THE ACHESON APPROACH
The Acheson Approach SECRETARY of State Acheson has served up a new description of U.S. foreign policy—"total diplomacy," which, on examination, turns out to be nothing but total sterility. As...
...Actually, Labor's election showing was vastly more impressive than one might assume from press reports...
...Some sincere friends of FEPC legislation felt that a compromise measure, with provisions for investigation of complaints and education of employers, would have made for a more hopeful start than a bill which provided for sledlength outlawry of discrimination...
...The reason is to be found in the experience of the states, traditionally the experimental laboratories in our country...
...non-Communist affection for America was not rising noticeably...
...the civilized world that this Jftt semblance suggests...
...and the U.S.S.R...
...Winning with and without the support of the Liberals, Labor managed to stay in office mostly because nobody wanted an election so soon after the Feb...
...I- "Commissions say that the laws Itave created no new problems for either a business or a community...
...McCarthy and his kind...
...Acheson, the institutions of American life—business, agriculture, labor, the press, and the radio—"must agree voluntarily" to direct their efforts to the single purpose of the struggle...
...Design for Decency THE Democratic and Republican Parties are committed in their platforms to the enactment of effective Fair Employment Practices legislation, but Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives recently passed a toothless measure which does little more than express the pious hope that racial and religious discrimination will wither away in employment practices...
...in pretty much the same moral and intellectual category...
...have long been left almost entirely to Communists, until the last few weeks, when the bourgeois intellectuals have come forth again with their old theme that the U.S...
...Meanwhile, Labor's enforced-moderation may prove a blessing njj disguise...
...It is important to remember, however, that these assailants have not been attacking him where he is vulnerable—on an overriding issue of foreign policy—but have indulged themselves in an orgy of character assassination for purely political purposes...
...Acheson has provoked #uch hysterically abusive assaults jpfam small-time operators like Wisconsin's Sen...
...2) employer after employer reported encountering none of the resistance or adverse comments feared when workers representing minority groups were hired for the first time...
...In Germany, Allied policy continued to play into the hands of the disreputable right-wing nationalists...
...It was this slight decline and the 3.5% increase of the Tory-total which, distributed in strategic areas, produced the substantial swing in the House of Commons...
...A number of employers reported that since enactment of the fair employment practices legislation, Communist influence over minority groups has weakened meas,-urably...
...Recently, Business Week, the conservative business magazine, surveyed the results of trial FEPC legislation in 10 states...
...ft) Running through the state-by-jltate report are two profoundly significant trends: 1) While employers have complied almost unanimously without waiting for warnings or complaints, it is clear that the presence of enforcement powers has proved a potent influence in achieving the excellent results on record...
...It tried to find out if there had been interference with management's prerogatives, whether employes had refused to work with minority groups, and if there had been loss of patronage...
...it may give it the time ft needs to improve some of the proJ" grams launched without adequate, preparation in its first term...
...And the total recruitment envisioned by the Secretary of State must inevitably mean intensification of the hysteria which is presently smearing so many officials of the State Department and making a shambles of so many of our democratic principles...
...Personal friction hasn't been at all serious...
...Reported the New York Times correspondent: "It is a striking fact that the aspersions on the U.S...
...Acheson has been the target of a thoroughly vicious smear attack by unprincipled political hacks...
...Some employers still think there's no need for a law...
...These developments weakened the middle-of-the-road democratic forces-in Germany, added strength and co-, hesion to hitherto scattered forces dedicated to resurgent Nazism, and rendered infinitely more difficult the attainment of the free democratic society which the Allies say they would like to see develop in, Germany...
...And the unanimous view is that minority groups are finding openings in places •barred to them before...
...There has been a great deal of honest soul-searching on whether the Truman Administration's strategy in the fight for a civil rights program was soundly and wisely conceived...
...The answers add up to a remarkably encouraging verdict on the inherent decency .of human beings...
...Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that Mr...
...For Mr...
...The British and Americans indulged in what passed for approving silence when France took over the coal-rich Saar in violation of solemn Allied pledges...
...Note the use of a contradiction like "must agree voluntarily...
...Labor's six-vote over-all majofijf is too slim to keep it in power lon$| but an election may not come unt$ fall—when issues have been sharpened and party treasuries replenished...
