AMERICA MUST CHOOSE

...On the contrary, they offered a mishmash of campaign oratory, doubletalk, and false assumptions so confusing that the harassed voter had no choice but to shut off his intelligence and vote for Tweedledum and Tweedledee as an act of blind faith...

...policies have advanced Russian interests rather than American...

...There is nothing except electric power plants to complement the foodproducing areas of the agricultural south...

...For in practical terms it says that the U. S. should "keep the peace" in Korea by maintaining permanent (or at least semipermanent) military bases in that country...

...In respect to Far Eastern and Asiatic policy, the Republicans energetically denounced the Administration...

...The Administration and the UN both acknowledged the danger by at least making conciliatory statements...

...During World War II Miss Mears lectured on Japanese social and economic history at the Civil Affairs Training Schools at the University of Michigan and Northwestern...

...It is often said that a people get the leadership they deserve...

...It has continued to build up the armed forces of a rival government...

...gave the Nationalist regime two billion dollars of Lend Lease after VJ Day...

...So far the Administra-ton has prevented him from doing so, but numerous Americans in positions of high authority—including Gen...

...still supports Nationalist China...

...most of the railroad rolling stock has been wiped out...

...As the most powerful nation in the world, ours is the responsibility to show the strength of power—the strength to admit error...

...During the recent pre-election campaigning, the fear of war was a major issue...

...We should admit that our own wrong policies have contributed decisively to the mess we're in...

...A dispatch in the New York Times of Oct...

...The Republicans, however, did not, and do not now, differ from the Administration on basic foreign policy...

...If we answer the second question affirmatively, then we are perfectly OK as we are...

...Now it is a job for everyone to make our Government strong...

...Yet Gov...

...Dewey obviously did not meet this test...

...Americans who want peace should wire the President, the State Department, and their members of Congress and tell them so...

...If the Russians had, in fact, designed our policies for us with their own interests in view, they would clearly have had us follow the policies which the Republicans recommend...

...Asked by anxious voters on the eve of the election about the situation in Korea, Dewey, according to the New York Times, made this reply: "The very bad news is that MacArthur has announced the Chinese Communists have entered the Korean war, which means that Communist Russia has achieved her first great object of diplomacy...

...Virtually all the important industry of North Korea—eighteen strategic targets—has been destroyed by our bombing...

...In brief, we ourselves have no aggressive designs, but we conspicuously back a regime which does have...

...but he actually contributed to the increase of violent opinion which makes a sane solution of such international crises unsolvable...

...But we can halt it if we put on the brakes hard...

...However, the Governor's explanation of which policies accomplished this result couldn't be more wrong...

...The more we tried to bolster Chiang Kai-shek, the weaker grew his in-fluence in the country...

...On the very day after President Truman's reassuring message to the Chinese Communists, a press dispatch from Formosa reported that our ECA representative there had said that he would probably ask Congress to increase appropriations for Nationalist China...

...Moreover, North Korea has now been detached from the economic system into which it was being integrated—the Communist-controlled system of Manchuria and North Korea...

...Dewey said that our policies have achieved for Russia "her first great object of diplomacy" he was clearly correct if he meant that U.S...

...It has built up major military bases in nearby Japan and Okinawa...

...Their denunciations, however, did not challenge the Administration's basic policy, but merely charged that the Democrats administered the policy stupidly...

...For on Nov...

...If we Americans really want peace, we will have to pull out from our trance and begin to look a little more critically at our foreign policies...

...He might have proposed a constructive solution: he could, for example, have appealed to the U. S. Government to call at once for a cease-fire and armistice in Korea, until representatives of all the peoples concerned—both South and North Koreans and representatives of the Chinese Communists as well as the Nationalists—should gather together in the UN to state their views...

...this means that the voter is confronted with a one-party foreign policy toward Europe...

...It has refused recognition to the Chinese Communist Government...

...In short, a responsible opposition leader would not—for partisan purposes—add fuel to the flames of a tense situation, but would instead attempt to clarify the situation and propose a constructive solution...

...just as are the Russians...

...we maintained working military advisory groups to strengthen the Nationalists' military organization and techniques...

...The U.S...

...The Administration has spent billions of dollars actively opposing the U.S.S.R...

...For how could Chiang Kai-shek have been maintained in control short of all-out military action by U. S. military forces in China...

...Our Government's military approach to the dangerous situation in Asia has clearly failed to restore peace and order...

...The record on this point is clear...

...We ought not, however, expect the Asiatic people to accept our definition of "aggression...

...It never seems to occur to us that from the Chinese point of view Americans are "foreigners...

