Possibilities of Liberation

...It seems to me that if we must deal with them in and through the UN, we shall be in a stronger position if we also deal with them as we deal with Russia, through direct relations...

...A somewhat simpler, and to me more adequate, explanation was given by a high Indian official who told a group of us Americans who were mildly complaining of Indian anti-Americanism: "What can you expect...

...This reflection has long inclined me to be somewhat sympathetic to what Mr...

...With the first part of Mr...

...Nothing less will give man a chance for a decent future on this planet...

...Diplomatic recognition by no means implies moral approval...

...between two great world systems" but as a stage toward a competitive coexistence in which conflict is transferred out of the realm of war for the sake of man's survival...

...Only I should make a stipulation which Mr...

...Accepting the inescapable fact that any great war under modern conditions will be a war of annihilation, we have to accept the consequences--the chief of which is that the hope of the world depends on the achievement of universal, controlled disarmament within a foreseeable future...

...No one in history has thought to ask the Taiwanese under what flag they wish protection, Chinese, Japanese, or American...

...Kennan, it seems to me, would have been on stronger ground in the concluding sections of his article if he had contemplated the creation of neutral zones in Europe and the withdrawal of our troops from Japan not so much as "a bridge, and an area of reconciliation...

...Certainly we have managed the difficult business of keeping the peace better with the Soviet Union in than out of the UN...

...Today it is wholly unrealistic to discuss the reunification of Germany, no matter how commendable is that aim, in terms of adding a united Germany to Western Europe's military strength...

...On the contrary, I would like to lead a cheering section for his discussion on the changes in attitude and policies of the Soviet Government and their significance for us...

...Their sins against common decency and against us are certainly no greater than the sins of their Russian teachers...

...Kennan's clearly stated positions...

...Kennan is entirely right in saying: "When we reach the point when a Soviet agricultural delegation can visit this country and sec something of our life without busloads of photographers and reporters at their heels every minute of the day, we shall have come a long way...

...Nevertheless, we cannot allow Taiwan to be taken by force and the Nationalist Chinese disposed of by massacre...

...On the other hand, unofficial propaganda, people to people, might be effective if it does not encourage any illusion that the United States contemplates a war of liberation...

...The ultimate fate of the island should be decided after order has been well established in the Far East, by a plebiscite under the UN's direction with guarantees against subsequent massacre of the defeated...

...Kennan might agree with what I have written and still feel that there is "nothing to be gained by entry into any direct diplomatic relation with them [the present Chinese leaders...

...Nevertheless, one cannot dismiss lightly his complaint on leaving England that "the United States and Britain merely want to use Poland for military espionage...

...Nobody loves the rich family which lives in the castle at the top of the hill when they live in the huts at the foot...

...I am, however, less enthusiastic in support of his psychological explanation of American "dreams of intimacy with what we regard as the humble and oppressed peoples of the earth...

...Kennan is in his apparent distinction between the Russian people and the Chinese people, a Russian Communist government and a Chinese Communist government...

...One does not lightly disagree with so genuine an expert, especially in Russian affairs...

...Kennan does not seem to feel that that act by Mao's Government should exclude it from the UN which he agrees is not a league of the good and must be inclusive to be truly effective...

...Kennan's article on foreign policy as printed in The New Leader, I have no temptation to disagree...

...I suspect that Mr...

...Surely, the Chinese leaders have not given to this country a deeper and more unjustified offense than Stalin, who backed if he did not inspire Chinese support of the North Korean aggression...

...Kennan says about neutrality...

...When I was in the Far East, I heard Formosans quoted who quite openly said they had been better off under the Japanese than under Chiang...

...That means universal, controlled disarmament under an international authority, itself possessed of some adequate police power...

...I think Mr...

...Kennan does not mention: Mao's Government should not replace Chiang as representative of China unless and until it turns the present Korean truce into a peace, and signs non-aggression treaties with its neighbors, including Taiwan (Formosa...

...Such war under modern conditions could only liberate the graves of men and of nations...

...Kennan, who does not want direct diplomatic relations with the Chinese rulers, takes a rather different stand on relations with the European satellites, which arc dependent on the Kremlin to a degree that China is not...

...Consider how certainly official Russian propaganda in favor of Communism would hurt American Communists...

...To this fact, the return of certain exiles seems to bear witness...

...I am inclined to think that any official American Government propaganda of liberation under present conditions would militate against the gradual evolution of more independence in the satellite countries...

...I should be inclined to think a drastic, possibly violent, change in one of them (Poland for instance) more likely if the Kremlin would relax its grip than in China, although certainly no such change could merely restore the status quo ante...

...Stanislaus Mackiewicz, for a short time Premier of the Polish Government-in-Exile, was, it appears, an extreme rightist who may or may not be a loss to the London shadow government...

...There certainly has been a degree of "finality" in the change with can't be upset by the exiles in Western lands no matter how deep our sympathy for them...

...I do not think, however, that our foreign policy will best be shaped by concentration on the desirable or undesirable limits of neutrality but rather on the whole problem of the arms race...

...Where I cannot follow Mr...

...There are few Americans better trained or more thoughtful, and this judgment holds whether or not one altogether agrees with Mr...

...The military neutralization of certain nations and the withdrawal of American troops, let us say, from Japan, make greater sense in that connection as a stage toward disarmament than they make in a world in which the principal antagonists contemplate continued existence only in terms of a balance of terror...

...Not even when the rich family hands them an occasional present...

...I have never been in any country in Asia or Europe in which our insistence that Chiang should represent China, when he cannot by himself defend Taiwan, is not regarded as an irritating absurdity...

...I have long thought that the same thing would be true of the Peking regime which does effectually, although cruelly, govern the whole Chinese mainland...

...Be that as it may...

...That is not the truth, but it is the way things will increasingly look to many Poles who see no sign of direct action by the West to upset existing governments, however much Western politicians talk some kind of "liberation...