THE BI-PARTISAN CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE

...North Africa has become another Indo-China...

...Henry R. Luce...

...One cannot help thinking that their avoidance of issues is dictated less by an absence of firmly held opinions than by fear of stating those opinions and thereby losing votes...

...The Eisenhower Republicans appear to be unable or unwilling to initiate any change for fear of antagonizing the Right wing of their party which, as Adlai Stevenson once said, has to be "carried, kicking and screaming, into the Twentieth Century...

...At present, we are rapidly losing ground with all three...

...If the Russians develop such a weapon before we have intercontinental missiles and a sufficient number of long-range B-52 bombers, our deterrent power will vanish overnight...

...This does not mean that we face the immediate likelihood of war, though a major conflict could be ignited at any time in the Near East or in the Formosa Straits...

...The proof of our present policy's basic inadequacy stares us in the face wherever we choose to look in this troubled world...

...But if the treaties would do no particular good, by the same token they would do no particular harm, and our rejection of them, no matter how reasonably and politely worded, places us at a disadvantage before the world...

...Nor is the Sino-Soviet threat primarily military...

...The fact is, however, that even if our present policy were conducted with the utmost restraint, tact, and decorum, it, unless revised, would still be a wholly inadequate policy foredoomed to failure...

...The attempt to build the Northern Tier Alliance—an idea for which our Secretary of State claims credit—has brought the Arab states and Israel to the brink of war and given Russia an opportunity to vault over the half-built wall of the Bagdad Pact into the long-coveted area of the Near East...

...Nothing except political cowardice —the fear of losing an election— stands in the way of our facing the facts in the Far East...

...It is no secret that our air-atomic retaliatory power depends to a very large extent upon the availability of foreign bases for our relatively short-range B-47s...

...The trouble is not just that the present Administration has taken over and mismanaged the foreign policy of its predecessor, nor that it has tried to play poker against an opponent who is playing a skillful game of chess...

...It stated three major reasons for this conclusion: One—Neither Moscow nor Peking seems to be dictating how the countries receiving aid are to spend their money...

...Is it too much to ask of those who hold or aspire to leadership to ask that they put forward such ideas for discussion...

...In Germany, the Adenauer coalition, upon which we have based our hopes, is crumbling...

...Moreover, even if we win the race in intercontinental ballistics, once the Russians possess guided missiles with the intermediate range of 1,500 miles, every one of our major allies will become a hostage...

...The recent exchange of letters between President Eisenhower and Marshal Bulganin aptly illustrates the singular lack of flexibility and imagination in our diplomacy...

...The Democrats, including, alas, Adlai Stevenson, appear, so far at least, to find very little wrong with our foreign policy except the manner in which it is being conducted by the Republicans...

...If so, this trap might easily have been avoided by making a counter-proposal modifying the suggested treaties in such a way as to give them real meaning...

...Already Soviet technicians and engineers are at work not only in China but in India, in Afghanistan, and in Egypt...

...A little farther East, the picture is even worse...

...and failure to understand and attract the allegiance of the masses of mankind who might be our friends...

...Its implications are even more disturbing...

...What we need are some political leaders with the courage to break away from a concept of foreign policy which, whatever its merits when it was inaugurated, is now hopelessly out of date...

...Nothing except sheer stupidity holds us to a course of supporting the rickety remnants of European colonialism...

...Among our allies the only ones pleased by our ostrich-like refusal to recognize and negotiate with the Chinese Communist government are Chiang Kai-shek and Syngman Rhee, both of whom would like nothing better than to drag us and the whole world into an atomic war...

...This, to be sure, is important, but it is far from enough...

...The President quite correctly pointed out that the friendship treaties offered by the Kremlin merely duplicate the mutual obligations of both sides already embodied in the United Nations Charter...

...This, or any other reasonable counterproposal, would have placed the shoe on the other foot, whereas rejection coupled with a vague demand for "deeds rather than words" left the Russians in a position to exploit a. psychological advantage...

...The sad part of all this is that any such outcome could easily be prevented...

...The trouble lies far deeper than the bluff and bluster, the slick sloganeering and the vainglorious boasts of the present Administration...

...Soviet trade agreements are in force with many of the uncommitted nations and more are being negotiated, even on our very doorstep in Latin America...

...It is impossible to escape the conclusion that, if we continue along our present course, we shall find ourselves more and more isolated, that our military alliances will become more and more meaningless, and that the unaligned peoples will drift more and more into the Soviet orbit of trade and influence...

...V Thanks to the transparent sincerity of President Eisenhower, the world now knows that the United States wants peace, if peace with justice and honor can be obtained...

...We, who pioneered the idea of giving aid for economic development, are now in the invidious position of being forced, against the wishes of a penny-wise and pound-foolish government, to match Soviet offers of assistance...

...of which we have foreclosed our only hope of achieving the peaceful unification of Germany, will not exist for three years, by which time they will be more than offset by Soviet-controlled East German rearmament...

...The outcome of the recent Greek elections shows how, in spite of $2,800,000,000 of American aid over the last ten years, the Greek people have become alienated from the Western alliance...

...Nothing except stubborn pride and unwillingness to admit past mistakes prevents our taking a new look at the problems of Europe...

...If, over the next few years, the Japanese become firmly convinced that the West is losing the Middle East and Southeast Asia, they themselves will inevitably come to terms with the Communist orbit...

...It does mean that we shall face something very like defeat without war...

