DANGER AND OPPORTUNITY

...He correctly diagnosed the basic defect of the Baruch Plan, pointing out that such a plan, restricted as it is to the control of atomic weapons alone, would leave the nations free to compete for every other element of military power...

...If prior negotiations with the other members of the UN revealed sufficient support, the next move would be the convocation of a General Review Conference under Article 109 to define in specific terms the powers and structure of a revised and strengthened UN, endowed with an independent international force of its own and the authority to use it under law...

...In the absence of a working structure of international security, military requirements receive priority in the allocation of resources, and the Korean conflict will undoubtedly go far to persuade governments that short-term strategic considerations should now determine all their major decisions rather than political, ideological, or economic factors less relevant to the immediate problem of waging war...

...It is equally clear that to speak, as Secretary Acheson does, of delaying all negotiation for an end to the arms race until some distant and indefinite date when we have established "situations of strength" is in fact to accept the inevitability for war...

...A surer base for peace than mutual intimidation must be found quickly if it is to be found at all...

...That it is the sense of the Congress that it should be a fundamental objective of the foreign policy of the United States to support and strengthen the United Nations and to seek its development into a world federation open to all nations with defined and limited powers adequate to preserve peace and prevent aggression through the enactment, interpretation, and enforcement of world law...

...Perhaps thinking of how England would be totally lost in an atomic war, he saw not only danger but opportunity in the moment of crisis and spoke for millions when he said in a speech on June 28, 1950, "What hope can there be for the future of the world unless there is some form of world government which can make its effort to prevent a renewal of the awful struggle through which we have just passed...

...First, the UN, under the unanimity rule, lacks authority to use military sanctions to preserve the peace except against the citizens of such small nations as do not have the support of any one of the Big Five...

...There can be no general and enforceable disarmament unless at least all the major nations can agree on the need for it...

...A continuous and imaginative effort to place before the world an American determination to cooperate with others in the creation of a common security under the rule of law would enable us for the first time to seize the ideological initiative...

...III Now that Russia and the U. S. have been brought to the brink of armed conflict, the illusion that a cold war struggle for arms and allies can be prolonged indefinitely has been destroyed, and both governments face the inescapable conclusion that agreement on some form of world government is the sole alternative to a suicidal conflict, from which no victor, but only starving survivors, can emerge...

...Behind this question lurks the grave doubt whether this small war in a distant land can be kept from engulfing the whole world, divided as it is between two great powers, whose atomic air fleets are poised for action on a hundred runways...

...Disarmament by every nation down to the number and type of arms that can be justified as necessary for the preservation of domestic order is an indispensable condition of peace...

...Certainly such a fortuitous combination of circumstances cannot be expected to recur in the future, and the unrestricted veto of the permanent members must be modified, if there is to be any assurance that an international force can be used when it is likely to be most needed...

...Millard Tydings, in his excellent article in the May issue of The Progressive, defined two of the three essential conditions that must be realized if there is to be a reasonable chance of preserving peace...

...In my opinion it is necessary to face the problem of constructing supra-national institutions through which prompt and decisive enforcement action can be taken at the first attempt to prepare for or commit aggression...

...in spite of the obvious and admitted dangers, there is reason for hoping that the decisive action taken by the U. S. will prove effective in preserving temporarily the precarious balance of world power...

...A unilateral surrender of military power by one nation in the present world situation would merely invite coercion or actual attack...

...Sen...

...These questions may well have been answered by the time this article appears...

...Tydings has omitted a third and equally essential requirement in calling only for general disarmament guaranteed by inspection...

...Subsequently he did graduate work at Harvard, wrote a number of articles on world affairs, and a book, 'Teace or Anarchy...

...S. Government in its continued backing of the Baruch Plan...

...Moreover, the legal code agreed upon would have to be binding upon both national governments and their individual citizens, as interpreted by a World Court or system of Courts with compulsory jurisdiction...

...All members of the UWF agree that the creation of the kind of international legal order that I have described will be only the first step toward a peaceful world, and that other steps must also be taken toward a more stable international system of trade and toward a solution of the evils of mass poverty and starvation...

...This article is written on the hopeful assumption that the Korean war can be contained...

...To have no other aim than the total destruction of an enemy is to condemn humanity to a new nationalistic armament rivalry among the victors and recurrent wars without end...

...But if an agreement to disarm were put into effect in successive stages with the completion of each stage by all nations, verified through a thorough system of international inspection, then the risks involved would be reduced to a minimum...

