THE DEEPER STRUGGLE
Rubin, Morris H.
The Deeper Struggle by Morris H. Rubin THE headlines are heavy with the news of fighting in Korea. They tell us of military engagements won and lost, but for the most part they tell us almost...
...They tell us of military engagements won and lost, but for the most part they tell us almost nothing of the course of a deeper and more significant struggle—the moral and diplomatic duel between the United States and the Soviet Union for the friendship and loyalty of the peoples of the world...
...In a recent interview Mr...
...sometimes it is favorable for the forces resisting aggression, other times unfavorable...
...This might-minded mood turns up repeatedly in both our short-run approach to the immediate problem of Korea and in our long-range treatment of the most lasting problem— which will still be very much with us after the outcome in Korea is determined—the problem of seeking a live-and-let-live agreement with the Soviets, both for its own great sake, and as proof to the rest of the peoples of the world of our peaceful purpose and our moral fitness to provide the leadership to help them develop the free way of life...
...One might assume from the tone and temper of Mr...
...It is the most practical way in the world...
...We are losing that struggle on almost every front...
...For the most part they fall under a single general heading—a belligerent, inflexible, totally negative approach to world affairs, one which largely rejects mediation, conciliation, and compromise in favor of overly legalistic forms, face-saving, and an unwill-ingness to understand and harness for constructive purposes the revolutionary ferment agitating much of the world in which we live...
...Of course not...
...There is no hope for Korea except in unification, and there is no hope for Korea unless she is helped enough, economically, to help herself to her feet...
...Asked if the delegates to the UN and the ambassadors of the various nations were not assigned to carry on just such negotiations, he replied: "Yes, but they can act only under instructions, and it is difficult under the conditions of deadlock that exist today to negotiate questions by tele' gram and cable or even by telephone...
...Truman consult the UN when the very doctrine which bears his name was proclaimed three years ago—the Truman Doctrine to contain Communism...
...It can only be broken by negotiation—and I mean real negotiation, not appeasement, nor surrender by either side...
...It was impossible for Korea to live divided as it was...
...and the U.S.S.R...
...Our policy has been to consult the UN when we felt it to our advantage to do so, and to ignore the UN when we preferred to go it alone...
...You are not making that kind of appeal to Koreans...
...That has to be broken only by persons high up in the governments...
...There must also be face-to-face meetings between persons who are able to act without always asking for instructions...
...I mean the prime ministers or the foreign secretaries...
...There is nothing visionary or Utopian in this approach...
...Did Mr...
...Why don't you drop food packages in North and South Korea as an augur of things to come...
...You must show you appreciate the deeply felt feelings of the people of Asia for independence and for a better standard of living...
...Perhaps we can make this point best by quoting from an unusually well-informed Korean with whom we had the privilege of discussing this issue recently: "The fact of Red aggression is too obvious to argue...
...But you of America do not understand the needs and hopes of Koreans...
...II Our weakness in the more immediate field of Korea has been exposed in our total reliance on military force to the exclusion of moral and psychological consideration...
...My people have suffered terribly under many years of Japanese occupation, and we have suffered almost as much under the divided occupation of the Russians and the Americans...
...The personal and political cost involved is an invisible trifle compared to the bankrupting price of inaction...
...You must begin to understand that men like Nehru have a deeper appreciation of the most workable approach to the solution of the conflict in Korea than many Americans in high places...
...It is the most elementary common sense...
...One needn't for a moment shut his eyes to the brutal intransigence and the lustful quest for self-aggrandizement on the part of the Soviets to recognize at the same time that our own hands have been far from clean and our conduct far from wholly pure...
...Our Government, through Gen...
...It is the only way that hasn't been tried...
...Truman's statements that the United Nations might resent bilateral talks between the U.S...
...That is why UN spokesmen like Trygve Lie have sought repeatedly to pound home their complete endorsement of high-level conferences dedicated to reaching the kind of fundamental understanding without which the UN remains paralyzed...
...I accepted UN military resistance only because I became convinced that failure to stand and fight would mean the death of the United Nations and because I knew that while a bloodless unification of Korea by the Communists would spare human lives for the present and prevent immediate destruction, the longer-run loss of lives and freedom would be much greater under Red regimentation and the unification achieved by violent aggression...
