reliance in preventing aggression upon retaliatory attacks with poison gas [or] atomic weapons...
Vol. 37 • February 1954 • No. 5
