how nations see each other · two new books about the u.n., roy bennett concludes that one author,...
TRANSCRIPT
Fad & Opinion on Progress Toward a World of Law and Order
HOW NATIONS SEE EACH OTHER By Jerome D. Frank, M. D.
l , , ~ unlVERSI ry Or MICHIQAN
FEB 16 1967
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THIS ItIONTD
A Combined Issue This is the first combined issue of two months since the inception of
War/Peace Report in 1961; it is also our largest issue. Another en· larged combination issue, for August/September, will fonow~ and heginning with the October issue the magazine will be back on a regular monthly schedule.
In our lead article, psychiatrist Jerome D. Frank sets forth the conclusions he has reached after many years of study on the question, How Nations See Each Other. Illustrating the article, beginning \'lith the eyeball-to-eyeball cover, is Robert Osborn, who is working on a book he thinks will add further insights into the question.
During wartime arguments always arise between the government and the press over What Should the People Be Told? The Vietnam War is no exception in this regard. If anything, the debate has been even more bitter than in past wars, as is evidenced in the exchange beginning on page 8 between Morley Safer and some other correspondents covering the war, and Arthur Sylvester, the Pentagon's news chief.
Editorially (p. 12). we find that President Johnson is seeking 'Peace Through Victory' in South Vietnam; also, that the Disarmament Logjam on treaties for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and the banning of underground tests might be broken by American initiatives at Geneva.
'Peace' in the '66 Elections is making more headway as an issue than was the case ever before, says Arthur Waskow (p. 14), in part because of a coalition between the 'New Left' and the 'New Liberals.'
With satirist Arthur Hoppe telling the story (p. 16), Nellbright and the Great Big Bull get bogged down in a swamp until by sheer persistence they climb out-all the way out!
In two comments on questions of the Orient, Arthur J. Dommen reports in Japan, China and the Bomb (p. 17) that despite its cap' ability Japan is still reluctant to enter the nuclear arms race~ while Edgar Snow, answering questions (p. 18), declares that Peking's position relative to The U.S. and the Chinese Civil War remains as clear-and as hard-as ever.
In the disarmament area, two separate reports are somewhat en· couraging. At an international, high-level meeting in Toronto, New Hope for an Underground Test Ban (p. 20) arose when American and Soviet unofficial representatives agreed on a proposal for "verification by challenge and invitation." And Latin Progress on a NudearFree Zone (p. 21) is reported continuing despite the problem of the inclusion of Cuba.
Should the U.S. Pull Out of Europe? If the U.S. does. says Robert M. Lawrence (p. 22), it will encourage West Germany to build nuclear weapons. .
Kwame Nkrumah's latest book is reviewed with mixed feelings by J. Kirk Sale-The Last Stage of Nkrumah (p. 24) -who advises the ousted Ghana chief to abandon the political arena for a "Hiting and teaching career.
In Rocks and Roses for the Glass House (p. 26), a review of two new books about the U.N., Roy Bennett concludes that one author, James J. Wadsworth, is too optimistic, while the other, T. R. Fehrenbach, misses the mark in the other direction.
* * * * • • Is your zip code included in your address? By the end of
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WAR/IP~A<C~ REPORT
FocI & Opinion ..... On Progress Toward Tiii II! A World of Law and Order ••
Published by The Center for War /Peace Studies
SIXTH YEAR OF PUBLICATION
June-July, 1966
BOARD Of SPONSORS
Roger N. Baldwin Founder, American Civil Liberties Union Donald G. Brennan II udson Institute Stuart Chase Author Brock Chisholm, M.D. Former Director General, WilD Grenville Clark Lawyer, Author Arthur N. Holcombe Honorary Chairman, Commission to Study the Organization of l)eace Amrom H. Katz The RAND Corporation Arthur Larson Director, World Rule of Law Center, Duke University Philip Noel.Baker. M.P. Nobel Peace Prize Winner Charles S. Rhyne Chairman, World Peace Through Law Center James N. Rosenberg Lawyer, Painter C. Maxwell Stanley President, Stanley Engineering Co. Editor: Richard Hudson Consulting Editors: George A. Beebe, Roy Bennett,
Arthur Blaustein, William W. Cowan. William H. Honan, Jack Voelpel
Business Manager: Charles Bloomstein Production: Leo E. Devendorf Advisory Board: Mel Dubin. ehairman; Thomas Yoseloff, vice chairman; Herbert Barchoff, James lloyd, Michael Erlanger, Irving F. Lauck~, Leon Schneider, Nonnan Seiden, Isaac Wiener. President, Center for War/Peace Studies:
Robert W. Gilmore If' ar / Peace Report is published monthly by The Center for War/Peace Studies of New York Friends Group, Inc., 218 East 18th St., New York, N. Y. 10003. Copyright by New York Friends Group, Inc., 1966. The opinions expressed in War/Peace Report are those of the contributors or editors and do not necessarily express the views of the New York Friends Group, Inc., or others associated with the publication. All editorial and advertising correspondence should be addressed to If' ar I Peace Report, 300 East 46th Street, New York, N. Y. 10017. Telephone: 212-867-8456. All subscription corres.pondence should be addressed to War/Peace Report, 218 East 18th Street, New York, N. Y. 10003. Telephone: 212-GR. 5-0850. SUbscription price is $5 per year for all countries of the world. Single copies, 50 cents each. U.S. student rate, $3.50. Please allow four weeks for change of address and start of new subscriptions. Change of address should be accompanied by old address as well as new, including zip code. Second class postage paid at New York, N. Y. War I Peace Report is indexed in the Public Affairs Information Service.
WAR/PEACE REPORT
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HOW NATIONS SEE EACH OTHER Are the hates and suspicions between nations anything like those between individuals and groups? Yes, says this eminent psychiatrist, and they may be treated in similar ways as well.
psychiatrist 0:" psychologist would be so rash as to claim that one ean make solid or positive inferences about the behavior of nations from that of individuals. Obviously a host of new and important factors come into play in passing from the individual to the national level. National policies, however, are made by decision-makers acting individually or as members of committees, so that insights gained by
Dr. Frank, professor of psychiatry at lohns Hopkins University, gave this statement at hearings on psychological aspects of foreign affairs before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on May 25, 1966. The views he ex· presses are his own and not those 0/ any institution or organization with which he is associated.
JUNE/JULY, 1966
By Jerome D. Frank, M.D.
observation of persons in private and group interviews may not be without relevance. In fact, it is startling how often similarities between the behavior of nations and individuals seem to emerge when one starts to look for them.
It should be made explicit that my observations will deal only with the motives and behavior of normal people. As in the rest of medicine, one learns about health through studying illness. Persons with problems reveal processes that operate in everyone but are often obscured in persons who are functioning well.
Study Human Nature
For the first time in history all nations are faced with the possibility of sudden annihilation. This forces them
to re-examine traditional ways of conducting their affairs and to devise the new ways of dealing with each other more appropriate to the conditions of life today. Such an undertaking requires examination of the greatest possible range of information and ideas from all fields of knowledge that might possibly have something to offer. I believe that the study of human nature is such a field.
The role of psychological factors in international conflict has not gone unnoticed by national leaders. For example, General Douglas MacArthur, addressing the American Legion in 1955 said: "The present tensions with their threat of national annihilation are kept alive by two great illusions.
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The one, a complete belief on the part of the Soviet world that the capitalist countries are preparing to attack it; that sooner or later we intend to strike. And the other, a complete belief on the part of the capitalist countries that the Soviets are preparing to attack us; that sooner or later they intend to strike.
"Both are wrong. Each side, so far as the masses are concerned, is equall y desirous of peace. For either side, war with the other would mean nothing but disaster. Both equally dread it. But the constant acceleration of preparation may well, without specific intent, ultimately produce a spontaneous combustion." 1
General MacArthur calls attention to an important psychological principle that appears highly relevant to interna_ tional affairs-namely, that a person's beliefs and expectations largely determine how he thinks and behaves. Since members of the same society tend to
IMacArthur, D., Can We Outlaw War? Reader's Digest, ~lay, 1955.
share the same beliefs, this principle becomes important in understanding how nations see and behave toward each other.
In order to survive, every person has to organize the flood of experiences pouring in on him to enable him to predict what the effects of his behavior will be upon both things and other people. This organizing process starts as soon as he is born, and is guided by his experiences with his family and other people in his society. The expectations thus created filter and arrange incoming information.
We are not aware that our expectations are constant! y shaping our picture of the world because the process goes on outside of consciousness. To take a simple example, a psychologist had Mexican and American schoolteachers look into a device that showed a different picture to each eye at the same time. A picture of a baseball player was presented to one eye and a picture of a hullfighter to the other. An
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overwhelming proportion of the Mexicans "saw" the bullfighter; an overwhelming proportion of the Americans saw the baseball player. What they saw was largely determined by whether they were Mexicans or Americans. 2
A person's group membership also influences what he hears and remembers. Back in 1941 some Republicans and Democrats were asked to listen to a speech containing equal numbers of statements for and against the New Deal. A little while later they were asked what it contained. The Republicans said it was a speech denouncing the New Deal and remembered quotations supporting their position. The Democrats said it favored the New Deal and recalled quotations supporting this view.:~
The pictures of the world formed by the expectations of members of every society and nation resemble each other in many ways but differ in othersand each believes its own to be true, just as true as that the sun will rise tomorrow.
When nations are in conflict, the images of each other that they form regularly take on the same features. Each adversary sees itself as peacefully inclined and the other as ag· gressive. Sometimes each regards the citizens of the other as friendly but misled by their leaders. Today American and Chinese statesmen each assert that the Chinese and American peoples are well-disposed toward each other; it is only the leaders on the other side who are responsible for the conflict.
Contributing to the formation of this "mirror image" of the enemy4. :i
is a psychological process termed psycho-logie-the continual effort to make one's world-view emotionally consistent even if it is not logically consistent. {l Thus, once nations find themselves in a position of mutual antago· nism, each interprets all actions of the
2Cantril, H., Perception and Inlerper,;onal Relations, American Journal of Psychiatry, 1957, 114, 119·126.
:1Edwards, A. L., Political Frames of Refer~nce as a Factor Influencing Recognition, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1941. 36, 35·40.
4 Bronfenbrenner, U., Allowing for Soviet Perceptions, in R. Fisher (ed.) International Conflict and Behavioral Science, New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1964, pp. 161·178.
[")White, R. K., Images in the Context of International Conflict: Soviet Perceptions of the U.S. and U.S.S.R., in H. Kelman (edJ International Behavior, New York: Holt. Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1965, pp. 236· 276.
tlOsgood, C. E., An Alternative to War or Surrender, Urbana, Ill.: University of llli· nois Press, 1962.
W ARjPEACE REPORT
other as based on bad motives, just as its own acts always spring from good ones. This has several unfortunate consequences.
The view that another nation's acts always have hostile motives may create a self-fulfilling prophecy. 7 This term refers to the fact that sometimes a person's expectations cause him to do things that make his expectations come true. A striking domestic example occurred in 1929 at the start of the depression. Man y depositors in solvent banks expected them to fail. They therefore hastened to withdraw their deposits) thereby bringing about the very bank failures they feared.
The cla~sic example of the self-fulfilling prophecy in international relatiom is an arms race. Each side anticipates an attack by the other. In response to this expectation, each arms itself, convincing the other that its fears are justified, leading to another round of arms increases.
When nations are heavily armed and mutually fearful, this kind of conflict spiral can lead to war with breathtaking speed, as occurred immediately preceding the outbreak of the first world war. Detailed analysis of thousands of state papers produced in the \veeks following the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo has revealed that the leaders of each of the great powers saw themselves as offering friendship but receiving hostility. That is, each selectively emphasized the other's hostile gestures and discounted his friendly ones. These mutual distortions le::l to reciprocal acts that in a few weeks culminated in a general war from which Europe never recovered.'"
The Douhle Standard
Once nations are actually fighting, similar acts are viewed as evil when committed by the enemy and morally neutral when performed by us. An unpleasant example of this double standard of morality is the concept of atrocities. All modern wars involve the killing of noncombatants. In the course of time certain traditional forms of killing gradually come to be recognized as legitimate. Other forms, thaL sooner or later appear in any war, are regarded as legitimate or unavoidable by the side that resorts to them) and as
7.\lerlon, R. K., Social Theory and Sociul Structure, Glencoe, IlL: Free Press, 1957.
~Holsti, O. R. and Norlh, R. c., The History of Human Confliet, in E. B. .McNeil (ed.) The Nature of Human Conflict, Engelwood Cliffs. N. J.: Prentice·Hall, Tnc., 1965, pp. 91·115.
JCNE/JLLY. 1966
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atrocious by the other. Each side then uses the atrocities committed by the other to confirm its harsh view ~f the enemy and justify its own acts. Thus, in World War I the German General von Hausen saw nothing wrong in shooting down Belgian civilian hostages because the Belgian government "approved perfidious street fighting, contrary to international law."!! In Vietnam, each side is outraged by the "atrocities" of which each accuses the other. We dwell on the assassinations and tortures committed by the Viet Congo Communist leaders castigate Americans for using "the most cruel and barbaric means of annihilating people,"10 by which they mean new anti-personnel weapons, chemical destruction of crops, and napalm, made possible by our more advanced technology. As we see it, we resort to these measures reluctantly and only out of necessity. In this way, we preserve our own self-image as a humane, compassionate people.
Unfortunately, actions are judged by their effects, not their intent, so the rest of the world is not so charitable. Knowing our intentions to be honorable, and assuming that others know it too, it is hard for us to believe that many people in the world see our acts as aggressive. Their critical reactions create in us a feeling of injured innocence, and this, in turn, strengthens our feeling that these acts are necessary means toward a justified goal.
