New Look' in Defense

...Of course, Mr...

...Basically, this represents a change in our approach to the problem of containing the expansion of the Soviet Union, which has too often tended, as Secretary Dulles pointed out, to be merely a reflex action to Soviet initiative...

...This change in policy had momentous implications for all Americans...

...In response to this threat, President Truman came before Congress and, by requesting assistance for Greece and Turkey, originated the Truman Doctrine...

...See "The Case Against the Bigger Bang," by W. V. Eckardt, in last week's New Leader...

...Moreover, since the end of the Korean War the Chinese have been able to catch their breath...

...This power will be under the direction of a native leadership which has increasingly evidenced aggressive and rapacious intentions toward the countries along its southern border...

...But if the Chinese do not intervene directly, and merely increase their supplies to the native Communist forces and send informal "volunteer" missions to assist in the training of troops and the handling of more complicated equipment, at what point would it be possible for us, in the words of Secretary Dulles, to employ "massive retaliatory power...

...Dominated by colonial powers for more than a century, with a large percentage of their people unable to read or write, with an average income in many of the areas of $40 or $50 a year, and a life expectancy in the poorest countries of 25 or 26 years, the people of this great region stretching from the Eastern Mediterranean to the South China Sea offered a ready target to Communist infiltration...

...Later that year, there appeared in Foreign Affairs magazine an article by Mr...

...a peace which will, in my opinion, ultimately and inevitably result in Communist domination in French Indo-China...

...The Communist threat became especially heavy in the Middle East and Southeast Asia...

...The burden has been borne almost totally by the French, who have lost more officers than yearly graduates from the French Military Academy at St...

...It seems to me that we could be placed in a most difficult position of either giving no aid at all of the kind necessary to bring victory in that area, or giving the wrong kind of aid, which would alienate the people of great sections of the world who might feel that the remedy was worse than the disease...

...Since then, the military guarantees of NATO have been widened...

...We will not now, as formerly, resist aggression wherever it occurs...

...Dulles feels that the threat of attack will prevent the brush fires from starting far more effectively than could our subsequent efforts to assist the forces of freedom in each of these areas against the well-entrenched Communist guerrilla or native armies...

...There, we were supporting a courageous and valiant native government in its desire to be independent of the Communists...

...Under the Constitution, the President must seek the consent of Congress for a declaration of war...

...Even today, after three years of buildup, a buildup substantially slower than our earlier hopes for the NATO forces, this threat of American retaliation remains the chief defense of the Continent of Europe...

...To give them some confidence that under a free system they could hope for a better life, to counter Soviet subversion and propaganda, the United States initiated programs of technical assistance for all the countries along the Soviet underbelly...

...The heretofore existing policy of containment originated in 1947, when the Communists, in defiance of the World War II agreement between Stalin and Churchill, attempted by intensive guerrilla action to seize control of Greece...

...The day may come when neutralism ceases to be a practical alternative for many of the peoples of Asia and our system of mutual guarantees will become worldwide...

...The purpose was to prevent a gradual deterioration in our position and a consequent increase in the relative strength of the Communist bloc, resulting finally in a situation where the Communists could face the prospects of war with certitude of victory...

...Indo-China is probably the only country in the world where many observers believe the Communist-led element would win a free election...

...The war there has been proceeding with growing intensity since 1946...

...This article is based on a recent address to the Cathedral Club of Brooklyn...

...But, until this is accomplished, the new policy announced last week faces grave difficulties and dangers...

...Dulles's policy involves the constitutional and political nature of our Government...

...Thus, the natives, unlike the South Koreans, have played a relatively small part in the war against the Communists...

...For upon our decisions now may well rest the continued existence of mankind...

...Under these circumstances, we must ask how the new Dulles policy and its dependence upon the threat of atomic retaliation will fare in these areas of guerrilla warfare...

...Now the United States is being committed to instant retaliation against the aggressor anywhere we choose with any weapons we choose...

...Dulles stated that "the way to deter aggression is for the free community to be willing and able to respond vigorously at places and with means of its own choosing...

...At what point would the threat of atomic weapons be used in the struggles in Southeast Asia—in French Indo-China particularly, where the chief burden is carried on the one side by native Communists and on the other by the troops of a Western power which once held the country under colonial rule...

...3. Does this new policy depend for its success on the relinquishment by Congress of its power to consent to our involvement in all-out atomic war...

...It would be difficult, for example, for the United States to commence atomic retaliation against Communist aggression in Burma if that country had from the beginning of the cold war shown little interest in the cause of the free world and opposed vigorously any action that would result in closer defense arrangements with us...

...We realized at that time, with the atomic monopoly held by the United States, that the chief threat to our security was not a military one but rather from the danger that the living standards of the people of Western Europe would fall below the marginal level, and that active and vigorous Communist parties within those countries would profit from their hardships...

...John F. Kennedy (left) is one of the ablest of the young Democratic Senators who have launched serious criticism of the new Eisenhower-Dulles policy of atomic retaliation...

...The burden has been carried chiefly by the French, with an increasingly large investment in military assistance by ourselves, and the prospects of a Communist defeat become more distant...

...2. Of what value would atomic retaliation be in opposing a Communist advance which rested not upon military invasion but upon local insurrection and political deterioration...

...Thus, in 1948, economic assistance to Western Europe on a massive scale was started through the Marshall Plan...

...In French Indo-China, because of the decades of heavy and unilateral control that the French have maintained, the native people too often tend to regard the French as the real oppressors and the rebel forces, even though Communists, as liberators...

...We hoped by this means to avoid the mistakes of World Wars I and II, when doubts about our ultimate actions were sufficient to encourage the Germans to commence military action without fear of the United States...