...Americans may feel—and have a right to feel—that we would prefer to die and to have our country totally destroyed rather than have a Communist government here...

...Douglas MacArthur—frequently comment on this force as a potential instrument to help overthrow the Chinese Communists...

...North Korea's industry is in ruins...

...But did the Republicans really offer peace...

...Army, Navy, and Air Force cooperated to transport Nationalist troops to North China, and the Soviet Union cooperated with these programs...

...Once we know just what we want, we may be able to figure out how to get it...

...When Mr...

...It is certain that we are on the wrong road if our objective is peace...

...Lodge would have served his own country and the UN better if he had addressed his appeal to his fellow-countrymen as well as the Russians...

...There is great need for a restatement of American objectives...

...We say we fight only to "repel aggression," but we claim the right to define "aggression" to refer only to Communist activities...

...and even greater need for a redefinition of the terms we use to describe international relations...

...The Governor explains: ,1 "This tragedy [war with China would have been averted if we had supported Chiang Kai-shek and had not let his Government fall...

...He was content to arouse suspicion of the Administration's policies by the cheapest and easiest method possible...

...Take, for example, the most significant, revealing, and representative sample of Republican thinking on this all-important subject, which came from Gov...

...To do this he might have outlined the situation accurately as it was at the time, and pointed out what efforts were being made to prevent the dangerous situation from developing further...

...If this is true, we Americans, in these days of terrible crisis, have little cause for self-congratulation...

...In fact, on this occasion, the Administration—influenced by obvious jitters in the UN General Assembly —had maintained a cautious position of "wait and see," combined with even a small gesture of conciliation...

...For days before the Chinese Communists launched their aggressive surge southward our policy-makers had been implored by British, Western European, and Indian leaders to seek honorable negotiations with the Chinese in the hope of reaching at least a temporary truce, during which terms for settlement could be discussed...

...The Governor not only made no contribution to the major problem, which was how to prevent a dangerous situation from going on to all-out war...

...Therefore, an alert, informed, thoughtful, and genuinely patriotic opposition party is necessary in order constantly to check Government assumptions and policies and to correct errors which may lead to consequences HELEN MEARS has lived In both China and Japan, Her last visit to Japan was in 1946 when she was a member of the official Labor Advisory Committee...

...The Republicans, in fact, have thoroughly descredited themselves in the field of foreign policy...

...It has maintained a virtual blockade of the country...

...If, however, we really want peace—based on a general acceptance of clearly defined principles and constructive economic policies —then we will have to face the fact that neither major party today advocates a policy to carry out our objectives...

...Before long it will become clear that our various committees investigating un-American activities have been investigating the wrong people...

...If we would stop being afraid of the Russians, perhaps we would behave in such a way that the Russians would stop being afraid of us...

...Or if we had not cleared out from Korea...

...The alternative to voting Republican was to vote for the Administration, and the Administration has accepted as "necessary" the idea that the U.S...

...The fact is that Chiang Kai-shek never commanded the popular Chinese acclaim reported by the American press during the war against Japan...

...He lost to the Communists because his armies faded away (turning over their American equipment to the Communists), and the people rebelled against the continuation of the civil war, against the inefficiency and corruption of Chiang's regime, and against the fact that Chiang's major aid seemed to come from a foreign country...

...The U. S. Government did, in fact, support Chiang Kai-shek with every means short of all-out war...

...The U.S...

...For example, let's look again at our "oldest and best friend in all the world, China...

...Our major charge against the U.S.S.R...

...MacArthur had reported the presence of some Chinese troops in North Korea, but the Administration had not accepted this report as a declaration of war from the Chinese, nor did they use it as a basis for a declaration of war on our part against China...

...Those in power are human beings, and human beings are fallible...

...What would a responsible opposition leader have done in Gov...

...should maintain dominant military power over an Asiatic nation thousands of miles away...

...Every proposal looking toward negotiation and mediation was met with the taunting cry of "appeasement," despite the fact that some of the more important overtures came from such obviously anti-Communist sources as the British Foreign Office...

...This was good advice, but Sen...

...He might also have recalled that the Chinese have legitimate grounds for distrusting the intentions of the Western Powers, based on long years of Western colonial attitudes and policies...

...In practical terms the Governor tells us that the Republicans would have prevented war today by having waged war yesterday and they would have prevented the need for fighting our way back into Korea by never having left...

...Americans seem to be able to understand such contradictory definitions-—but we must not expect that the Asiatic people will agree...