The image of the enemy as evil, finally, acts to block acceptance of his genuine conciliatory moves. Since he is, by definition, implacably hostile, an apparently friendly gesture tends to be seen either as evidence of his weakening, or as an effort to create dissension \vithin our ranks. The usual response to such a move, therefore, is angry re-
II Quoted in Tuchman, B., The Guns of August, New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1964, p. 353.
l°!,!Ialinowsky, R. V., New York Times, .\londay, .\Iay 2, 1966. p. 1, col. 4.
jection coupled with reassertion of one's undiminished determination to continue the fight. A recent example was Peking's rejecting as "frauds" American offers to let our scientists and scholars visit China and Chinese ones visit the United States and Senator Mansfield's proposal for an Asian conference.
Psychological dynamisms like the mirror image of the enemy, the double standard of morality and the self-fulfilling prophecy operate in all nations at war and impede efforts to restore peace. The Vietnam War has an additional tension-producing feature - a strong ideological component. To understand what this implies it is necessary to consider briefly the psychological functions of ideologies.
A psychologically crucial part of the reality world of any group is its beliefs about the meaning of existence. Every person has to shield himself somehow from the unendurable realization that his individual life is a very fleeting and insignificant event in an indifferent universe. He does this by embracing an ideology or religion that links his life to some larger, more enduring purpose. For many this is an abstraction like God or Democracy or Communism. A shared ideology is vital not only to the individual but to his group as well, since the common philosophy of life binds the members together. Therefore, for many persons, surrendering the belief that gives meaning to their lives and links them to their group would be intolerable-it would represent a kind of psychological death harder to contemplate than biological death.
The existence of a group that holds an ideology differing from our own creates anxiety. Why? Because the very fact that they maintain different beliefs implies that ours might be wrong. The seme of mutual threat is intensified if each of the rival ideologies requires its adherents to convert
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or destroy believers in the other. In the past this has been true of Islam and Christianity, of Catholicism and Protestantism. It used to be true of Communism and Free Enterprise~ and probably still is in the minds of oldline Chinese Communists.
Humans, like all living creatures, are incited to violence by threats to their survival. We differ from all other creatures primarily in our power to symbolize, so that we respond with vio_ lence not only to actual provocations like direct threats to life or property, but to psychological ones like threats to our ideology or self·esteem.
In the Vietnam W ar~ for both sides psychological issues have become very important. From a strictly materialistic standpoint, the territory of Vietnam is of limited strategic importance to us~ and the North Vietnamese would be much better off economically if they peacefully acquiesced to American presence in the South. Not only would the progressive destruction of their hard-won industrial plants cease~ but the United States would probably pour millions into rebuilding them. But we see behind the struggle over territory such psychological issues as whether our will or that of China is stronger, whether other nations can trust our commitments, and above all, whose view of the world ·will eventually prevail.
Judging from their statements, our adversaries see themselves as fighting against neo-imperialism - a concept loaded with psychological overtones -and also, for some, to further the ideology of Communism. Each, moreover, sees itself as fighting for "freedom," but the word has an entirely different meaning for each side.
Thus, the Vietnam War has assumed an ideological character similar to the holy wars of former times, and this has ominous implications. People who are fighting for their ideals seldom if ever can be forced into surrendering by punishment. The belief that this can be done is, to be sure, based on a correct observation, namely that one can COll
trol behavior by punishment, as everv parent knows. But whether punishmen't changes the child's basic attitude or not depends mainly on whether he beHeves it to be deserved. If he does, he
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feels guilty for having transgressed and renounces the bad behavior indefinitely. If he feels the punishment to be unjust, he will stop misbehaving to he sure, hut only while the punisher call observe him. The first time he believes he can get away with it, he will resume his misdeeos. At the same time, the punishment increases his resentment and rebelliousness, provoking him to more mischief. Children who have been harshly punished are more prone to become delinquents than those who have been disciplined in gentler ways.
Nations at war, if they can he said to resemble children at all, are clearly like the ones who believe the punishment to be unjust. Since they see themselves as righteous, punishment by their opponents, far from making them contrite, is bitterly resented. While a defeated nation may be forced to accept the victor's terms, it typically bides its time until it can get revenge. This seems to be one of the reasons why one war so often leads to another, as in the cycle of wars between France and Germany between 1870 and 1940.
Insofar as the Vietnam War resembles a holy war, punishment would seem to have partieularly little likelihood of success. To suffer and die for a holy cause is highly virtuous, and one hopes through example to convert others by one's own sacrifice. The notion that one can cause people to abandon their ideologies by inflicting pain on them should have died in Rome with the Christian martyrs. In contrast to wars fought for tangible spoils, ideological wars have no natural end point. As a result, in the past they have characteristically been stopped only by exhaustion of both sides after tremendous carnage, with the survivors still clinging to their respective beliefs. Today, with weapons of unlimited destructive power lurking i.n the "\"'ings, such wars threaten to expand until they destroy civilization.
These are some of the dark aspects of the picture as a psychologist sees it. Fortunately~ the same conditions of life that have created new dangers have
WAR/PEACE REPORT
also created new incentives and means for overcoming them. From a psychological standpoint, the central long-term task is to learn to understand and deal with people of other nations on their own terms. The new incentives are, on the one hand, the threat of mutual annihilation if nations do not mend their ways and, on the other, the enormous gains in human welfare nations could achieve by working together. As President Johnson has said: "The most exciting horizons are in the life of man himself-and what we can do to improve it. We can eliminate poverty. We can cure man's ills, extend man's life, and raise man's hopes." The new means for promoting international cooperation are supplied by gigantic advances in communication and transportation like Telstar and jet transports. Psychologists, psychiatrists and others have accumulated considerable information as to how to foster mutually helpful communication among citizens of different nations and avoid the pitfalls involved, but it would go too far afield to review their findings. 1 1. 12
Modern science has created new means of reducing international tension, however, that deserve a word of comment. Many scientific projects that have only recently become feasible require international cooperation to obtain their full benefits. Examples are weather control and space exploration. An experiment done in a boys' camp some years ago suggests that activities requiring cooperation between hostile groups have a powerful effect in reducing mutual antagonism. 13 In this experiment, boys who were initially strangers to each other were formed into two groups. Then the groups were made enemies through athletic competitions. In time, they became like two hostile nations. The members of each group chose their friends only from among themselves, looked down on members of the other, and the two groups fought at every opportunity. Once when a member of one tried to act as a peacemaker, he was promptly ostracized by his fellows. Simply bringing the two groups together did nothing to reduce their mutual antag-
llWedge, B. M., Visitors to the United States and How They See Us, Princeton, N. J.: Van Nostrand Co., Inc., 1965.
12Kelman, H. C. (ed.), International Behavior, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965.
13Sherif, M., Harvey, O. 1., White, n. }., Hoor!, W. R. and Sherif, C. W., Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation: The Robbers Cave Experiment, Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Book Exchange, 1961.
JUNE/JULY, 1966
onism. However, when the camp director arranged matters so that both groups had to cooperate, mutual hostility rapidly diminished. For example, he secretly arranged for the camp water supply to be interrupted, and the whole camp had to get out and repair it. The truck carrying food for an overnight hike unaccountably ran into a ditch and stalled, and all the boys had to get on the tow rope to pull it out. It took a series of such events to break down the hostility between the groups but friendly relations were eventually completely restored.
Obvious Parallels
would hestitate to generalize from ll-year.old boys to nations in conflict were it not for certain obvious parallels_ In a sense the nations of the world today are in the same predicament as the boys in the camp. They will have to cooperate in order to survive. Moreover, working together toward common goals seems also to be effective on the international scene. For example, cooperation of many nations in the Antarctic to gain valuable information about the earth's surface that no one of them could acquire alone led to its complete demilitarization and a treaty that all countries have respected.
The development of the Mekong River delta is a similar undertaking. On a larger scale, President Johnson's recent initiatives toward keeping the moon and planets open for international scientific cooperation on the model of Antarctica are most encouraging. Just as everybody would lose in a nuclear war, in this type of project everybody gains.
But this is for the future. A pressing, immediate task is to build bridgesto borrow Secretary McNamara's phrase-between mainland China and the United States. This requires overcoming formidable barriers on both sides. It takes considerable courage to trv to make contact with a distrusted adversary, because this exposes one to
dangers not only from him but from one's own side as well. The peacemaker's own group is apt to accuse him of disloyalty. while the opponent may try to take advantage of his good will to dupe him or ferret out secrets.
The first step, and probably psycho· logically the most difficult one, would be for the Cnited States to be willing to re-examine its own image of China. We knO\\' that the Chinese misj udge our intentions. Can we be sure that we are not to some extent misjudging theirs? We would have to open our minds to the possibility that their bluster is motivated in large part by fear of our intentions toward them. This view gains plausibility from the illuminating review of the history of the relations of China with the Western powers presented at recent hearings of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The problem of establishing communication with China and North Vietnam involves overcoming intense mutual mistrust. Here, perhaps what psychiatrists have learned about establish_ ing communication with a frightened, angry and suspicious person may have some relevance. The first step, we have found, is simply to show a persistent willingness to listen to such a person and to refuse to be discouraged by his rebuffs. You studiously avoid provoking him. At the same time you firmly defend yourself against physical attack but you ignore merely verbal abuse.
In approaching a deeply suspicious person, it does not pay to be too friend. ly. Since he is convinced that you mean him no good, he is prone to misinterpret an overly friendly manner as an effort to put something over on him. So a firm, reserved but not unfriendly manner makes more headway than effusiveness.I 4 With persistence in this
14Deutsch, M., Producing Change in an Adversary, in R. Fisher (ed.) International Conflict and Behavioral Science, New York: Basic Books, 1964, pp. 91-109.
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approach~ in time he may come to believe that your professed de5ire to understand and help him may not be entirely insincere, and the first steps toward useful communication have been made.
a favor, rather than the reverse. and are searching for ways to improve relations with them might be a better way of relieving their fears concerning our intentions than attempts to reassure them directly.
The Expressed Rejection
Assuming that we are willing to broaden communication with China in an effort to reduce mutual tension, a similar strategy may be appropriate. OUf recent proposals may be a beginning. They have met the expected angry rejection, but this should not discourage us from continuing. In view of China's historic sense of humiliation, perhaps we should he prepared to go even further and accept some symbolic humiliation at their hands. If, as is generally anticipated, they scornfully reject the first invitation to join the U.N., perhaps our best strategy would be to urge that the invitation be repeated until it looks as if, by accepting it, they are doing the rest of the world
Sometimes it helps to let a frightened, suspicious person overhear you discussing him with someone else. This permits him to listen without having to acknowledge that he is doing so and does not put him under any pressure to respond. That is, it leaves the initiative with him. For these reasons, permitting him to eavesdrop may be less apt to arouse his anxiety and suspicion than a direct attempt to influenc.:e him. To make a long jump, the public discussion of our Vietnam and China policies now going on in the United States. which is being overheard by those nations and the rest of the world, may have similar values. Of course. it doe~ carry the danger of reinforcing our adversaries' mistaken belief that our determination to resist will weaken if they persist long enough. But the demonstration that important American policy makers and segments of the public are actively trying to understand our adversaries' view of the world
To conclude, in this shrinking, interdependent world, living daily under the threat of destruction, all nations must eventually learn to understand each other's point of view. They must learn to accept and live with their differences, while searching for and ex· ploiting shared beliefs and goals. This is necessary for the creation of a stable world order that will exclude war as a way of settling international conflicts. I have tried to sketch a few of the psychological aspects of this staggering task, which may indeed prove to be beyond human capabilities. If nations fail to master it, the days of civilization are probably numbered. If they succeed, the potentials for human welfare will have no bounds.
WHAT SHOULD THE PEOPLE BE TOLD? In the following three pages several newsmen who have covered the Vietnam War bitterly criticize the Pentagon's news chief-and are answered in kind by him. The exchange raises issues far deeper than the personalities involved.
"Personally, I do not believe that the constitutional assumption that 'the people know best' is a very reliable guide to the conduct of American foreign policy today." So wrote The New York Times' lames B. Reston in an article, "The Press, the President and Foreign Policy," in the luly issue of Foreign Affairs.
"The conclusion drawn jrom this [.the theory that the people know best] is that the intelligence, judgment and character of a majority of the people, if well· informed, will produce more satisfactory solutions than any leader or small band oj geniuses is likely to produce," he said. "This is undoubtedly sound doctrine for sinking a sewer or building a bridge or a school in a local community, but is it a practical way to conduct foreign policy?"
Despite his doubts that "the people know best," Reston does not suggest trying another system. On the contrary, he concludes with a "few practical suggestions" to make the old system work better, including more news analysis in newspapers and networks, more adult education, use of more outside experts by media, and a more educational basis for relations between government officials and reporters.
In the case of the Vietnam War, the dilemma posed by Reston is sharp, both for the government and the press. If the people do know best, and are to be sovereign in fact as well as theory, then they must be given straight facts and balanced interpretation so they can decide wisely. (Is it really so much harder to make a sensible decision about
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war or peace than about sinking a sewer or building a bridge? The main requirements in both cases would seem to be basic facts and sound judgment.) If, on the other hand, a "leader or small band of geniuses" know best, then the press should best be used to generate public support for the wise decisions. It is hardly surprising that more adherents to the prior thesis are found in the press, while more devotees of the latter approach are found in the government.
In the Vietnam War, the two schools of thought appear to be facing their sharpest confrontation in American history. The battle was joined sharply recently in the publications of the Overseas Press Club of America, the world's largest organization of joreign correspondents. It began with the article in Dateline 1966 by Morley Safer. prizewinning C.B.S. correspondent who served in South Vietnam, which starts on the opposite page. (The same issue carried another article under the same title by Arthur Sylvester, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, although Safer and Sylvester did not see each other's arti· cles beforehand. In his article, Sylvester avoided the questions originally suggested to him by the Dateline editors, beginning with this one: "Must the government tell the truth always?" Instead, Sylvester wrote an article in which he reviewed the growth of television and called upon television newsmen to be "more objective.") Sylvester then. wrote a comment on Safer's article, which follows it, and Safer and two colleagues in turn retorted to that.