...A second complication, that of the limitations of atomic weapons against current Communist tactics, is suggested by the present war in French Indo-China...

...Their assistance to the Vietminh forces is thus steadily growing, and they themselves are steadily increasing their own military strength...

...It is preferable, they believe, to face the enemy with prospects of all-out warfare, rather than drift through years of perpetual discord and struggle...

...The third question presented by Mr...

...I agree with Secretary Dulles's general objective of preventing a series of exhausting, though localized, engagements of military manpower...

...It was our hope that the warning of United States retaliation in case of a Western European invasion would offset the weakness of European armies at that time and would prevent the Russians from marching to an easy victory...

...Some observers believe that, within two years, the Chinese Communists will have developed over 150 modern divisions...

...Here again, the new strategy most recently announced by the Secretary of State has implications of the utmost seriousness...

...Under these conditions, at what point would our new policy come into play...

...And yet, if the President goes to Congress and asks its consent, does he not give a warning to the enemy of our intentions, a warning that might under present conditions permit retaliation against us before our own blow became effective...

...The French fight there against the Communist forces of the Vietminh, the native armies led by Ho Chi Minh, who, despite his record as a lifelong Communist, has influence penetrating all groups of society because of his years of battle against French colonialism...

...But I think that all of us have responsibility to call attention to what we believe to be the implications of those policies into which we might otherwise drift without a public awareness of their significance...

...Kennedy, a former member of the House of Representatives and the son of a former Ambassador to England, scored a major political coup in 1952 by defeating Henry Cabot Lodge for the Senate in the face of the Eisenhower landslide...

...By 1949, however, it was apparent that, although the Communist challenge was worldwide, our assistance was concentrated...

...These programs, of course, are still in effect and have had, in some areas, significant results...

...This prospect of a unilateral worldwide Monroe Doctrine for the atomic age is only one of the complications of the new policy...

...Secretary Dulles gave clear warning to the Chinese and Russian leaders that, if they should begin another limited Korean-type war, the homeland of neither China nor Russia would be a sanctuary from direct atomic attack by the Strategic Air Force of the United States...

...New Look' in Defense A Democratic Senator questions our exclusive reliance on atomic retaliation By John F. Kennedy U. S. Senator from Massachusetts The President's military budget reflects the fiscal aspects of the fundamental shift in the implementation of our foreign policy which was indicated by Secretary Dulles in his recent speech before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York...

...They will then become, after the Soviet Union and the United States, the greatest single military power in the world, lacking only an atomic arsenal to put them in the first rank...

...we are attempting to include within a mutual-defense pact the major countries of the Eastern Mediterranean...

...In 1949, therefore, we initiated the North Atlantic Treaty, which not only provided for mutual cooperation in building up military forces in the West, but also resulted in United States guarantees of the territorial integrity of all NATO powers...

...I raise these questions not only for the consideration of high officials of our Government, but also because no foreign or domestic policy can be effectively maintained in a democracy unless it is understood and supported by the great majority of the people...

...While it may decrease the prospect, as has been argued, of successive Koreas scattered throughout the world, it may also increase the possibility that the United States will be forced to become involved in atomic action...

...The time to study, to doubt, to review and re-vise is now...

...Pressure is growing steadily in France for cutting the investment and loss, and either withdrawing or working out an agreement for a negotiated peace with the leaders of the Vietminh...

...Such an occurrence obviously would have the most serious consequences for all the Middle East and Europe, and indeed our own security...

...I would not maintain for a moment that the policy of containment, which has undergone steady revision and improvement since 1946, should not be constantly and critically re-examined...

...Secretary Dulles and the leaders of the present administration have obviously concluded that the West can no longer afford to fight a series of marginal wars or successive police actions which sap our strength and neutralize our friends...

...X, later identified as George Kennan, the leading Soviet expert in the American State Department, which provided a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the steps necessary to prevent the Soviets from seizing other areas vital to our security...

...But once the brush fire begins to spread, and particularly if it spreads through a series of localized combustions, then the new policy may be confronted with a serious dilemma...

...In an era of supersonic attack and atomic retaliation, extended public debate and education are of no avail once such a policy must be implemented...

...But the people of the United States, in their consideration of the new policy enunciated by the President and Secretary of State Dulles, are entitled to the fullest answers to at least these three basic questions: 1. What would be the relation of this policy to attacks upon nations which may at the time be neutral or unfriendly in their attitudes toward a defensive alliance with the United States...

...Toward the end of 1949, it became obvious, however, that the Soviets were concentrating on building up and maintaining the most powerful military forces in the world, forces which provided power and support to their diplomacy and propaganda, encouragement to their supporters and a constant threat to their enemies...

...Now we are telling the Communists that an act of aggression will be followed by retaliation by the United States on the home territory of Red China or Soviet Russia...

...Though the immediate threat then was in the Eastern Mediterranean, the general challenge was not alone to the Greeks and Turks, and it became obvious that further assistance in other areas was necessary...

...French Indo-China offers a sharp contrast with the struggle in Korea...

...and even in the absence of a formal declaration, Congressional consent would be required before such a drastic step could be taken as ordering our Strategic Air Force into action against a country which might retaliate with bombs on our own citizens...

...The implementation of this policy called for the building of strength in those areas surrounding the postwar Soviet zone of control, stretching in a great half-moon from Norway down through Greece and Turkey to the Middle East, across to the Orient through Japan to Alaska...

...All observers agree that it is vital to the security of all Southeast Asia that Indo-China remain free from Communist domination, for if Indo-China should be lost, Burma, Thailand, Malaya, Indonesia and other now independent states might soon fall under the control of the Communist bloc...