...Passage of effective national legislation would not only produce similar results throughout the country, but would also deprive international Communism of one of its most fruitful anti-American arguments among the hundreds of millions of colored humans of Asia and Africa...
...Joseph McCarthy...
...policy of dismantling German indus-' try despite growing unemployment and hardship...
...Disgruntled job-seekers haven't swamped commissions with complaints...
...Two of the states, Indiana and Wisconsin, have laws without enforcement powers, and in both states...
...We Americans like to smirk and sneer at the single candidate tickets presented to the electorate in a totalitarian tyranny like the Soviet Union, but it is doubtful if the election fraud in Russia is much worse than our own spectacle of candidates in both parties running for office on specific pledges and then joining forces to ignore or reject them once they are safely elected...
...Two leading French intellectuals, Francois Mauriac, distinguished novelist, and Andrei Siegfried, noted political scientist, wrote widely featured articles lumping the U.S...
...The magazine probed deeply into the effects of the state laws...
...As defined by the Secretary, it means that "the only question we should ask" other nations of the free world "is whether they are determined to protect their independence against Communist aggression and if they are, we should recognize our basic unity with them at this point...
...The British resumed their ruthless...
...Acheson's "total diplomacy" ranges much farther afield than the purely foreign policy aspect discussed above...
...j "Employers agree," Business cWeek summarized, "that FEPC laws haven't caused near the 'lass that opponents predicted...
...Mr...
...Notes from Abroad HERE, in capsule form, The Progressive presents interpretative reports of developments abroad for which we had originally planned more extensive treatment in this issue: In Britain, the Labor Government survived three major Tory attempts to unseat it—on iron and steel nationalization, housing, and health costs...
...Minority groups in the nation are the immediate victims of this bipartisan sell-out, but in the longer haul of history it is the foundation of our democratic system which is hardest hit by this wholesale repudiation of solemn commitments...
...Business Week reported, the results are less favorable than in the eight states whose laws have enforcement teeth...
...But even those who opposed an FEPC are &iot actively hostile now...
...This totally negative approach— on a par with Mr...
...TJbey haven't interfered with any ^employer's basic right to choose the most competent man for a job...
...Acheson's stubborn refusal to consent to top-level conversations with the Soviets— represents just about the most shallow, short-sighted, and unimaginative pronouncement yet to come from the policy-making precincts of a nation locked in a great ideological struggle with the disciples of a totalitarian philosophy...
...Its percentage of the total vote, however, was 1.7% less than in 1945...
...It is the Secretary's insistence on "total diplomacy" which adds a perverse sort of logic and the color of respectability to the shameful tactics of Sen...
...It is an ironic fact that the Secretary of State himself and his department are the first victims of the inevitable hysteria generated under such a policy of "total diplomacy...
...Thus, said Mr...
...II Moreover, the argument for a cautious, halfway attack on the problem doesn't carry quite the conviction it once did with the middle-of-the-roaders...
...is more like Russia than like Europe, and that it takes the less than topmost rank in...
...Mr...
...Equally disturbing in Mr...
...Certainly there was some ground for an honest difference of opinion, but there can be no moral justification for the completely innocuous bill passed by the House...
...In France, the Bidault regime sue-, cess fully invoked strong sanctions to prevent Communist sabotage of French participation in the U.S.-financed Atlantic arms pact...
...Ache-son's concept of "total diplomacy" is his demand for home-front mobilization of all economic and intellectual activity along wartime lines...
...Acheson's concept of total recruitment of the nation behind "the struggle" is the logical enough companion of the policy of "total diplomacy" which rejects the hope of peace through negotiations with leaders of the Soviet Union...
...It not only piled up 1,500,000 votes more than it did in 1945, but it polled the largest vote won by any party in British history...
...23 stalemate...
...Still...
...It sets the stage for something resembling total regimentation at home, both in its demand for the "focusing of total resources on the winning of the struggle" against Russia, and in his call for the closing of ranks on all levels of life behind the single purpose of mobilizing thought and action against the Soviet Union...
...One final Business Week finding is worth reporting for the benefit of the Rankin-Cox clique in Congress which likes to roar accusation that FEPC legislation is inspired by Communists...
Vol. 14 • April 1950 • No. 4