WAR/PEACE REPORT
TELEVISION COVERS THE WAR
There has been no war quite like it. Never have so many words been churned out, never has so much 16-mm. film been exposed. And never has the reporting of a story been so much a part of the story itself.
This has been true whether you aTe reporting television's first war, as I have been, or for one of the print media. Washington has been critical of American newsmen in Saigon almost continuously since 1961. That criticism has manifested itself in a number of ,,,rays-from the cancellation of newspaper subscriptions to orders to put certain correspondents on ice to downright threat.
As my friend and colleague Peter Kalischer puts it, "The brass wants you to get on the team."
To the brass, getting on the team means simply giving the United States government line in little more than handout form. It means accepting what you are told without question. At times it means turning your hack on facts.
I know of few reporters in Vietnam who have "gotten on the team."
The fact is, the American people are getting an accurate picture of the war in spite of attempts by various officials - mostly in Washington - to present the facts in a different way. That is why certain correspondents have been vilified, privately and publicly.
By late winter of 1964·1965 the war was clearly becoming an American ,,,,oar. And with it came an American responsibility for providing and reporting facts. American officials thus were able to deal directly with reportcrs. The formality of "checking it out with the Vietnamese" ceased to be relevant.
I n Washington the burden of reo sponsibility for giving, controlling and managing the war news from Vietnam fell to-and remains with-one man: Arthur Sylvester, assistant secretary of defense of public affairs.
By early summer of 1965 the first set of ground rules had been laid down for reporting battles and casualties. There was no censorship, but a very loose kind of honor system that put the responsibility for not breaking se· curity on the shoulders of correspondents. The rules were vague and were therefore continually broken.
JUNE/JULY. 1966
By Morley Safer
For military and civilian officials in Vietnam there was another set of rules-rather another honor system that was not so much laid down as implied. A policy of total candor was to be adhered to. "Total candor" is a phrase used by Barry Zorthian, minister·counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. Zorthian is what Time calls "the information czar" in Vietnam.
If Zorthian does not have the ad. miration of all the newsmen in Saigon, he at least has the respect of most of them. It would not be nai've to say that the feeling is mutual, even when background briefings are held at the tops of our voices.
The breaking of the vague ground rules was something that annoyed everyone. Correspondents were rocketed by their editors, and the military ill Vietnam felt that Allied lives were being endangered. So in midsummer, when Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara came to Saigon and brought Sylvester with him, we all looked forward to the formulation of a clear-cut policy. Sylvester was to meet the press in an informal session to discuss mutual problems. The meeting was to take the vagueness out of the ground rules.
I know that Zorthian looked for· ward to this confrontation. He had been concerned for a number of reasons about what he described as the credibility of the United States being questioned. In this he echoed former Ambassador Maxwell Taylor. Zorthian had, on Ambassador Taylor's instructions, assembled four correspondents to meet the ambassador in private and take soundings on the whole question of American credibility. I was one of the four, and what was discussed then remains privileged. The ambassador showed a great deal of sympathy and said questions would be put to people in high places. Unfortunately, before the week was out he announced his resignation.
The Sylvester meeting, on the other hand, was surely one of the most disheartening meetings between reporters and a news manager ever held.
It was a sticky luly evening. Zor· thian had made the usual Thursday callout to what is known as the inner circle of American correspondents in
Saigon. The time was fixed for 9 p.m., just after everyone had finished filing.
I was with Murray Frornson, C.B.S. Southeast Asia correspondent. As we returned from our nightly broadcast to New York we looked forward to the cool drinks that are always available at Zorthian's villa.
Inside it was cool. The chairs had been arranged around a low settee where Zorthian usually holds court.
Zorthian opened by saying that this was not to be the usual briefing ""for information," but a bull session. "Let's face it, you fellows have some problems covering this war," he said. "'I want Arthur to hear what they are. Maybe we can get something done."
Zorthian was less relaxed than usual. He was anxious for Sylvester to get an idea of the mood of the news corps. There had been some annoying moments in previous weeks that had directly involved Sylvester's own office. In the first B-S2 raids, Pentagon releases were in direct contradiction to what had actually happened on the ground in Vietnam.
Also, those of us involved in broadcasting were anxious to discuss the increasing problems of communication. There was general opening banter, which Sylvester quickly brushed aside. He seemed anxious to take a standto say something that would jar us. He did:
"I can't understand how you fellows can write what you do while American boys are dying out here," he began. Then he went on to the effect that American correspondents had a patriotic duty to disseminate only information that made the United States look good.
A network television correspondent said, "Surely, Arthur, you don't expect the American press to be the handmaidens of government."
"That's exactly what I expect," came the reply.
An agency man raised the problem that had preoccupied Ambassador Taylor and Barry Zorthian-about the credibility of American officials. Responded the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs:
""Look, if you think any American official is going to tell you the truth, then you're stupid. Did you hear that? -stupid."
One of the most respected of all the
9
r
newsmen in Vietnam-a veteran of World War II, the Indochina War and Korea-suggested that Sylvester was being deliberately provocative. Sylvester replied:
"Look, I don't even have to talk to you people. I know how to deal with you through your editors and publishers back in the States."
At this point, the Hon. Arthur Syl. vester put his thumbs in his ears, bulged his eyes, stuck out his tongue and wiggled his fingers.
A correspondent for one of the New Yark papers began a question. He never got beyond the first few words. Sylvester interrupted:
"Aw. come Oll. What does someone in Ne\~ York care ahout the war in Vietnam ?"
We got down to immediate practical matters-the problems of communication, access to military planes, getting out to battles.
"Do you guys want to be spoon fed ? Why don't you get out and cover the war?"
It was a jarring and insulting remark. Most of the people in that room had spent as much time on actual operations as most G.I.'s.
Two television correspondents walked out, saying they had had enough. A few minutes later l two more correspondents left. The discussion went on. It got worse-more offensive. Only a few stayed-mainly out of regard for Zorthian.
The relationship between reporters and P.LO.'s in Saigon, on the other hand~ has been a good, healthy one. The relationship in the field is better, and in dealing with the men who fight the war it is very good indeed.
The P.LO.'s in Saigon have been as devoted to their jobs as any officer or enlisted man in the field. And in many ways they have it a whole lot toughe;. They are hog-tied by impossible ground rules. Certain items may be released by them, others only by Sylvester himself. Pity the career man who forgets it.
The implied threat of the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs -"I know how to deal with you through your editors"-gives some'indication of the way the Pentagon tries to exert pressure. Among my colleagues in Vietnam I know of no one who has been asked by an editor to "ease off" or to follow any kind of official line. I do know of attempts by certain American officials in Washington to vilify certain correspondents, among them this one.
10
It's no secret that the former president of C.B.S. News, Fred W. Friendly, was informed that I was married to an Asian and therefore presumably had some kind of bias in favor of Asians and tl:erefore presumably , .. 'as not 100 per cent American in my thinking. The fact that I'm not married at all makes the whole thing even more ludicrous.
The pressure can take less subtle forms: "Unless you get Safer out of there he's liable to end up with a hullet in his back."
This is television's first war. It is only in the past few years that the medium has become portable enough to go out on military operations. And this has rai~ed some serious problems -problems: incidentally, which every network correspondent and cameraman in Vietnam is acutely aware of.
The camera can d~scribe in excruciating, harrowing detail what war is all about. The cry of pain, the shattered face-it's all there on film: and out it goes into millions of American homes during the dinner hour. It is true that on its own every piece of war film takes on a certain antiwar character, simply because it does not glamorize or romanticize. In hattIe men do not die with a clean shot through the heart; they are blown to pieces. Television tells it that way.
It also tells what happens to civilians who are caught in the middle of battle. It tells what happens to soldiers under the stress of the unreal conditions in which they live. American soldiers are not always 100 per cent sterling characters, just as American policy is not always exactly what is right for the world or for Vietnam's smallest hamlet.
The unfavorable has alwavs been reported along with the favo~ahle-hut television tells it with greater impact. When the U.S. blunders. television leaves little doubt.
So when a government official~ either in Saigon or W ashington~ denies what television plainly reports and then attempts to give verisimilitude to his denial by damning the reporter-at best that is pure hUl1lhu~.
The war in Vietnam has become almost entirely an American res pons ihilit}. And responsible American officials must accept it. For the most part they have. But there have been glaring examples of miscalculation and a few examples of downright lying. The miscalculations have been reported, the lies have been found out. And it is that kind of honest reporting that in the end measures the rightness of our cause in Vietnam or anywhere else.
Comment of Arthur Sylvester, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs:
While the readers of the current Dateline, which is locked up for the year, were denied an opportunity to hear the other side and misled as well, I appreciate the opportunity to be heard in the Bulletin.
Why its editor chose, in the April 30th issue, to subject me to further abuse by reprinting from the Dateline only to attack me, again without opportunity to reply, is beyond me. Furthermore, I can't understand why the Rulletin rewrite couldn't even report Safer correctly. The Bulletin said that Safer "told of a briefing held between Vietnam eorrespondents and the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, Arthur Sylvester." What Safer actually wrote was "Zorthian opened by saying that this ,,",'as not to be the usual briefing 'for information,' but a Lull session." Strange to say Safer got that right but otherwise his recollection of the evening was "bull."
The Bulletin excerpted from Safer that statement that "One newsman asked Sylvester, after he had announced to them that it was their duty to report only information that made the U.S. look good, if they were expected to be the 'hand-maidens of government.' 'That's exactly what I expect,' was Sylvester's reply."
This is utterly untrue. Additionally, I must say Safer is the only man I ever heard refer to another man as a "handmaiden," especially a newsman.
Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised at Safer's distortions, misstatements of fact and self-created quotations attributed to me in view of the fact that he wrote: "J was with Murray FroInson, c.B.S. Southeast Asia correspondent. As we returned from our nightly broad~ast to New York we looked forward to the cool drinks that are always available at Zorthian's villa." Apparently Safer's primary interest that night was in working over the drinks and then caIne his working over me as a clouded and confused afterthought.
Perhaps I shouldn't squawk when I consider the distortion of U.S. Marine Corps activity Safer perpetuated on c.B.S., for whi~h he won a prize and the undying contempt of the Marines.
Maybe I would brush it all off but it was this same Safer who was cited by Colonel Ben W. Legare in Saigon, last August II, for his violation of wellarticulated security rules, thereby endangering American troops. Even Safer's fonner boss, Fred W. Friendly,
WAR/PEACE REPORT
vice president of C.B.S., expressed concern at this performance.
Nevertheless, I do feel the treatment given a member of the club by both the Dateline and the Bulletin was shabby, to say the least.
On receipt of Dateline 1966 I was startled to read in the Contributor's Column that the article which Arthur C. Milton, publisher of the Overseas Press Club's annual magazine, had asked me to write was billed as a reply to an abusive piece in the same issue by Morley Safer. Since I had not seen Safer's gem of misrepresentation until it appeared, since your people had not advised me that he was going to write for the issue, and since I was never offered an opportunity to reply, I think this sort of editorial dishonesty directed against a club member is inexcusable.
The enclosed copy of my full article with the deleted portions underlined will shmv you the sort of editing to whi~h it was subjected. The deleted sections contain much of the thought and substance of mv views toward the television medium: It makes me wonder ""hat sort of editorial policy Messrs. :Milton, Jess Gorkin and Edwin Kiester, J r., adhere to. T say this because Safer's attack on me is based on his recollection of what took place on a Saturday night in July, 1965, in Barry Zorthian's home in Saigon.
ARTHUR SYLVESTER Washington, D. C.
Safer Replies
HAVE JUST SEEN MAY 14 BULLETIN WITH SYLVESTER INSULT· ING LETTER STOP ALL THIS DOES IS CONFIRM TO ANY WHO MIGHT HAVE DOUBTED THE NATURE OF HIS ACTIVITIES STOP AS USUAL HE ATTACKED THE REPORTER PERSONALLY RATHER THAN THE SUBSTANCE OF THE REPORT STOP LET SYLVESTER PRODUCE ONE EYEWITNESS WHO WOULD CHALLENGE THE FACTS OF MY ARTICLE STOP CONGRATULATIONS TO THE BULLETIN FOR PCBLISHING SYLVESTER LETTER BECAUSE IT WILL PROVIDE FLEETING MOMENT OF HILARITY FOR SAIGON CORRESPONDENTS AS WELL AS MISSION PERSONNEL WHO HAVE CEASED TO BE SHOCKED OR DISMAYED BY PENTAGON PRESS AGENT STOP IF SYLVESTER WANTS TO KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT QUOTE UNDYING CONTEMPT UNQUOTE HE SHOULD CONSULT SOME OF HIS OWN PIO AND JOINT USIS PUB-
JUNE/JULY, 1966
LIC AFFAIRS PEOPLE IN VIET NAM
MORLEY SAFER, LONDON
'Based on Consensus'
IT SEEMS THAT MR SYLVESTER IS ALWAYS ASKING FOR EQUAL TIME TO REBUT SOMETHING WRITTEN OR SAID BY A CORRESPONDENT IN VIET NAM STOP GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY HE INVARIABLY ENGAGES IN SOME FORM OF CHARACTER ASSASSINATION STOP HIS LETTER PUBLISHED 1'1 THE BULLETIN MAY FOURTEENTH IS THE LATEST EXAMPLE STOP WHAT SYLVESTER FAILS TO COMPREHEND IS THAT MORLEY SAFERS RECOLLECTION OF HOW THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS ACTED THAT SUMMER NIGHT AT BARRY ZORTHIANS WAS BASED ON A CONSENSUS OF SEVERAL CORRESPONDENTS WHO WERE IN ATTENDANCE STOP MR SYLVESTER COULD HAVE MADE A STRONGER DEFENSE OF HIMSELF IF HE HAD PRODUCED JllST ONE CORRESPO'lDENTWHO DISAGREED WITH THE SUBSTANCE OF SAFERS ARTICLE STOP HAVING FAILED TO DO THAT lIE SHOULD TAKE HARRY TRUMANS ADVICE DASH IF YOU CAN'T STAND THF: HEAT GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN
MURRAY FROM SON CBS NEWS. SAIGON
Browne's Two-Cents
My copy of the May 14 Bulletin arrived today, and I noted Arthur Sylvester's reply to Morley Safer. Since I have some knowledge of this incident I would like to add my two-cents'worth.