...It is these policies which have driven the Chinese to depend on the U.S.R.R.—a situation which the Kremlin, of course, is exploiting to the full to its own advantage...

...The White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon turned a cold shoulder on all such overtures for moral, political, and psychological approaches to the problem...

...For example, why is it "aggression" for the North Koreans to fight the South Koreans in order to unify their own country if it is not "aggression" for the French to fight the native people in order to reconquer their former Indo-China colonies...

...We American voters are on our own...

...The pro-Republican vote, therefore, was to a considerable degree a vote for peace...

...A first step must surely be to scrutinize, sharply and critically, our own policies and our own attitudes...

...The President has defined the term "Communist imperialism" to include any civil war, or any Asiatic native revolt against Europe...

...Dewey (and the Republicans in general) appear to believe that the U.S...

...must combat "Communist imperialism" anywhere in the world where the President decides it represents a "menace to our security...

...But have we really the right to make this terrible decision for other people...

...Where does this leave Americans...

...Thomas E. Dewey of New York, twice the party's candidate for President...

...Instead, our Government insisted on total military victory in Korea, whatever the cost...

...It is these policies which have aroused the emotional suspicion and hatred for us which the Chinese now obviously feel...

...Dewey's statement only one point made sense, and even this was the very opposite of what the Governor intended...

...vastly different from those desired...

...In respect to Europe and the Atlantic Community, the Republicans have backed a bi-partisan policy...

...For there is not a day that some American in a position of high authority does not Arms and the Germans By Agnes Meyer publicly IMOw tear into the hearts of Americans...

...And, if we choose, we can back up and change our "direction...

...In general, Americans would accept this statement as sincere, but why should the Chinese Communists so accept it, since the U.S...

...In the recent elections, for instance, an American who disapproved of the Administration's foreign policy could vote for the Republicans...

...She has written two books, "Year of the Wild Boar" and "Mirror for Americans," and many articles on the Par East for a variety of periodicals including Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, Saturday Evening Post, The New Yorker, and The New Republic...

...It is, of course, these antagonistic and provocative policies which have brought about the explosive situation in the Far East...

...But it is obvious that the Republican opposition is equally, if not more, responsible...

...It would have been averted if we had supported Chiang Kai-shek and had not let his Government fall...

...In practical terms, the Republicans offered themselves to the voters not as constructive critics of basic policy, or as proponents of an alternative policy, but merely as more skillful administrators of policies already accepted as sacrosanct...

...warehouses and oil tanks have been burned out...

...He might have explained that the Chinese Communists had not intervened until the UN forces were virtually at the Manchurian border, where they seemed to endanger the power plants on the Korean side of the Yalu River, on which Manchuria depends for electric current...

...Henry Cabot Lodge made a plea to the Soviet Union to "Stop being afraid...

...It has kept the Chinese Communists out of their rightful place in the UN...

...As for Dewey's statement that war would have been averted "if we had not pulled out of Korea," it is clearly not designed to prove the Governor's respect for either democracy or liberty...

...We are justifiably proud of our know-how, but if we don't ki:ow how to stop a wrong policy, then our know-how has some fatal limitations...

...We should persist in a program of conciliation, mediation, and a sincere effort to work for peace...

...It cannot be appeasement of the Chinese Communists and the Soviet Union which have led us to the brink of World War, for it is unequivocally on the record that the Administration has not appeased them...

...The Administration, as the responsible authority, must accept the responsibility for this terrible failure...

...attempted to extend and consolidate Chiang's position...

...In the first place, Dewey starts off with a wholly irresponsible misstatement of fact: "They [the Russians] have got the U. S. in the impossible position of being at war with our oldest and best friend in all the world, China...

...Americans today have no such opposition party...

...is behind them...

...This is a very, very great tragedy...

...Nobody likes to admit having made a mistake, but not many would choose to plunge over the edge rather than admit error...

...If we genuinely desire a world in which peace is achieved by cooperation among peoples, rather than imposed by force by some major Great Power—backed by its own bloc—then it is clear that our policies are decisively off the beam...

...We constantly denounce the Chinese Communists on the grounds that the U.S.S.R...

...Political analysts, in general, agree that the Republican gains were largely due to dissatisfaction with the Administration's Far Eastern policy...

...Americans, confused and bewildered by our war in Korea, listened when the Republicans claimed that they could have avoided it...

...Nationalist China is Chiang Kai-shek, his armies, and his representatives in the UN...

...Our nation today appears to be on a greased slide on a voyage to disaster which surely nobody wants, and yet which we seem powerless to halt...