...Until such time as the UN can be so reconstructed, UWF support* the work of the existing organization and particularly welcomes the attempt of the U. S. in the Korean crisis to seek UN sanction for its action...

...Such collective punishment of the whole population of a country is not only grossly unjust, failing in any way to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty, but it would almost certainly serve to provoke mass resistance and bloody rebellion against the decisions of the international authorities...

...II I have tried to show how one is forced by logic and past experience from the idea that general disarmament is essential if atomic war is to be prevented to the conclusion that such disarmament is likely to be neither initially acceptable nor lasting, unless the nations are willing to accept also both continuous inspection and supra-national institutions with the legal authority and material power sufficient to provide a reasonable assurance of protection against attack...

...But if the Korean conflict proves to be only the most dangerous and recent of a number of East-West incidents rather than the signal for general war, it is certainly not going to be the last such incident...

...What must such a program provide for, if it is to give the nations enough assurance of protection against attack to enable them to end their present fatal dependence on competitive national armaments...

...power can be created and maintained by a simple-minded devotion to a forceful policy of containment and preparation for war must now admit that hope to have been illusory...

...Yet the risk was taken on the ground that Formosa must be denied to the Chinese Communists because of its purely military value...

...The text reads as follows: "RESOLVED by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring...

...So long as we continue to live in a world where other nations possess large, well-equipped armies and the will to use them aggressively, we have no choice but to maintain and build up our armed power in self-defense...

...World war, with its promise of unlimited destruction and unimag-ined horrors, can now be foreseen as the inevitable result if the arms race is allowed to continue...

...to postpone a clear statement of the terms under which the U. S. would be willing to terminate the power struggle is to allow fast moving and unpredictable events to sweep the nations past the point of no return...

...The gravity of the Korean crisis should also drive home the lesson that long-range plans for constructive economic development, necessary as indeed they are, can have little immediate effect on the issue of war or peace...

...To rely exclusively on forceful containment and vaster armies is to invite a series of clashes similar to the one that has just occurred, until finally, through a mistake in judgment or an hysterical act, a war is brought about that neither side may have wanted but that both will have made inevitable by fearful preparations...

...Moreover, the fact that war would be the sole recourse in the event of a major violation of the atomic control agreement means that initial acceptance of the inspection provisions of the Plan can hardly be expected...

...Sen...

...The present Charter provides that military or economic sanction should be enforced against the entire citizenry of a nation found guilty of aggression...

...Those who in the past have argued that a stable balance of CORD MEYER, Jr., was first president oi the United World Federalists, and today is chairman of its Executive Committee...

...Tydings is on firm ground, therefore, when he calls for general disarmament as opposed to the partial disarmament envisioned by the present policy of the II...

...To place such a force at the disposal of the UN under the existing Charter would be both dangerous and pointless for a number of reasons...

...The Korean crisis vividly illustrates this point...

...Effective enforcement action assumes the creation of an international police force, recruited from citizens of the various nations, strategically located throughout the world, and decisively superior in strength to the forces permitted to national governments under the disarmament agreement...

...The Russians have done much to sabotage the effectiveness of their own peace offensive by their action in Korea, but there are still many who are not Communists who distrust American intentions and who do not respond to appeals to help defend the U. S. or its interests...

...There is some disagreement within the organization as to whether such economic problems can best be met by supranational legislation to reduce trade barriers or by voluntary national action to achieve high and stable employment within nations and international equilibrium in the balance of payments...

...Tydings' proposal only by hurried rearmament and international war to subdue the aggressor...

...To date, the Russian Government has violently attacked proponents of UN revision and branded the world federalist movement as a "mask for American imperialism...

...The immediate objective of UWF is to join with many other cooperating organizations to mobilize popular support for the passage of two identical resolutions, HCR 64 and SCR 56, that have been introduced in the House and Senate by 111 Representatives and 20 Senators...

...Agreement on a code of law defining and prohibiting acts of aggression, restricting national armament production, and requiring peaceful settlement or arbitration of international disputes, would have to accompany the creation of any international force, if that force is not to be potentially the despotic instrument of an arbitrary and capricious majority...

...However, Sen...

...In brief, what has happened in Korea is a warning that containment and war preparations are necessary, but not enough...

...Tydings is also correct in calling for continuous international inspection as a necessary corollary of general disarmament...

...What we have done in Korea may prove to have been the best choice possible among a number of dangerous alternatives, but, should we be successful in restoring the status quo at the 38th parallel, our limited success should not blind us to the reality that such measures are desperate and temporary expedients at best...