At the time of that Sdvester session with newsmen in Saig~n I was chief A.P. correspondent for Vietnam. I had just returned from the field that day (July 17, 1965) and asked Ed White to represent me. (Ed replaced me as A.P. chief when I left A.P. last August.) The following day Ed gave me a memo covering the events of that evening, which I have saved in my private files. Morley Safer had no way of seeing that memo so there could have been no collusion. I quote in part from that memo:
"The exchanges often became bitter and personal. Morley Safer, followed
closely by Murray Fromson (both of C.B.S.), stalked out indignantly after one hour, slamming the door of Zor· thian residence with loud bang. Keyes Beech (Chicago Daily News), followed by Sol Sanders (U.S. News and World Report), left short time later, but suspect they more concerned with threat of missing dinner rather than issues or principles.
"Sylvester engaged specific correspondents in near name calling wrangles, twice telling Jack Langguth (New Yark Times) he was stupid. Banter between Sylvester and Joe Fried (New Yark Daily News) provided occasion tragi-comic relief.
"At one point Sylvester actually made statement he thought press should be "handmaiden' of government. Later tried to retrieve that one by passing it off as joke. But his many serious-face ~tatements included such things as 'don't you guys knmv men are dying out here?'
"It was a long disagreeable night." This version certainly tends more to
support the Safer version than the Sylvester version, including the reference to "handmaiden of government." In fact, one is basically confronted with the choice of believing Sylvester or the correspondents \vho were there; there is no middle ground.
In deciding whether the correspondents or Sylvester repo~ted the eyening correctly it is well to remember that this is the same Sylvester who, during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, went on record with these statements of policy:
"The generation of news by actions taken by the government becomes one weapon in a strained situation. The results, in my opinion, justify the methods we use."
And: "It's inherent in government's right, if necessary, to lie to save itself when it's going up into nuclear war. This seems to me basic."
This attitude has characterized all of Sylvester's dealings with correspondents in Vietnam, and has done more to obstruct fair and comprehensive news coverage here than any other factor that comes to my mind at the moment. And I've lived here for nearly five years.
I do not sleep better at night knowing The Hon. Arthur Sylvester is a memher of the Overseas Press Club. It seems to me that considering his past record giving him the right to reply to Safer's piece at all is giving him more than his due.
MALCOLM W. BROWNE Saigon, Vietnam
11
EDITORIALS
'Peace Through Victory' in South Vietnam
Yes, President Johnson wants peace in Vietnam! The last round of escalation-bombing the outskirts of Hanoi and Haiphong-makes even clearer the kind of peace he seeks. It is not the kind of peace we have been urging in these columns for more than two years, based on compromise and a neutralization of the area. Instead it is the kind of peace imposed by a Big Bully in his block. There must be peace south of the 17th parallel, or else! The models for peace are South Korea and Taiwan, where military dictatorships backed by American troops assure pro· Western governments imposed on the people; the other models, Cambodia and Austria, with governments that are neutral and popularly supported, have been rejected. The objective is to fight on until the National Liberation Front (N.L.F.) and its supporters in Hanoi give up in unconditional surrender and allow the tyranny of Nyugen Cao Ky to be safely perpetuated, thus guaranteeing another anti-communist sycophant ringing the People's Republic of China. As for democracy-other than as a hypocritical slogan-forget it.
For a while it seemed possible to believe that the gentlemen running the war in Washington were sincere, that in their anti-communist agitation they didn't understand better how to proceed to achieve peace. Could they shout peace so often and so loud and not mean it at all? They put forward formulas that gradually included most of the points that obviously would be necessary if a compromise settlement were to he achieved. But always one or more essential points were left out, making the w"hole about as useful as an automobile without a steering wheel or a drive shaft. One of these crucial points has been the need to include the National Liberation Front in negotiations in its own right, which the Johnson administration has steadily refused to do. This attitude, combined with the deliberatelr misleading doubletalk that N.L.F. partieipation would n~t be ;'an insurmountable problem," exposes the fraudulence of Johnson's position. Johnson's plan is-and this is what the Saigon government has been urging all along-to bomb in the North and kill in the South until the Viet Cong quits. In short, the goal is military victory in the South.
Maybe the Big Bully can do it. Even if he can, is it morally right? It is costing him unimaginable resourcesnow estimated at $2 billion a month-that are desperately needed elsewhere to help people, not destroy them. And the end result will be the antipode of what the U.s. is al. legedl y fighting for: a military dictatorship instead of a democracy.
But most likely the Big Bully cannot succeed even if he tries. Johnson's spokesmen report "gloom" in Hanoi that presumably will lead it to call for negotiations (read surrender by the Viet Cong). But we suspect that this note of optimism will prove as warranted as all the other rosy predictions of the past 12 years (not to mention glowing forecasts made for eight years before that by the French). The truth seems to be that the Vietnamese have determined to win their independence and that they will fight on until they get it.
Given these attitudes of the adversaries, the possibility
12
of achieving peace in the near future is exceedingly dim. As to the immediate development of the war, we suspect that a gradual escalation is more likely than a sudden dramatic approach to the brink. There is a theory that at some threshold of escalation Communist China and the Soviet Union must enter the war directly, even though neither wants war with the U.S. This is probably true, even though the threshold may be beyond the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong. It seems likely that full·scale involvement of China and Russia will not come unless the existence of the state of North Vietnam is threatened. China could not allow the establishment of a pro-U.S. regime in North Vietnam any more than it could in North Korea; the Soviet Union could be expected to stand by its treaty com~ mitment to North Vietnam because if it didn't its credibility and prestige would be gravely impaired.
The main reason that Soviet and Chinese participation in the war will probably remain limited for the time being is not so much that these two great powers are unwilling to contribute more as that Hanoi does not want all-out help in present circumstances. There appear to be two principal reasons for this: first, Hanoi seems to estimate that it now needs only equipment and non-fighting personnel from outside, and second, Hanoi wants to keep its traditional enemy, the Chinese, out of the country. To accomplish the latter objective, Hanoi must bar the Russians as well as the Chinese, for it could hardly let many Russians in without allowing the Chinese to enter too.
If it is true that Hanoi and the N.L.F. think they can win without major help from their Chinese and Russian allies, then they are banking on three main assumptions: that the war will ultimately he decided on the ground, that they will have more perseverance than the Americans, and that the rot in the Saigon government will continue to eat away its base. All three assumptions seem realistic.
Consider the situation in simple terms of arithmetic: In the South about 600,000 Saigon troops and 300,000 Ameri· can soldiers are fighting some 250,000 Viet Cong-of which, by American figures, perhaps 20 per cellt are North Vietnamese. With this ratio of four to one against the Viet Cong, the situation has reached roughly a standstill. But North Vietnam still has ahout 500,000 well~trained troops as yet uncommitted. At its present rate of infiltration into the South of 4,500 troops per month (U.S. figures), the North could continue its effort for years. But what if the North should step up the infiltration in response to the latest escalation, sending down, say, 200,000 troops? Since neither Saigon nor the allies of the U.S. are likely to produce any more troops, this would mean the U.S. would have to put in something like 800,000 additional troops to maintain the balance. When that happens, what kind of pressures will Johnson be under at home?
Somewhere along the ladder of escalation, whether it be late or early, the U.S. could end up at war with China and/ or Russia. One possibility for war with the Soviet Union would occur if China refused to let Soviet materiel be shipped through its territory (there are increasing in-
WAR/PEACE REPORT
dications this will be China's policy), causing the Soviet Union to move its aid by sea. If the port of Haiphong is mined, and Soviet ships sunk, one can only conjecture the possible events that would ensue.
Perhaps a more likely eventuality, as U.S. bombing intensifies over North Vietnam, is that Chinese territory will be used increasingly as a sanctuary for air bases and supplies. It is an open secret in Washington that top Air Force ofIicers are looking for a chance to bomb China, particularly its nuclear installations, and the "sanctuary argumenf' might finally win them the go-ahead. Whether V.S. bombings of China would bring the Soviet Union into the war is speculative. The Soviet Union is bound by treaty to help defend China if it is attacked, but what the Kremlin would actuall~, decide would depend upon circumstances, especially whether nuclear weapons were used. Even at best, if the Soviet linion stayed out, the U.S. would find itself involved in a monstrously costly v\o'ar that it could never win in a hundred years. The U.S. might kill many millions of Chinese from the air, but it would at the same time find a bottomless pit for American blood and treasure on the Asian mainland.
A s to ways out of the Vietnam morass, one possibility lies in elections. However, it now appears that this route is to he distorted to Premier Ky's dictatorial ends. Actually, there are three general kinds of elections that could be held in Vietnam, and two of them could have helped. The best would be an election held throughout all South Vietnam, with all parties participating, including the N.L.F., and supervised by the International Control Commission under conditions of a ceasefire. The second kind of election. which could lead to an all-South Vietnam vote, would be carried out only in the non-communist areas and would result in a civilian government in Saigon that might seek a ceasefire and settlement with the N.L.F. The third kind of election, which is what now seems most likely, would be rigged in many different ways-gerrymandering, movement of voters (particularly troops), limitations on candidates (no communists or "neutralists" may run), intimidation of voters, to mention a few-so that a government agreeable to K y will emerge. In fact, Ky-who was once quoted as saying, "I have only one hero-Hitler"-has arranged the coming election so that there will be no transfer of power from himself until after another election next year. In the meanwhile, it has been reported, he intends to establish a political party of his own, which he no doubt figures can win next year one way or another. The U.S. must not condone such manipulated elections in the name of democracy. If it does, the Ky junta-and the war-will continue.
llltimately, there is only one lever that can be moved now to start toward peace in Vietnam, and that lever is in Washington. The only hand on the lever is that of Lyndon Baines Johnson. The shift that must be made is from the goal of military victory in South Vietnam to the objective of its neutralization in the Cold War. There is no sign yet that Johnson is ready to make such a move. and recently he has become increasingly committed to military victory. There might be some hope in the president's responsiveness to public opinion polls, since his rating has been dropping. But, it is sad to note, most of those disapproving Johnson's course want more escalation, not less. It seems probable they "ill get it.
JUI\E/JULY. 1966
Disarmament Logjam
Time may be running out on the pos~ibi1ity of achieving treaties for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and for the prohibition of underground atomic tests.
Since the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the efforts on non-proliferation alld the banning of underground tests have receiyed top priority in the ]3 Nation Disarmament Committee (E.'J.D.C.i in Geneya in the hope that they would be the next ~tep~ toward di~armament. But the talks haye ground on withoul an~ ~erious approach toward agreement.
On both proposals the r.s. could take initiatives that would open up the logj ams and might well lead to agreements.
The principal obstacle to a non-proliferation treaty has been the idea of nuclear-sharing within NATO. The U.S. says this "Could not be proliferation; the Soviet Union says it would be. In the early stages of ne?:otiations, the Multilateral Force (M.L.F.) was the center of the argument. The M.L.F. would consist of a fleet of nuclear-armed surface ships manned by crew members from various NATO nations-but with an American veto on the firing of its missiles. Then the British proposed an Atlantic N uclear Force (A.N.F.l, which would be largely a melding of existing submarines, ships and planes. Both the M.L.F. and the A.N .F. are dead for all practical purposes, but neither has been formally abandoned.
N ow the main discussion revolves around a possible new arrangement for consultation on nuclear strategy among NATO members. Neither West Germany nor the Soviet lJnion would be wholly content with such a development-Bonn would like to be more directly involved with nuclear hardware and Moscow does not want the West Germans to have anything whatever to do with nuclear arms, even on a consultative basis. However, some close observers of the Geneva talks believe that if the U.S. acted firmly and quickly, West Germany would have to accept the consultative arrangement as the best it could get and the Soviet {Jnion would not find the new system an insuperable obstacle to a non-proliferation treaty. Of course, the M.L.F. and A.N.F. would have to be officially scrapped. Then the E.N.D.C. would have to cope with the other problems of a non-proliferation treaty, including verification and demands by near-nuclear powers for sacrifices by the nuclear powers. But many observers believe these problems could be solved once the NATO nuclear-sharing issue is disposed of.
In the underground test ban negotIatIOns, the problem has long been verification. The U.S. could open up these negotiations either by acceptance of a "threshold" treaty, which would ban all tests larger than a certain low seismic magnitude, or by agreeing to "'verification by challenge or invitation" (see report on page 20). At the moment neither idea has been flatly rejected by the U.S. government, but they are being viewed unfavorably. The problem seems to be that the government is willing to face the risk of a spiraling arms race but is unwilling to run the risk of a few undetected violations of the agreement by the L.S.S.R.
'PEACE' IN THE '66 ELECTIONS Despite traditional sttpport for the government in wartime, 'peace candidates' have been running better than in previous years and have been gradually inc1'easing their percentages of the vote as the current election campaign advances.
In 1962, a distinguished historian "Tho ran for the ti nited States Senate on a peace platform polled 2 per cent of the vote. in the backwash of the Cuban :Missile Crisis. III 1966, in the midst of the Vietnam War, a seasoned Democratic Reform politician who ran for the House of Representatives on a peace platform almost defeated an incumbent congressman, gathering almost exactly half the primary vote in a heavily Democratic district (the election is still under dispute at this writing), and an almost unknown young scholar-journalist who ran on a radical peace platform on the opposite side of the nation carried 45 per cent of the Democratic vote against another incumbent congressman.
This long distance from the H. Stuart Hughes campaign of 1962 to the Ted Weiss and Robert Scheer campaigns of 1966 is the measure of the expansion of peace politics in America over the past four years. Against all historical odds, which would have predicted a collapse of peace commitment and energy in the face of the emotional mobilization brought on by a shooting war l the popular base for peace candidacies has instead been expanded.