...official policy is'to back a rival Chinese regime whose major (and only) objective is to overthrow the Chinese Communists and regain control of the Chinese mainland...

...Dewey professed to deplore...

...II In other words, an extremely dangerous and hair-trigger situation existed in the Far East which needed very little jogging to explode into all-out World War...

...Dewey might have considered the situation from the Chinese point of view in order to indicate that our policies had contributed decisively to the current crisis...

...Or if we had not cleared out from Korea, this never would have happened...

...It is, moreover, human and normal for those who are responsible for policies to defend them...

...Or do we just want to fight Communists...

...Chiang Kai-shek has turned Formosa (which we took away from those wicked militaristic Japanese) into a major base for an army which the American Army has equipped and trained, and which Chiang Kai-shek openly plans to use in an attack against the mainland Chinese Government...

...What did this major leader of the Republican opposition do...

...Surely, he would have tried to calm the rising hysteria rather than add to it...

...On the evidence of the last election, the Republicans have no inclination to redefine basic issues or to correct this dubious vocabulary...

...When war with the Chinese Communists seemed dangerously close, President Truman sent them a message assuring them that "we have never at any time entertained any intention to carry hostilities into China...

...Dewey's position...

...He accepted as fact the idea that war had already broken out between the U. S. and China and implied that the Russians were responsible...

...It is quite certain that any American, out driving his car, who got on the wrong road and found himself suddenly at the edge of a cliff, would have sense enough to stop and go back to where he started off the road...

...When Chiang was finally driven from the continent, the U. S. Government continued to support him, not only in Formosa, but in the UN, although this policy prevented any stabilization of the complex situation in the Far East...

...The Administration leaders make up their own definitions and use them with such earnestness that Americans today can no longer recognize double-talk when we hear it, and are perfectly ready to believe that the only way to "maintain peace" is to wage perpetual war...

...more than 40 tunnels and 400 bridges have been sealed, destroyed or damaged, and great parts of Korea's principal cities lie in ruins...

...In Gov...

...It was when the UN forces were driving toward these power plants that the Chinese entered the picture...

...We call ourselves a Christian nation...

...What is most wrong with our conduct of foreign relations is that we seldom look at our own policies in the same terms we use toward those of other nations...

...At this season of the year, when we celebrate a Prince of Peace, can't we, humbly and sincerely, reconsider the policies which we claim are designed for His service but which in practice further the aims of a very different master...

...Even leaving the Russians out of it, this statement is provocative, emotional, and inaccurate...

...From the Asiatic point of view—however differently we may think the present situation is—this policy is merely an extension of the centuries-old domination of Asia by the Western Powers...

...29 tells us what our "liberation" and "protection" have done to Korea: "The rehabilitation and reconstruction job in Korea is immense...

...We not only do not correct the conditions which cause war, but appear ready to fight to prevent such correction...

...III Analyzed in terms of what actually did happen, it seems evident that continued U. S. support of Chiang Kai-shek is the major single factor that has resulted in the possibility of the "very, very great tragedy" which Gov...

...we supplied aircraft and large quantities of munitions...

...We completed the equipping of 39 Chinese divisions...

...and Communism all over the world...

...The U.S...

...Gov...

...Once we have got back on the road, we can—in cooperation with the other people of the world—get busy working out some constructive way to spend our billions and use our vast production for constructive rather than destructive enterprises...

...6, when the Governor made this statement, the U. S. was not at war with China...

...At the end of the war Chiang's regime controlled an extremely small part of China...

...We should recognize the Chinese Communist Government and vote for its admission to the UN...

...today is that it is a "totalitarian aggressor," and we base this charge on the fact that it dominates various countries along its borders by the threat of its military power...

...They have got the U. S. in the impossible position of being at war with our oldest and best friend in all the world, China...

...railroad yards and docks have been damaged or destroyed...

...In his first major speech before the UN, Sen...

...Perhaps the time has come when we ought to put a straight question to ourselves: Do we really want peace...

...IV Officially the U.S...

...Our Administration claims (and Americans desire to believe) that we fight only to "repel aggression...

...Moreover, the Governor restated the Republicans' official claim that they could have prevented the outbreal^Winraffirasr :-J How...

...Perhaps the most melancholy reflection on the conduct of American foreign policy today is the fact that both major parties have joined forces to deprive the people of this country of any meaningful choice in the one field of policy and action which dominates all our lives...

...In brief, Mr...

...The Republicans, whose influence in the Government has been increased by the last election, favor this policy...

...To survive, a democracy must have an informed, honest, critical opposition...

...On the contrary, it has conspicuously increased the danger of all-out war...