...Douglas MacArthur, played squarely into Communist hands by re-embracing the Chiang Kai-sheks and indicating our willingness to fight for their last corrupt stronghold in Formosa...
...You are bombing them everywhere...
...Asked if he felt that all business should be transacted that way, Lie replied: "Oh, no...
...I agree that admission of China to the UN must not be made a bargaining point in the settlement of the issue in Korea, but at the same time you of America are too insistent on having your own way all the time to be in the proper frame of mind of genuine mediation and conciliation...
...The essential soundness of the underlying theme emphasized by our Korean friend must be clear to every reflecting American who is not a victim of false pride or jingoistic arrogance...
...There is nothing tricky, intricate, or profound about what Mr...
...They are of two kinds...
...Truman and his associates can no longer refuse to entertain the only hope left because it might involve something as personally embarrassing as announcing a change of mind, or because it might invite something as politically foul as a cry of "appeaser" or "Communist" or "pervert" by the Know-Nothing clan in Congress...
...The stakes are staggering...
...Nothing could be farther from the truth...
...The leaders of the UN are realists...
...Was the UN consulted even in the decisive week of Korea regarding our decision on Formosa and Indo-China...
...The concrete are more obvious, of course...
...Why don't you drop leaflets in the North and the South, making it clear to them that your goal is the democratic unification of Korea, that you disassociate yourselves from the unpopular regime of Syngham Rhee, that you are ready to make a self-help Marshall Plan available to all Korea when hostilities have ended...
...Congress for months has made a mockery of our pious professions for the needy of the world by shrinking Point Four from the status of a "bold new program" to that of a vacillating old nightmare...
...The military news from Korea has changed from day to day...
...You must show more initiative for mediation...
...III Only a fortnight ago President Truman drearily reaffirmed his feeling that any hope for a meeting of the heads of state as a means of solving the East-West conflict is out...
...Our sins of omission add up to a more staggering total than our sins of commission...
...People were hungry and desperate everywhere...
...Every proposal for discussion and negotiation has been sneered away as childishly impractical, but the [act remains that everything else we have tried has failed...
...The United States Senate squandered much of our rapidly vanishing reservoir of good-will by voting substantial assistance to the Fascist regime of Franco Spain, to the horror of the democratic forces of the world...
...This is so much rubbish, as the President knows, or ought to know...
...That was recognized when the United Nations Charter was written in 1945...
...It provides for such high-level meetings...
...That is why you have had so little effective help in South Korea...
...They accept the one overriding fact of life in world politics today—the UN cannot fulfill its mission so long as the giants remajn deadlocked...
...Lie emphasized his conviction that the first great step that can be taken to improve the chances for peace is for "persons with authority to act for the governments on both sides to get together more often to talk over their disagreements...
...For three bitter, stubborn years we have refused to tolerate the thought of a face-ta-face, across-the-table talk with the leaders of the Soviet Union in a high-level effort to clear away suspicion and mistrust...
...The need for United Nations resistance is also clear enough, although I must say I accepted that need only with the greatest reluctance-, for I have some idea, which many of you don't, of what it would mean to my people in misery and suffering and devastation...
...Lie is saying...
...It isn't our face you are trying to save, but yours...
...And there are, also, the white chips—the hope of rallying to our banner of moral leadership the still uncommitted peoples of the world...
...Our costly failures on the moral and diplomatic levels of the world conflict are revealed tangibly in some of the things we have been doing, and less tangibly, but with equal clarity, in many of the things we are failing to do...
...You Americans must get over the smug feeling you have that you are always right and that the world accepts you as the spokesman of righteousness...
...But unfortunately much of the business that could normally be transacted in the regular way by the permanent delegates is being handicapped because of the existing deadlock...
...Our shortcomings in Korea are but an echo of our failure in the larger field of world politics...
...There are the blue chips—the prospect of peace itself...
...You may be quite convinced in your own mind that your purposes are transparently peaceful and democratic, but you are making a tragic mistake, one which may prove fatal if you coast on the theory that the rest of the world sees you as you see yourselves...
...The Koreans know they are pawns in a struggle that is bigger than their country and their problem...
...But the news from the global platform, where the vastly greater issue of our time is being hammered out, remains uniformly cheerless, if not downright frightening...
...Why do you sound so aloof to schemes of mediation...
...The United Nations, he said, is the place to thrash out all international disagreements...
Vol. 14 • September 1950 • No. 9