The Scheer and Weiss campaigns are useful models by which to describe the new peace politics. for they grew out of different political roots. Scheer's candidacy emerged from the "movement" politics in Berkeley-the hotelintegration sit-ins in the spring of 1964, the free speech rebellion of the fall of 196·'1" the Vietnam marches and the teach·ins of 1965-and moved to involve the Negro ghetto of Oakland in a self·confidently "radical" campaign for peace in Vietnam and new power for the poor at home. It merged such
Arthur 1. Waskow, a resident fellow oj the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. D. C .• is author of The Limits of Defense and The Worried Man's Guide to World Peace. He is a member of the board of the National Conference jar New Politics.
14
By Arthur Waskow
"movemenC' techniques as the SIt-Ill (using one against the incumbent's home office at the outset of the campaign) with the more traditional po· litical campaign. The Weiss campaign, on the other hand, emerged from the Reform Democratic clubs of Manhattan with their anti-Tammany, good-government orientation, and used the traditional electoral methods to run a vigorously "liberal" campaign for a negotiated peace in V ictnam, the transfer of large chunks of money and energy from the military budget into ending poverty at home, and an "active" rather than passive liberalism in Congress. Indeed, the peace politics of 1966 can be seen as the joint product of the ""Kew Left" and the "New Liberals."
Much in Common
What is common between the new groups is at least as important as the distinctions between them. Both reject what they see as the out·dated agendas, formulas, and organizations of both the "'old left" and the "old liberals." Both are more interested in grass· roots political organization than in national manifestoes or conventions. Both devote more attention to the unorganized poor on welfare than to the org-anized labor movement (which excited the old left and old liberals). Both give a much higher priority to the problem of peace than the older organizations eyer did.
Nevertheless. the differences are important. One of the most important reo lates to political strategy. The new left emphasizes grass roots organization of the poor, especially Negroes and Spanish·speaking people, and has discovered that this job is heartbreakingly diffi· cult. The ne,,' liberals emphasize grassroots organization of the middle class, a much easier task, and thus the Reform movements have hardly made a dent in Harlem, Oakland, or Watts. As a result, the new left finds in exasperation that the new liberal talk of "orga11lzlIlg constituencies" assumes a speed and ease that to the new left
seems not only blithe, but calculated to leave the poor even further behind as the middle class learns political expertise; and the new liberals grow exasperated when they are accused by their allies of not caring for eommunity organization or of excluding the poor from their considerations.
Even on commitment to the peace issue, there is a difference. The new liberals focus on the threat of nuclear war. the danger that escalation in Viet· nam will bring war with China and perhaps even Russia. and the need for building some kind of world order. The new left focuses on the reality of counter-insurgent war in the present rather than the danger of nuclear war in the future, protests against the crushing of a small underdeveloped nation by American military power, and praises any tendency toward resistance by the whole "Southern" world {in· eluding China} to the afHuent powers of America, Europe and Russia. Where the liberals see themselves as the conscience of a traditional America temporarily run amok, the new left sees itself as a voice in America for the wretched of the earth trampled by the American march to world power.
Thus have developed the reciprocal doubts~ hostilities, and misunderstandings within the new politics of peace. Nevertheless, some contacts have been made. In the recently-formed National Conference for New Politics, leading individuals from the various streams of new-left and new·liberal politics have joined-hesitantly at first, with greater assurance as they worked together-to raise money and volunteers for the efforts of both the new liberals and new left to carryon elective polio tics. The alliance of the generations and the approaches is symbolized by N.C.N.P.'s choice of Julian Bond, a leader of S.N.C.C., and Simon Casady, a leader of the California Democratic Council, as co-chairmen. Similarly, among the members of its council are
WAR/PEACE REPORT
Dr. Benj amin Spock of SANE and Paul Booth of Students for a Democratic Society, Martin Peretz of Massachusetts PAX and Victoria Gray of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Among the early recipients of its support were Howard Morgan of Oregon, George Brown of California, and Ted Weiss of New York, among the new liberals; and community organizations supporting Negro candidates for local office in Oakland, Newark, and Lowndes County, Alabama, within the new left.
Meanwhile, from whatever stream of the new politics they emerged, the antiwar candidates of 1966 drew substantial support in the primary campaigns, especially those of the Democratic Party. And their support has been in-
creasing. The curve has been nsmg continuously since early May, when peace candidates in Ohio and Pennsylvania were generally getting around 30 per cent of the vote in Democratic primaries (though J ames Pelley and Sheldon Clark in Ohio won Democratic nominations in normally Republican districts) ; through Oregon in late May, when Howard Morgan won 3S per cent of the vote for the Democratic senatorial nomination and Charles Porter won his campaign for a nomination to Congress; through California where not only Scheer but three other peace candidates for Congress (Stanley Sheinhaum. Edward Keating, and Philip Drath) all won over 40 per cent of the primary vote, and where three incumbent peace congressmen (George
Brown, Philip Burton, and Don Ed, wards) were easily renominated; to l\"ew York on June 23, where Weiss almost defeated an incumbent, 1 erome Wilson won easilv over a candidate who would not criticize the war, Melvin Dubin came extremely close to toppling a pro-war incumbent in Brooklyn, and a Negro candidate-nearer radical than liberal-amassed 43 per cent of the vote in white Westchester County, largely because of his anti-war stance.
These increased votes seem to have been tied in part to the nonviolent Buddhist rebellion in Vietnam, which shook the faith of many people that the Saigon government receiving Amer-
'Peace Candidates' Still in the Running There is no clear definition of a
"peace candidate." In the present political clima-te there is a single touchstone - Vietnam - used to identify them, but even on that issue candidates' positions range from opposition to jurther escalation to advocacy of immediate American withdrawal. There is one lIew thrust of the peace candidate8, however; this is the emphasis on the need to use the resources now p;oinp:. into the Vietnam War for other purposes, such as schools, health and transportation.
Altogether, more than 50 peace candidates in some two dozen states have nw for congressional seats alone; others have run for other offices jrom [[.ovemor to stale assemblyman.
California fielded the largest number of peace candidates, with 16 running for Congress. After the primaries, six remained, all Democrats, including three incumbents: Rep. Phillip Burton, 5th C.D,; Rep, Don Edwards, 9th C.D" and Rep. George E. Brown, Ir., 29th C.D. The others are LeRne Grim, 6th CD,; George Leppert, 10th CD" and ',awrence Sherman, 28th CD.
Elections Challenged
N ew York had at least a dozen peace candidacies, including four nemocratic incumbents: Rep. William F. Ryan, 20th CD.; Rep. Benjamin S. Rosenthal, 8th C.D,; fohn G, Dow, 27th CD., and Richard L Ottinger, 25th C.D, Two New York City Democratic primaries are being challenged in the courts by peace candidates who are charging fraud and calling for new elections; these are Mel Dubin, 13th C.D., and Ted Weiss, 19th C.D, In the 17th "Silk
JUNE/JULY, 1966
Stockiag" C.D" represeated by John Lindsay before his election as N cw York City mayor, peace candidale I crome Wilson won the Democratic primary and will face incumbent RepubLican Theodore Kupjerman in November. Three peace candidates oj the Liberal Party won nominations without opposition: Norman Balabanian, .. 14th C.D. (whose candidacy is being challenged in court); Donald P. Feder, 36th CD"and Jerome Balter, 37th C.D,
9 Senate Candidates
At least nine peace candidates It'ill
seek seats in the U.S. Senate: Roy Romer, a CoLorado state senator; Sen. John Sherman Cooper, Kentucky Republican; Herbert F. Hoover, a Quaker and conscientious objector who will oppose Sen. Jack Miller in the Iowa Republican primary in September; DOlin Wright, South Dakota Democrat who will run against Sen. Karl E. Mundt, Republican incumbenl; Maine State Senator Elmer H. Violette, Democrat nominee opposing Republican Sen. Margaret Chase Smith; Dr. David Frost, jormer chairman oj New Jersey SANE, running ill the Democratic primary for the seat held by Republican Sen, Clifford P, Case; Thomas B, Adams, opposing Gov. Endicott Peabody in the September Massachusetts Democratic primary; Detroit Mayor Jerome P. Cavanagh, running in the Democratic primary against C. Mennen Williams, and Rev, Cliff Whitley, challenging Sen. James O. Eastland in the Mississippi Democratic primary.
Among other slates with peace candidates still in the running were these:
FLorida: Joe Varon won the Democratic primary in the 10th C.D.
Idaho: State Sen. Perry Swisher, liberal Republican, will run as an independent in the 2nd CD,
Maryland: Seymour J, Spelman will run in the 8lh C.D. in the Democratic primary; former Mayor of Baltimore Philip Goodman will challenge 7th CD. incumbent Rep. Samuel N. Friedel in the Democratic primary; Rill Martin is running in the Republican primary in the 5th C.D.
New Hampshire: Former Franklin Iv!ayor Eugene S. Daniell, Jr., will run for the 2nd CD. seat in the September Democratic primary.
Ohio: Sizeldon D, Clark and James H. Pelley won Democratic primaries in the 23rd and 24th CD,'s, respectively,
Oregon: Gov, Mark Hatfield, Repub, lican who has been critical of Johnson's Vietnam policy, runs for the Senate against Rep. Robert B. Duncan, an administration supporter; jormer Congressman Charles O. Porter won the Democratic nomination in the 4th CD,
Pennsylvania: William D. Searle won the Democratic nomination in the 13th CD,
Washington.' Richard Lord will run in the Septemher Democratic primary in the 4th CD,; Alice Franklin Bryant will seek the Democratic nomination in the 1 st CD,
Wisconsin.' David Carley, a Democratic national committeeman ami critic of the Vietnam War, will seek the Democratic nomination jor governor in the September primary against Lt. Gov. Patrick J. Lucey, an administration supporter.
15
I
l
ican support was at all popularly based or democratically oriented, and in part to the growing feeling that escalation, not negotiation, was the Johnson administration policy. (Some New York peace candidates felt that if Hanoi had been bombed the day before the election instead of the day after, they would have won.)
Trying to interpret the meaning of the various campaigns in extremely different localities. it seems clear that between 40 and '65 per cent of the Democratic Party is against the war, depending on the locale, and excluding the South. (If both pro-war and propeace incumbents are docked 10 per cent of their vote on account of their incumbency, one finds incumbent George Brown down to 55 per cent and challenger Bob Scheer up to 55 per cent, challenger Ted Weiss up to 60 per cent and challenger Mel Dubin up to 58 per cent.) Aside from the elections, there is evidence for this view in places like Wisconsin~ where the state Democratic convention rebelled against the party establishment:
refused to adopt a resolution praIsmg the president's conduct of the war, refused to adjourn without adopting any statement, and adopted one calling for an early cease-fire and negotiations with the South Vietnam National Liberation Front; and in California where a poll showed Robert Kennedy preferred 2-1 over Lyndon Johnson, among Democrats. Much, though of course not all, of that sentiment can be traced to opposition to the Vietnam War.
are already looking ahead to 1968. There rna y be peace-committed slates entered in Democratic presidential primaries to oppose slates pledged to the president; in some areas, candidates for state and municipal office who see the war as a terrible drain on the money available for housing, schools and health care will make the war part of their campaigns; and in a number of places, congressional ~andidates who lost in 1966 or their campaign associates will run next time. Indeed, by 1968 the possibility looms of a fairly well based series of local alliances between new-left and new-liberal groups, in dose touch with their counterparts across the country, prepared to act together not only on matters of war and peace but on issues of domestic social change, and able to use the techniques of demonstration, protest, and community organization as well as those of electoral campaigning, depending upon the situation. This may only be a dream. but if the Vietnam War eontinues through 1968, the next two years may be expected to see as much growth in peace politics as did the last four .
Prospects for 1968
As for the future of the new peace politics: most of those who lost are working to build a permanent local base. Since the Hughes campaign of 1962 was able, despite its low vote, to build a solid organization in Massachusetts PAX. the chances seem even higher that in'Oregon, California~ New York, Michigan and Illinois, permanent peace-oriented bases exist where they did not before. (Scheer and some of his associates, for example: are planning to run for the Berkeley City Council in 1967.)
Some of the new peace campaigners
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Nellbright and the Great Big Bull
By Arthur Hoppe
Onl~e upon a time there wa~ a Great Big Bull who led his herd into a quagmire. It could happen to anybody_ But in his migbty struggles to get them out he managed only to ~ink them all in deeper.
Naturally, a few memher~ of the herd-mo~tly rehelliou~ young calves-questioned the Great Big Bull's judgment_ Some thought they ought to go hack the way they'd come and some were for charging off to the right or to the left or whichever.
At first, the Great Big Bull smiled tolerantly at this small minority. "It is a trihute to the democratic way 1 run this herd," he said, ~~that 1 allow these well-intentioned hut misguided critic~ to speak out at a time like this. Now let u~ struggle on."
So the herd struggled on, floundering and thrashing ahout. And pretty soon they were all in up to their knees.
"Maybe we ought to stop for a minute to get our bearings," a bespectacled bull named NeIIbright suggested somewhat hesitantly. For all members of the herd were understandably afraid of the Great Big Bull_
"You have the inalienable right in this herd to sugge~t anything you want," said the Great Big Bull testily_ "Even tbough you are obviously blind to experience, deaf to hope and are perhaps ghring aid and comfort to the quagmire. Now let us struggle on!"
So the herd struggled on, floundering ami thrash-
Reprinted with permission from the San Francisco Chronicle.
16
ing ahout. And pretty soon they were all in up to their bellies_
"I know we are the mightie~t and most powerful herd in the world," said the bespectacled bull uamed Nellhright, with a worried frown. ~~But it seeln~ to me our struggles are merely getting us in deeper."
This made the herd a little uneasy. "Nobody," snorted the Great Big Bull, "wants to get out of this quagmire more than I. Now let us struggle on!"
So the herd struggled on, floundering ami thrashing ahout. And pretty soon they were all in up to here.