...that the cold war cannot be won peaceably but, if pressed by both sides, must lead inevitably to a decision on the battlefield...

...Its occurrence demonstrates the folly of believing that an expanding rivalry for armaments, allies, and strategic position can be kept from degenerating into open battle for any prolonged period of time...

...And if, despite our efforts, war again is to be our lot, then at least there will be a chance that the peace settlement will not recreate the division of the world into armed and sovereign states, doomed to re-enact for every generation the crime and tragedy of war...

...Finally, even if war should prove to be unavoidable, bitter experience has revealed the folly of "unconditional surrender" as a war objective...

...In a limited sense, they are right...

...He is at work on another book on international problems...

...It is clear that by refusing to participate in the necessary revision of the UN, the Soviet regime can both prevent legal amendment of the Charter by use of its veto and force any federation formed without its participation to continue to arm competitively for self-protection...

...A wartime Marine, Meyer was discharged as a captain, after being wounded...

...Instead of continuing to insist upon a retention of the Big Power veto and all tb£ prerogatives of absolute sovereign^ ty, the U. S. would then have demonstrated its allegiance to a goal that has a universal validity and appeal for men everywhere and proved in specific institutional terms its readiness to pay the price of peace...

...It is this line of reasoning that has led many to associate themselves with the United World Federalists, an organization that now counts among its active vice-presidents Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas and Walter Reuther of the UAW...

...It may be that the decision to invade South Korea indicates a conscious repudiation by the Russian leaders of all hope of peaceful co-existence with the West and a deliberate acceptance of war as inevitable and necessary...

...But to eliminate the right of the Big Powers to veto enforcement action would put the international force at the disposal of a majority of any seven members of the Security Council, acting arbitrarily and without any pre-established standards to guide their decision...

...Only the coincidence that Russia was boycotting the Security Council at the time of the Korean crisis allowed the Council to call for action in that situation...

...It is time and pest time to supplement existing American foreign policy by placing before the world in clear and specific terms a program for ending the rivalry for arms and bases, a program which we ourselves would be willing to accept and which is sufficient to the task...

...Inspection of atomic facilities and international search for the sources of fissionable materials . would so severely encroach upon the secrecy essential to national military planning that no nation can agree to lay itself open to such inspection unless it has reasonable guarantees not only against secret atomic attack but against conventional forms of aggression as well...

...Memories of the long days of anxious suspense in the late 1930's come unbidden to mind, as Congress and the commentators debate the extent of American involvement...

...Should the offer be rejected, much would still be gained...

...If the Baruch Plan was universally accepted and fully implemented, it would still be easy for an aggressor nation to launch an attack with the full weight of its conventional armament, and within a few months both sides could convert their peaceful atomic plants to bomb production...

...Therefore, while preserving the full weight of our armament and renouncing all policies of appeasement, the U. S. now has the opportunity to explore basic Russian intentions by making a definite proposal to the Soviet Union for UN revision along the lines here suggested...

...The Alsop brothers and many other Washington commentators and officials have welcomed the Korean attack and the prompt American reaction as proof of the past wisdom of military containment and demonstration of the future need for even greater military expenditures...

...The way would then be open for the U. S. Government to declare its determination to give the UN the power it so badly needs...

...By declaring our determination to build with other men a world federation, our Government, backed by our people, can find the best hope of peace...

...The Korean war also teaches another and equally important lesson...

...The U. S. and many other nations would certainly have reason to hesitate before agreeing to dispose of their existing weapons, if the only recourse in the event of a violation reported by the international inspectors were a desperate attempt to rebuild the armed power they had dismantled...

...But it is also possible that the Soviet regime never expected so firm a response and is now for the first time convinced that a general war is an imminent possibility...

...Fear of atomic retaliation can hardly be relied upon to keep the peace...

...For example, the decision to defend Formosa with the 7th fleet lays the U. S. open to serious charges of imperial expansion and involves us again with the discredited regime of Chiang...

...Winston Churchill has been often wrong in his time, but he alone of the world statesmen read in the Korean conflict the true lesson of the event...

...He served as veterans' assistant to Harold Stassen at the San Francisco Conference where the UN was founded in 1945...

...An attack by masses of men armed with rifles across a frontier could be met under Sen...

...Damaging as inaction will be for the Russians if their satellite is defeated, the chances are that they will choose not to intervene directly on this occasion...

...The passage of these Resolutions would go far toward convincing the State Department that the American people and their elected representatives are prepared to accept with other nations a modest limitation of absolute national sovereignty in return for a common security under enforceable law...