...Yet, even if traveling about the country, making speeches, and shaking hands preempts their time during a campaign, surely one has the right to assume that aspirants to high office have given careful thought to most of the major issues before they decided to seek election...

...Is it unfair to ask that the issue of disarmament be faced squarely instead of evaded, or that we stop fumbling with the small change in our pockets and set about developing a creative plan for aiding worldwide economic development...

...The trouble is that in recent years American foreign policy has remained static in a rapidly changing world...

...Why not explore once more the possibility of achieving a satisfactory all-German settlement and creation of the neutral belt suggested last summer by Sir Anthony Eden...

...In Asia, we remain frozen in a posture of unrealistic refusal to face the facts—a posture which stands in the way of settling the explosive questions of Korea, Indo-China, and Formosa and which is more and more isolating us from our friends...

...Soviet productive capacity is increasing twice as fast as our own...

...Yugoslavia is moving away from the Balkan alliance...

...Nothing except a lack of imagination keeps us from coming forward with a concrete plan for enforced disarmament to lay before the world's peoples...

...There is something much like a bipartisan conspiracy of silence on all the basic foreign policy issues, while the verbal battle rages over "methods and means...

...Congress, the people, and the press are paying far too much attention to what our statesmen say and far too little to what they are doing or failing to do...

...We are losing the cold war because we have let the Russians take over what we began with the Marshall Plan for Europe and the Point Four Program for the underdeveloped areas...

...One Frenchman in every four still votes Communist...

...France is paralyzed...

...The Soviet Union offered Egypt a loan of $600,000,000 at two per cent to be repaid over thirty years in surplus commodities, whereas the United States, Britain, and the World Bank offered $400,000,-000 at 4.2 per cent, repayable in foreign currency over twenty years...

...Methods and means are important, to be sure...

...Quite possibly, the Soviet initiative was taken for the precise purpose of having us reject it, in order to place us in an unfavorable light before the uncommitted peoples...

...Two—The Soviet Union is not linking its foreign economic assistance to military commitments, as in the United States...

...His many books include "Victory Without War," "Germany—Key to Peace," "The United States in a Changing World," and, recently published, "Turning Point Toward Peace...

...Our own security and prosperity are menaced by a revolt of the underprivileged masses of the human race because, instead of aiding and guiding that revolt, we have become obsessed with the fancied necessity of preserving the status quo...

...The status quo is threatened by the fact that in large parts of the world people are hungry, poor, disease-ridden, and oppressed...

...A recently published study made for the Japanese Economic Planning Board bluntly concluded that the United States is losing the cold war in Southeast Asia and the Middle East...

...Whether or not this be true, the American people will owe a debt of gratitude to any candidates for office who risk their political fortunes by frankly setting forth their views...

...This is especially true in Asia where the five principles enunciated at Bandung, which are the basis of the Soviet proposal, carry great psychological significance...

...Day by day neutralism is gaining ground...

...The twelve West German divisions, for the sake JAMES P. WARBURG is one of the nation's most articulate spokesmen on foreign affairs...

...Three—The Soviet Union is offering easier terms for economic assistance and is taking payment in surplus commodities such as Egyptian cotton or Burmese rice...

...The Japanese study questioned the opinion expressed in the United States that Russia and Communist China would not fulfill their commitments...

...Anyone who has participated in political campaigns knows the terrific burden imposed upon candidates...

...Is it asking too much to suggest that, before this campaign grows much older, they tell die American people what they would do in Europe, in Asia, and in the Middle East to halt the decay of American prestige and influence...

...IV What we need is a thorough ventilation of the basic questions which confront us in the field of foreign policy...

...This report is not only alarming in itself...

...We are being beaten at our own game...

...The whole southeastern flank of NATO is disintegrating, disrupted by the Greco-Turkish quarrel precipitated by the Cypriote revolt against British rule...

...In Europe, we are in a dead-end street...

...Why not, for example, use the opportunity to put forward in specific terms a European Security Treaty along the lines tentatively discussed last July at Geneva...

...Our bases in England, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East lie within easy reach of medium-range guided missiles...

...Communist China is following the same pattern, giving Burma machinery in exchange for 300,000 tons of rice per annum...

...More than half the French troops pledged to NATO have been withdrawn from Europe to Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco...

...So is the real danger arising from boastful, provocative, or inflammatory statements and from ill-considered policy declarations made chiefly for their domestic effect in an election year...

...What the world needs to know is not only that we want peace but that we have some constructive, practical ideas as to how a just and lasting peace may be achieved...

...III Finally, with all our emphasis upon maintaining preponderance of military power, it looks as if we are being overtaken by the Soviet Union in the one field where we have until now been preeminent...

...While we are concerned with balancing our budget, the Russians are making immense strides in the development of long-range aircraft and guided missiles...

...II Russian-Chinese imperialism is by no means the only hostile force at large in the world...

...Germany, India, and Japan are the crucial nations whose allegiance will ultimately determine the world balance of power...

...Day by day it becomes more evident that our policy suffers from two basic defects: failure to understand the nature of the forces which threaten us...

...Meanwhile Germany remains partitioned, a perpetual source of unrest and danger...

...It is my opinion that the time has come when courageous, responsible dissent from the cliches of an obsolete bipartisan policy will gain rather than lose public approval...

...Nothing except an utterly false notion of economy prevents us from taking the lead in a truly creative war on poverty and oppression...

...In Italy, too, the Communist Party maintains its strength despite American aid, Vatican pressure, and the efforts of Mrs...