"We I11Ust tie a rope around our necks and all pull together," ordered the Great Big Bull. "Straight ahead, now. One ... two ••. "
~'But if we go that way," protested the bespectaded hull named Nellbright, "we'll all go right over the ••• "
"Listen, you Nervous Nellie," bellowed the Great Big Bull, frustrated beyond endurance, "you're trying to pull us apart to promote yourself. Anybody who turns on his own leader, his own herd, is a Nervous Nellie. Now, to preserve our democratic way of life, everybody shut up, pull together and follow me."
And it worked! The herd, not wishing to be thought Nervous Nellies by the Great Big Bull, shut up, pulled together and blindly followed their leader -out of the quagmire, up a ~mall rise, and right over an 8,000-foot cliff_
Moral: Silencing criticism in a democracy requires a lot of bull_
WAR/PEACE REPORT
JAPAN, CHINA AND THE BOMB
Notwithstanding China's growing nuclear capability, Japan appears willing to trust its defense to American gtlarantees for the time being. However, Japan does seek a larger role in world diplomacy.
Tokyo The third Chinese nuclear test on May 9, with the evidence it carried that the regime in Peking is embarked on a high-priority program to develop thermonuclear weapons, caused noticeably little stir in Japan. Japanese scientists saw in the test a confirmation of the predictions they had been mak· ing for more than a year on the basis of indirect evidence available to them that China would concentrate its atomic program around the gaseous diffusion process of producing the ingredients for an H-bomb. The Japanese government, which immediately protested the Chinf'se atmospheric detonation as it has the tests of all nations, soon turned its attention to attempting to dissuade France from conducting its fresh series of tests in the Pacific. Fallout from the test reached the shores of Japan vel'y rapidly~ giving rise momentarily to puhlic jitters about the test's dirtiness; as it turned out, most of the resulting radioactive matter was carried aloft into the jet stream and borne across the Pacific Ocean.
Perhaps the most significant observation that should be made ahout the reaction to the test is that it gave rise neither to appeals to accelerate the gradual process of Japanese rearmament that has been going on steadily since 1950, nor to counsels that Japan must, in the face of the danger posed by a hostile, nuclear-capable China, reduce its dependence on the promise of security from the United States in favor of - self-reliance, either in the form of neutralitv, armed or unarmed_ or in the form ~f a J apanese nuclea~ arsenal. In this sense, at least, the Chinese "thermonuclear" test changed little or nothing.
The Japanese have realized for some time that they possess the technological know-how and the industrial base to join the nuclear club. They are perhaps (with the exception of West Germany) the world's leading potential member
Arthur f. Dommen is the Los An. geles Times correspondent in Tokyo.
JUNE/JULY. 1966
By Arthur J. Dommen
of that club. Moreover, they know they can join at short notice, since it is no longer necessary for a nation with their resources to pass through a lengthy, expensive process of apprenticeship. It is estimated by people who know, in fact. that by 1975 Japan will have stocked up enough plutonium from its atomic reactors to produce between 600 and 700 "Nagasaki.type" bombs.
The main question is: Should Japan build these atomic weapons as are· sponse to China's demonstrated deter~ mination to have its own nuclear arsenal? As far as can be seen today, this question has been answered in the negative. Prime Minister Eisaku Sato has told the Diet since the Chi. nese test that Japan does not intend to arm the Japan Self· Defense Forces with nudear weapons, a restatement of a position well known to students of Japanese affairs. Japan's 250,000· man armed forces do not possess nuclear weapons and the ~overnment does not permit American nuclear ,,,"'eapons to be stored on Japanese soil, with the sole exception of Okina\\'a.
Less Tension Now
The Japanese lived through a period of tension with the Soviet 17nion, heginning with the Korean War and the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which excluded the Soviets. (President Eisenhower in his memoirs, interestingly~ says Premier Khrushchev expressed the view at Camp David that the Soviet refusal to be a party to the treat v had been one of Stalin's mistake;.) This period continued through the initial years of the Eisenhower presidency when John Foster Dulles was fulminating about rolling back the communists. The tension the Japanese now feel with China is small in comparison with that of 10 years ago, and there is little sense of impending war. Even the jitters of a year ago, when many Japanese felt that Peking would be obliged to intervene when the United States began bombing North Vietnam, have eased somewhat.
In the long run, perhaps, China's nuclear capability may erode confidence in the American guarantee of Japan's security. But for the foreseeable future, at least, this guarantee remains credible to the Japanese. They fully realize that their country is far too valuable an ally simply to be aban· doned at a time of crisis. Comparisons between President de Gaulle's doubts about the American deterrent in Europe and Japanese feelings are mostly invalid. The situations are too different. Japan, unlike France, is an island nation. and the deterrent threat that most ~f the damage incurred in an at· tack would not necessarily occur on the soil of the victim of aggression operates more effectively in the case of islands. Moreover, Japan's pre·eminence in the Far East is a factor that works in favor of Japan; Japan has no real rivals when it comes to discussing re~donal defense with the United States. Lastly, Japan has in its relations with the United States no past letdowns like the French plea for assistance in Indochina in the spring of 1954, nor has it present ambition to be taken into the planning of American nuclear strategy. The likelihood that Japan will arm it· self with its own nuclear weapons be. cause of disillusionment with its American all\' is small indeed. De Gaulle's nuclear· policy has been attacked by the Japanese press, which is usually considered "left" of the government.
Japan does seek a more active role in diplomatic affairs commensurate with its economic power on the world scene. And it is here that the contradictions begin to become apparent. Can it achieve its aim of a more respected voice without the military strength usually associated with big-power status? The crux of the matter has become the famous Article Nine of the Japanese Constitution, which renounces indefinitely the "right of belligerency of the state." Japan desires to play a larger role in the United Nations,
17
mainly because it sees the United Nations (including Red China, after the death of Chiang Kai-shek) as the best hope for bringing about the world of law and order in which Japan can trade and prosper. But in order to participate in U_N_ peacekeeping missions, this article of the Constitution must be amended, and that in turn requires a vote of the Diet_ The certainty of acrimonious debate within the Diet and possible demonstrations without have compelled Sato to take a cautious tack on the question of amending the Constitution, a stand he has maintained so far in spite of impatient voices from the conservative wing of his party.
Another contradiction now being felt here is that while Japan shuns possession of nuclear weapons and protests foreign nuclear tests from what-
ever quarter, others all around her are moving toward acquisition of such weapons. The government is coming to realize that the "pacifist" appeal is no longer adequate to deal with this situation, and is casting about for a better method of curbing nuclear proliferation. So far it has found none. But Japanese desires to join the Geneva disarmament conference and Japanese participation in such meetings as the recent Stockholm meeting on detection of nuclear tests by seismological methods are evidence that the exploration is under way.
Certain Leverage
The Japanese sense vaguely that their status as a potential member of the nuclear club gives them a certain bargaining leverage. It is, however, not apparent to them how they can bring
Edgar Snow Answers Questions on
this leverage to bear to further the goal of disarmament. Tentatively, they have agreed that the bargaining power' of two or more "potentials" is greater than that of one alone, and this accounts in part for the current Japanese interest in India. While the Japanese recognize that their position is different in many respects, they are also following developments in Europe with regard to the control of nuclear weapons spread.
In summary, then, the Japanese are not overly concerned about the longrange implications of China's developing nuclear capability, they are generally satisfied with the American guarantee of Japan's security, and they are becoming increasingly worried about the difficulty of obtaining an enforceable non-proliferation treaty.
THE U. S. AND THE CHINESE CIVIL WAR Peking's position on Taiwan has been spelled out with some precision, says this China expert in answer to questions submitted by War! Peace Report, and it is not likely to change in the near future.
Q -Ij the United Nations were to adopt a one-China, one·Taiwan resolution, which would provide jor both Peking and Taipei in the General Assembly and Peking on the Security Council, do you think Peking would accept?
A -The answer must be no, if your question means that Taiwan would be recognized as a separate and independent state. If, however, Taiwan were recognized as part of the People's Republic of China, and China were then offered two seats, one for the Republic as a whole, and one for Taiwan as an autonomous area, the arrangement might offer some attraction to Peking. The U.S.S.R. has three seats, including one each for the Okraine and Byelorussia. However, the latter are nomi-
Edgar Snow is the author oj Red Star Over China and The Other Side of the River. He will have another book on China, based on his 1964-65 trip there, published by Macmillan next year.
18
nally autonomous republics within the Soviet federation, whereas Taiwan thus far is regarded as a Chinese province hy Peking as well as by Taipei. If Taiwan were to become an "'autonomous region" and given a seat on that basis, within the Onion of the Republic, why would not Tibet, Mongolia, Ninghsia (Mohammedan) and Kwangsi (Chuang) autonomous regions also be en· titled to separate seats? In fact, such representation would tend to reAect the demographic realities, at least as compared between the P.R.C. and the USS.R., hut the United States and others (India?) might raise legitimate objections.
Q -Would it be possible lor the United States and the People's Repuhlie oj China to make a deal whereby the United States would withdraw its military jorce from Taiwan in exchange for a no-invasion pledge by Peking?
A -China's objections to such a solution have been clearly stated and
have not changed to date. In an interview with me in 1960 Premier Chou En-Iai reiterated them when he said that since the outset of Sino-American talks (at Geneva and later in Warsaw) China "proposed that disputes between China and the United States, including disputes between the two countries in the Taiwan region, should be settled through peaceful negotiations, without resorting to the use or threat of force.
"We hold that the dispute between China and the Onited States in the Taiwan region is an international ques_ tion; whereas military action between the Central Government of New China and the Chiang Kai-shek clique in Tai_ ·wan is an internal question. The United States has maintained that the two ques· tions are inseparable. We hold that they can and must be separated. Since it has been possible for China and the r nited States to hold ambassadorial talks in Geneva and Warsaw, talks can also be held at the same time between the Central Government of China and the Chiang Kai-shek clique. The former is an international question while the latter is an internal question. Parallel
W ARjPEACE REPORT
talks can be conducted and solutions reached separately.
"In the talks between China and the L nited States, agreement on principle must after all be reached first before concrete issues can be settled. The two points of principle on which agreement should be reached are:
"1) All disputes between China and the United States, including the dispute between the two countries in the T ai· wan region, should be settled through peaceful negotiations, without resorting to the use or threat of force; and
."2) Th~ United States must agree to wllhdraw lis armed forces from Taiwan a~l(l the Taiwan Straits. As to the spe· ctfic steps on when and how to with· d~aw, t~ey are matters for subsequent dlscusswn. If the United States ceases to pursue the policy of aggression against China and of resorting to threats of jorce, this is the only logical conclusion which can be drawn. rltalics added.]
"This is the crux of the dispute between China and the United States. The activities and direction of United States policy toward China have aimed at manufacturing 'two Chinas.' In this respect both the Republican and Demo· cratic parties aim at the same thing. ... This scheme would probably be Dpposed not only by mainland China but also by the Kuomintang in Taiwan and the Chinese in Taiwan. Therefore such an approach would lead nowhere but in the solution of Sino-United States relations it would tie thinO"s up in knots." 1 0
China's position (held in Taipei and Peking alike) is that Taiwan is a province of the Union of China and
IThe Other Side 0/ the River, Random House, p. 91.
JUNE/JULY. 1966
there can be but one sovereignty in that nation. For Peking to pledge anythinrr to the United States concerning settle~ ment of internal disputes would be to concede to the Vnited States a legal right to intervene in territory recog· nized by international conventions (of which the United States is a party) to belong to the nation of China.
A fair analogy of the United States demand, which continues, would be hypothesized by imagining the British government having required that Wash. ington, during the war of secession, pledge to it that the government of the United States would not use force against or invade the Southern states in order to restore national unity.
Mao Tse-tung also told me, separately, that "as long as he was alive" China would never start a war with the United States, but he added: "Taiwan is China's affair. We shall insist on this."2
Conversation With Mao
In a hitherto unreported conversation with me in October, 1960, Mao Tse-tung observed that while the People's Republic could never permit the United States to dictate terms concerning the solution of any of its internal problems, there were good prospects that Taiwan could be united with the rest of China through peaceful negotiations. He pointed out that Gen· eral Fu Tso-yi had negotiated an honorable agreement which resulted in the pea~eful liberation of Peking and es· tabhshment of the Inner Mongolia Au· tonomous Region, and that General Fu had ever since been a minister in the State Council. The Dalai Lama had also negotiated an agreement which led
2/bid., p. 608 (rubric).
to the peaceful establishment of an autonomous Tibet. General Lung Yun, former ruler of Yunnan, helped ar· range for a relatively peaceful transi· tion in that area, and there had been other such cases. If, however, the United States had occupied Peking, Mongolia, Tibet, etc., and had demanded that the revolution not use force against them, then it would have proved impossible to secure peaceful national unification and a civil war situation might have persisted, as in the case of Taiwan. If the United States ended its use of force in the Taiwan region, however, Mao thought that there would not be much difficulty in achieving a peaceful integration.
Peking's position rests firmly on insistence that the United States fulfill international legal commitments it undertook, together with Russia and the British government, at Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam, to respect and guarantee China's sovereignty over Taiwan.
It may be noted that Hanoi and the South Vietnam National Liberation Front adopted a similar stand when they declined to concede any legal position for United States armed intervention in Vietnam by refusing to open negotiations with the United States concerning internal disputes of their nation. To negotiate with the United States before it has "first agreed to withdraw its armed forces from Vietnam," or to discuss "specific steps as to when and how to withdraw" before that guarantee is made unconditionally with regard to the settlement of Vietnam's internal affairs, would be to concede to the United States a legal right to violate the sovereign independence and freedom from all foreign intervention and from foreign alliances which was accorded to all Vietnam by the Geneva Treaty of 1954.
United States policy assumes that superior force can compel the Vietna· mese to concede to "unconditional negotiations" conditioned by its armed presence on Vietnamese soil, thereby nullifying a first principle of the Ge· neva Treaty. No one can say how long the Vietnamese can accept the rising punishment they are receiving for refusing to bow to that superior force. It would be highly ingenuous, however, to imagine that China, having as yet suffered nothing like the pain inflicted on Vietnam, would now concede the legality of the use of American armed force in a prolonged attempt to win international recognition for the de jacto American protectorate over Tai· wan.
19
New Hope for an Underground Test Ban
A plan for "verification by challenge or invitation" on underground tests won wide approval at a high-level but unofficial meeting in Canada.
Representatives from the United States and the Soviet Union, acting in their private capacities, found themselves in rare agreement on a major alms control proposal at the International Assembly on Nuclear Weapons held in Toronto, June 23·26. A U.5. official, supported by Soviet and non· aligned participants, proposed an experimental suspension of underground nuclear tests for a limited period during which "verification by challenge or invitation" would he tried.
Among the high officials participating in the conference were Adrian A. Fisher, deputy director of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency; Prof. Vasily S. Emelyanov, chairman of the Soviet Academy of Sciences Commission on the Scientific Problems of Disarmament, and Lord Chalfont, the British minister for disarmament. The speakers for the conference were Solly Zuckerman, chief scientific adviser to the British government; Mrs. Alva Myrdal, leader of the Swedish delegation to the 18 Nation Disarmament Committee (E.N.D.C.) meeting at Geneva, and Lester B. Pearson, prime minister of Canada.
The U.S. State Department, although it has not rejected the proposal, has been extremely cautious in its response. A department spokesman said the United States continued to oppose "an uninspected moratorium" on underground testing. He also noted that in the past the United States had ex· pressed reservations about the concept of "inspection by challenge." (At the E.N.D.C. last spring, Adrian Fisher, in response to the "inspection by chal· lenge" proposal, said, "I submit that we must settle the differences which apparently exist concerning the necessity for verifying on-site inspections before the treaty is signed-not afterwards." He then reaffirmed the U.S. insistence on "obligatory inspections.")
The Toronto proposal would commit the nuclear weapons countries and nonnuclear weapons countries to an experimental use of both the moratorium and inspection by challenge ideas. If the United States accepts the proposal, it will be partly because of the advances
20
in seismological detection techniques that are said to have resulted in a tenfold reduction in the number of unidentifiable seismic events that had been expected in the Soviet Union.
The inspection issue has been the central obstacle to a comprehensive test ban for the last eight years. The U.S. has demanded a certain number of mandatory on-site inspections each year to ascertain that the Soviet Union is not carrying out underground tests. Russia considers on-site inspection to be unnecessary-and an opportunity for Western espionage. It insists that modern scientific detection systems can record any underground explosion of a militarily useful size.
The 'Challenge' Procedure
In an effort to break this deadlock, Mrs. Myrdal has advanced two proposals during the last year at Geneva. First, she proposed a "nuclear detection club" of nations possessing seismological apparatus. This association of nations would pool its resources, knowledge, and findings to make detection of underground tests more accurate. Second, she proposed "inspection by challenge or invitation." Under this system, a country suspecting that there has been an underground test would challenge the suspected party to prove its own innocence. This might be done, to begin with, through some sort of documentation. For example, if the U.S. challenged the U.5.S.R., the latter might send pictures and other documentation to prove that the "suspicious event" was an earthquake. If this did not prove sufficient, the challenged party would be expected to prove its innocence in another manner, probably by an invitation for an onsite inspection. If the challenged country refused to issue an invitation, and the challenging country remained unsatisfied, the latter might begin steps toward the abrogation of the treaty.
Great pressure is being applied to the nuclear weapons states by the non· nuclear weapons states to arrive at some agreement to limit the arms race, and a comprehensive test ban seems the most feasible method at the moment.
Another hopeful measure is the effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear weapons countries through a non-proliferation treaty. However. this issue has become dead· locked o~er the point of whether or not the United States should be permitted to include West Germany in a nuclearsharing plan. In any event, this treaty would restrict only the non-nuclear weapons states. Many of these states have said they do not wish to sign such a treaty unless the nuclear weapons states agree to take other measures to restrict their own arms race. One of the agreed points in the final report of the Toronto conference was the following:
"If the military nuclear powers ask other powers to sign a non-proliferation/non-acquisition treaty while themselves continuing to test; if they embark on a new phase of their technological competition such as Ballistic Missile Defense Systems; if they cannot agree to halt their arms race and to work more vigorously toward nuclear disarmament; if they are unwilling to contemplate a pledge of non-use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear powers; if, in short, they seek to impose restrictions on others without accepting any for themselves, some civil nuclear powers might not be willing to adhere to such a treaty."
Thus, the conclusion of a comprehensive test ban agreement would have two obvious advantages. First, it would prevent, or at least restrict, new countries from developing nuclear weapons, since it is extremely difficult for a country to develop nuclear weapons without testing. Second, it would meet the demand of the non-nuclear weapons states for a treaty that would incorporate mutual responsibilities and obligations between the nuclear weapons states and the non·nuclear weapons states.
There is a third, more pragmatic ad· vantage, at the moment. With the Toronto proposal, it appears that the U.S. and U .S.S.R. are closer to agreement on the underground test ban than on a treaty for non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. - Paul Willis
WAR/PEACE REPORT
.,
I
Latin Progress on a Nuclear- Free Zone
Some problems remain, but there is considerable optimism that some form of Latin American Denuclearization Treaty will be signed next year.
The first nuclear-free zone in a populated area-Latin America---could become a reality by next year.
The Treaty for the Denuclearization of Latin America now exists in draft form, with alternative wordings for disputed points. It was drawn up at the third session of the Preparatory Commission for the Denuclearization of Latin America held April 19·May 4 in Mexico City. The fourth session will be convened on Aug. 30 for the purpose of agreeing on the terms of a single draft treaty.
D~ring the four-month gap between the sessions, the countries involved agreed "to make special efforts ... to reach consensus on the points of difference that still exist." Unless Cuba agrees to sign the treaty and the nuclear powers pledge themselves to respect its terms, certain Latin American countries, led by Brazil and Argentina, sa) they will not sign it. On the other hand. most of the Latin American countries, led by Mexico, would like Cuba to sign the treaty but do not want the existence of the treaty to depend on Cuba's signature. Cuba has refused to sign the treaty unless the U.S. gives up its "aggressive policies" against Cuba. There seems little likelihood that Cuba will soften its position.
The V.S. views the Latin American denuclearization plan as a valuable test and precedent, although it presents certain technical problems, growing out of large American interests in the area. The U.S. has stated that Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands would be excluded from coverage by the treaty since they are U.S. territory. However, the U.s. would be willing to include the Guantanamo Naval Base if Cuba would sign the treaty. The U.S. has also de· clared that under the treaty it should be able to transport nuclear weapons or materials through the Panama Canal.
The Soviet Union has indicated support of the plan in principle but may not formally accept it unless Cuba agrees to its terms.
France has expressed a general skep. ticism over nuclear-free zones but nevertheless has given cautious sym-
JUNE/JULY, 1966
pathy to the Latin American project. France has said that its territories in the area-French Guiana, Martinique and Guadelupe-are departments of Metropolitan France, and therefore cannot be included. However, France did go on record at the commission's last session that its Western Hemisphere possessions would be used only for launching peaceful rockets and satellites.
Britain, which also has possessions in the Hemisphere, has indicated a favorable attitude toward the treaty, although it will not formally commit itself to adherence until it sees the final draft.
China's View Sought
Communist China has not stated its view of the treaty; a commission working group, however, has been directed to make informal inquiries to determine whether mainland China would respect the agreement.
Netherlands, which also has territories in the Caribbean and South America, fully supports the denuclearization idea.
The fact that 16 non-Latin American nations sent observers to the last conference indicates considerable world interest in the treaty. Five nations, West Germany, France, India, Poland and the United Arab Republic, sent ob· servers for the first time to the last session.
It is generally believed that the ques· tion of respect for the treaty by the nuclear powers may he resolved one way or another to the satisfaction of most of the Latin American countries. However, it is expected that the problem of Cuban accession to the treaty will not be solved in the near futur~. A key question, then, is whether the treaty can come into force without a Cuban signature.
According to the clause in the treaty draft favored by Mexico, an Agency for the Denuclearization of Latin America will begin to operate after 11 Latin American countries sign the treaty. It is considered likely that Mexico, which is leading the fight for an early treaty, even if it is not all-inclu-
sive, may already have 11 or more countries on its side. However, Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela have taken the position that all countries south of 30 degrees latitude North must sign before the treaty could take effect. If this position should prevail, it would probably kill the prospect of a treaty.
The treaty provides that the agency would have two main organs, the General Conference and the Secretariat. Under the Mexican draft, the conference would consist of all signatory states; under the Brazilian wording, all Western Hemisphere countries and territories south of 30 degrees latitude North would have to be included. The conference would elect a general secretary of the Secretariat for a three-year term.
The movement toward a Latin American Nuclear-Free Zone began with the adoption by the U.N. General Assembly of a Mexican-sponsored resolution in 1963. The resolution had the support of 13 Latin American nations. In the fall of 1964, the first session of the Preparatory Commission for the Denuclearization of Latin America was held in Mexico. At the last session 21 independent Latin American countries, including Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica, took part (all except Cuba).
If the effort is successful, it will mark the first populated area of the world to be denuclearized, the Antarctic having been denuclearized (as well as demilitarized) by the Antarctic Treaty of 1959. A U.N. resolution passed in 1963 proclaimed the demilitarization of outer space, and there is a good chance that the U.S .• the U.S.5.R. and other powers will agree on a treaty demilitarizing and internationalizing space at the next General Assembly.
Other areas of the world for which denuclearization treaties have been proposed are Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the Pacific. Many of those involved in the negotiations for the Treaty for the Denuclearization of Latin America believe that despite the remaining difficulties, agreement will become a reality next year. -R. H.
21
Le
SHOULD THE U.S. PULL OUT OF EUROPE? Political pressure has been mounting behind a call for a pull-out or cutback of American forces in Europe. But, asks this analyst, would not U.S. withdrawal cause nuclear proliferation in Europe, particularly in Germany?
"ordeal of power" through which the United States is now suffering appears to be inducing weariness among some American political leaders. They seem to be searching for quick and easy means to rid this nation of certain responsibilities - responsibilities which may be both characterized and defended as peacekeeping ones.
One suggestion for reducing America's international burdens is to withdraw American military forces from Europe. Since the faU of 1963 this view has gathered noteworthy support from a number of political figures. In October of that year former President Eisenhower suggested that the American forces in Europe could safely be reduced from approximately six divisions to one. Roswell Gilpatric, then the deputy secretary of defense, made a similar speech in the same month. He suggested that technical advances might soon enable the United States to reduce its manpower in Europe without lessening its protection of that area. Also in that same month occurred the joint Army-Air Force operation called "Big Lift." In this exercise some 15,-000 troops '\Tere airlifted to Europe within three days.
Since March of this year Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, a Montana Democrat, has become increasingly critical of the massive American presence in Europe. Joining Mansfield in his concern has been Republican Senator Jacob K. J avits of New York. In May Senator Thomas J. McIntyre, Republican from New Hampshire, suggested the full-scale withdrawal of American forces from Western Europe, leaving that area to be defended by nuclear-tipped Polaris missiles carried aboard American submarines.
Prof. Lawrence, formerly a staff member of the Hudson Institute and now an associate professor of government at Texas Technological College, recently received a three-year study grant from the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
22
By Robert M. Lawrence
To this chorus was added, in the May issue of War/Peace Report, the voice of Senator Stephen M. Young, Democrat from Ohio. In "The Great NATO Boondoggle," Young urged that most of the tactical units of the American Seventh Army in West Germany be withdrawn. He set forth the major arguments made during the past three years in support of the various withdrawal propositions. Stated briefly these arguments center about the following points: (l) the manpower requirements of the Vietnam War; (2) the halance of payments deficit; (3) the need to holster the domestic economy; (4) the belief that the Soviet threat to Western Europe is substantially reduced; (.5) the economic ability of the Western Europeans, particularly the Germans) to contribute much more to their own defense, and (6) the inereasing capacity of the United States to airlift forces back to Europe in times of increasing tension. In regard to the last point, Senator Young overstated the case somewhat in saying that the heavy equipment of armored divisions, such as tanks, can be airlifted to Europe now. Actually this will not become a reality until 1968, when the C-SA jet cargo plane enters the operational inventory.
Domestic Appeal
In terms of domestic politics, particularly in an election year, the arguments gathered together by Senator Young have an undeniable appeal. The opportunity to save tax dollars, to reo duce the heavy responsibilities of foreign involvements, and to have the NATO nations carry their fair loadall these possibilities are attractive to politicians and the electorate alike. Further, at a time when many Americans are questioning the degree to which their nation has become involved in the affairs of others, it is easy to develop moral qualms over the continued hasing of nearly seven divisions in the center of Europe.
IJnfortunately, Senator Young's points, which are domestically desirable and morally soothing, do not necessarily meet the requirements for a successful American foreign policy in the nuclear age. The present nature of international politics often forces the selection of foreign policies from among disagreeable alternatives. Thus it may be suggested that if the U.S. sincerely desires to settle Cold War differences with the Soviets, and especially if it is serious regarding arms control, including the prevention of nuclear proliferation, then it must fore· go at this time the luxuries associated with substantially reducing its military commitments in Europe.
The matter pivots on the nuclear question. Assume that the United States has withdrawn part or all of its forces from Europe and has publicly urged the West Germans to undertake more responsibility for their defense. Under these circumstances could the United States reasonably expect the West Ger_ mans to refrain from "going nuclear"? Probably not, unless some very exacting and binding agreements had been previously reached in regard to Soviet behavior. Then what if the West Germans take the natural action of building nuclear weapons following an American troop withdrawal? In the absence of guarantees concerning Soviet action, can the United States reasonably expect the Soviet Union to accept German nuclear rearmament?
There are also the smaller, but technically sophisticated, nations of Europe to think about. What forces will be created in their governments to seek nuclear weapons following what would seem to them to be the withdrawal of American protection? A Europe composed of nations striving for nuclear weapons would seem undesirable unless one agrees with the notion that peace will be secure when many nations have nuclear deterrents.
W ARjPEACE REPORT
The thesis suggested here grows out of the question, "Who will benefit should West Germany become a nuclear power?" Even without accepting the menacing portents of revived German militarism and revanchism contained in Erich Fromm's article, "Is Germany On The March Again?" (WPR, March, 1966), reflection should indicate the answer to the question is, "no one will benefit."
There is another reason for the United States to remain in Europe. It may be argued-without falling under Senator Fulbright's indictment regarding the arrogance that flows from power-that the presence of over 200,-000 armed Americans in the heart of Europe exerts a benign influence_ A meteorological analogy suggests the point. Just as a large expanse of water tends to have a moderating influence upon nearby land, so might the presence of almost seven American divisions moderate the political climate of Europe. It seems reasonable to believe that today such a moderating effect extends to Bonn, London, Moscow, and perhaps to Paris. As suggested before, it is far more difficult for the West Germans to convince themselves they need nuclear weapons and additional divisions with the American forces present, than if the United States forces were gone_ In London the American presence is viewed as a guard against Soviet attack and a lid upon additional German rearmament of a nuclear sort. Thus the British can be relatively content with a modest strategic forc~, several squadrons of American FB-Ill's and a handful of submarines carn-inu-
. 0
JUNE/JULY, 1966
American Polaris missiles. As to the Soviets, it is reasonable to believe they have accommodated themselves to the presence of both American troops and nuclear weapons in Europe. The vehement Soviet objection to increased West German participation in a NATO nuclear force suggests they would be even less likely to accommodate to what would be much worse in their view-a German national nuclear force. In Paris one may expect to find a healthy preference for the American Seventh Army at full strength, rather than a resurgent Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht. Lastly, there is the argument that is perhaps best made by Dean Acheson. The former secretary of state contends the American presence encourages the moderate evolution among the Eastern European states toward independence from the Soviet Union, but that it does not encourage senseless armed revolution of the Hungarian type. Rumania today would seem a case to prove his point.
Peaceful Factor
Even with the recurrent problems over Berlin and the rash of abortive attempts at rebellion against the Soviets, Europe has been a remarkably peaceful area since May of 1945. Perhaps even more remarkable have been the evolutionary changes for the better that have occurred in both Eastern and Western Europe in the past 20 years. It is not arrogant to suggest that both peace and change have resulted in part from the massive presence of American military force in Europe since the end of World War II. At the same time, hmvever. it would be arrogant as well as unreasonable to argue that American
forces should or could remain in Eu~ rope forever as a counterweight to rampant nationalism, aggression, and arms races.
At this point, after criticizing much of Senator Young's article, it is time to underscore and expand upon his most worthwhile suggestion. He began his article by calling the reappraisal of NATO, which has been provoked by President de Gaulle's recent actions, a "blessing in disguise." So it may be if we use the current state of affairs to remind us that the situation in Europe is neither permanent nor particularly desirable, and if we use the current problems as a catalyst for thought and action. However, as in any chemical reaction the catalyst agent should be used wisely and with prudence. That is to say ~ thought should precede action.
I t may then be asked what thoughts are germane? As a starter, the decadeold proposals of Eden, Gomulka, Gaitskell, Kennan, Rapacki, and Warburg should be evaluated anew. Instead of unilateral disengagement, these men suggested mutual disengagement, nuclear-free zones, and conventional arms reductions. To these ideas should be added the opportunities now afforded for sophisticated technical observation. These might make verification of arms reduction and/or control plans far less obtrusive to the Soviet bloc and more trustworthy to the Western nations.
In lieu of any NATO nuclear force such as the M.L.F. or A.NT, more study should be devoted to the government's recent proposal for creation of a high.level NATO body, including West Germans, to formulate NATO nuclear policy. This would presumably preclude a German national nuclear force. Senator Young's suggestion fer greater effort to be expended toward securing a non-proliferation treaty is also a worthwhile proposal. Of course, the new generation of arms reduction plans, mutual non-aggression pacts, and economic cooperation treaties should be encouraged.
As the rethinking of the European situation is undertaken three thoughts should be kept in mind: Germany will again become a great power; the Soviets have good cause to take an active interest in European developments, and the French are a people striving for identity and a meaningful existence in a century studded for them with disasters and disappointments. By recognizing these facts, it may be possible to at least maintain stability, and perhaps even develop a degree of harmony~ in Europe.
23
THE LAST ST ACE OF NKRUMAH The fifth book of Ghana's ousted chief is "less mad than the others but then . .. it is less Nkrumah," says this reviewer; nevertheless, Nkrumah makes a strong case in "opening up the unpleasant sores of capitalism."
Poor old K warne. Still trumpeting away in Guinea just as if someone were listening to him, sending weekly missives to his left-wing friends in Britain encouraging them to keep up the good fight-he'll be back in Flagstaff House any day now, and in the meantime keep a stiff upper lip.
It's all rather sad. The man is an exceptional one, driven by a compulsion to prove himself to the world, blessed with a sharp and pragmatic mind, with a quick charm capable of melting the most rigid hearts. For a time, he could do no wrong: he was a post-war man in a decaying pre-war world, seeing with the clarity of a microscopist exactly what diseases infected both the British colonialists and the nouveau-bourgeois who dickered with them, and then operating upon them with the decisiveness of a surgeon. He knew, and they didn't.
In power, he understood as clearly as Lenin the tricks of the trade, what could be permitted and what not. If the British won't allow governmental money to be used for party purposes, set up pseudo-governmental institutions controlled by the party (farmers' councils, women's clubs) and feed in the money that way. If chaotic opposition factions show themselves empty of ideas, challenge them to debate and spread their shortcomings on the dusty red ground for all to see. And if in the end covert tricks don't work, carry out open but swift retaliation on the J ohnsonian principle that might makes right if you do it hard and fast enough.
What caught him up short was his failure to keep his mind on the job, to keep putting into practice the skills he had learned. A Napoleon or a Pitt or a Roosevelt does not slumber. A regime built on the hard interplay of practical power cannot pretend to be endowed
J. Kirk Sale taught history at the University of Ghana in 1963-64 and is author of the book, The Land and People of Ghana. He is now an editor on The New York Times Magazine.
24
By J. Kirk Sale
NEO·COLONIALISM-THE LAST STAGE OF IMPERIALISM. By Kwame Nkrumah. International Publishers. 300 pp. $7.50.
with divine right; a government established upon political manipulation cannot suddenly decide to play by the rules of unquestioned monarchy. In such a case relaxation and contemplation brings not wisdom and mass love but ignorance and mass discontent.
Well, all right, so power is gone. So the worldly trappings are removed and other poor unfortunates saddled with the job of bridging the centuries. But there is at least left the skills learned, the experience gained, and the historical clarity, political sensibility and economic understanding that went before. If there is no more Osagyefo, there is at least K warne Nkrumah, M.A., Docof Africa. There is at least a voice to keep hammering the enlightened line, bringing up short the replacement regimes when they face the same old problems.
Forget the Glory? If only Nkrumah were content with
this role. If only he would forget the pomp of enstoohnent, the adrenelin of military march-pasts, the sycophancy of an unquestioning entourage. Ought there not be an indigenous Bertrand Russell for the African continent, a conscience following the pattern of Thoreau or Montaigne or Socrates? The place for Nkrumah is not, any longer, in the lists, but in the groves: his most useful function now would be to retire with dignity, a dignity fast fading, to a reflective (but not by any means simply honorary) position as Professor of African Unity at the University of Conakry, or Lecturer in Neocolonialism at the University of Cairo, or Dar es Salaam, or Lusaka, or (it should not be impossible) Legon, Ghana.
For Nkrumah is not a man for aU seasons. He has had one season, but it
is past; and now there is another seaspeak to the men who weather the next season, the men who for Africa's next decade will need his wisdom, his (however intemperate) criticisms, his vision. Ironsi does not have it, nor Ankrah, not Kaunda nor Kenyatta. Speak to them, K warne, speak; do not act, do not spout of invasion, speak.
Four times before Nkrumah has spoken: Once, in what was called an autobiography, to say why and how he had become a political figure; next, in a collection of speeches, to show what his independent regime stood for; then, in an impassioned political showpiece, to convince his fellow heads of state of the over arching values of unity; and after that, a mystical efBuence born of "philosophical seminars," to wrap up for all time the principles of political, especially African political, action.
Increasingly mad, you will say; and I agree. The fifth book, published this year in America, is less mad, but then at the same time it is less Nkrumah. Each of the previous four enjoyed, to an increasing degree, the help of various associates-his personal secretary, his ministers, his Western (far-left) advisers, his university-educated proteges. His newest book shows most clearly the hands of other people, specifically of one American economist at the University of Ghana-a fact which subsequently has been all but admitted by those involved. Since these people were more competent than his previous helpers, this book is less mad, more realistic.
F or Neocolonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism, is a valuable book. Of course, it is essentially a political diatribe to hammer home a particular, rather oddly conceived ideology. Like Lenin's book from which it takes its title (Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism), it is a derivative book, misguided and oversimplified in parts,
W ARjPEACE REPORT
impassioned in its attack on the world system. But like the model, it is strong and well-argued, carefully opening up the unpleasant sores of capitalism.
It is also immensely longer. For to buttress the impassioned arguments, Nkrumah has asked his friends to supply him with extensive facts and analyses about the capitalist system as it operates in Africa; the whole middle of the book is filled with long, detailed chapters on "The Oppenheimer Empire," "Mining Interests in Central Africa," "Economic Pressures in tne Congo Republic," "Monetary Zones and Foreign Banks" and whatnot. Indeed, 14 of the 18 chapters deal with such matters, and all are chock-full of tables and charts, interlocking din~cto rates and corporate reports. Here is where the real meat of the book lies.
What grade of meat, I am not able to say with any authority. As near as I can tell, it seems to be close to Grade B, which is not bad; it falls short of the top grade because it is obvious that the data are selected very carefully to prove a point, and where there is room for doubt or the facts are insufficient, conclusions of unblushing certainty are drawn nonetheless. Thus, if an American is found on some small board of some minor company whose Belgian parent has a corporate relation with a secondary mining company in Katanga, it is enough to indicate that Washington is manipulating the Congo. And ~f A.I.D. has given millions of dollars to Africa, this is sufficient to explain why the Ghanaian middle class protests about rising prices Of why some "socialist" scheme doesn't work.
It is especially difficult to grade these facts with authority because the majority are uncited: there are virtually no footnotes, no chapter sources whatsoever, and the bibliography is a mere two pages long (with helpful references like "Marx, Capital"). Moreover, a third of the works cited are openly communist or near-communist.
But this is not to say that the facts and figures are wrong-in fact, I sus· pect that most of them are reliable, and it is for this reason that I commend the book. For there is an immense amount of information here, data col· lected in a single place that is just not available elsewhere. Take it with a grain of salt, but by all means take it.
'A Huge Ideological Plan'
As to the political line, that too needs some care in taking. Nkrumah with all the vitriol at his command is showing the enormous difference between the rich nations and the poor-and condemning the fact that the rich get richer while the poor get children. He doesn't like the world as it is, with good reason, doesn't like the capitalist nations' blind pursuit of their own short-term interests, doesn't like the fact that the world market is in the hands of the West, especially Westerners out for a profit.
But the diatribes to which that rage leads are for the most part less just. Nkrumah cannot believe that Western governments do not aU take political action at every moment at the dictates of Wall Street and the City, "From the end of 1961," he says at one point, '''the U.S. has actively developed a huge ideological plan [whatever that may be] for invading the so-called Third
World." As proof, he can only point to the silly Moral Re-Armament movement and the Peace Corps. The poor Peace Corps, which is doing as much as anyone to educate Ghana, and which supplied what I know to be intelligent and able kids sympathetic to him and the stated aims of his government, is blamed for "acts of subversion or prejudice" and said to be simply an arm of the C.I.A. It is utter nonsense, but this is the way his communist friends like to see things.
Nkrumah is on sounder ground when he once again makes his pitch for African unity. He shows, with a great deal of good sense, that Africa could be a bigger producer and more economically sound if all the countries would get together. But as to reasons why they have not, he can only imagine C.I.A. subversion, Paris bank manipulations, capitalist string.pulling: he might better have looked to his own backyard,
Yet withal, Nkrumah has something to say. Free from the immediate pressures of government and with a chance to reflect soberly, the madness that grew in his earlier works would, I feel sure, evaporate; free from the syco· phants and self-interested communists around him, the exaggerations that mar this work disappear. That is why I say that Nkrumah should retire to the comparative safety of an isolated library and write what he, and he better than perhaps anyone else, knows, and can telL That is the book that T, and many who have believed in Kwame, would like to see; that is the book that Africa needs to have.
New Analysis Challenges U. S. Legality in Vietnam "The tragedy in Vietnam shows
that the law, if disregarded, has a way of reasserting itself. Had the law been followed, not only Vietnam but the American people would have been saved from what Secretary General U Thant has described as 'one of the most barbarous wars in history'."
This statement is part of the conclusion of a comprehensive analysis of L' .S. legal involvement in Vietnam produced by Dr, John H, E, Fried, a former legal consultant at the Nuremburg Tribunals and now a professor of political science at New York University.
Citing treaties signed by the U.S., court decisions in international law, and the writings of international j ur· ists, Dr. Fried systematically challenges every official argument that has
JUNE/JULY, 1966
been used to defend U.S. legal involvement in Vietnam. In particular, Dr. Fried attacks the 52-page memorandum issued by the State Department in March, 1966, entitled "The Legality of the United States Participation in the Defense of Vietnam." He asserts and adduces evidence that the arguments contained in the State Department memorandum "rest largely upon inexcusable distortions of fact and law." Dr. Fried often quotes the same sources used by the memorandum but, by restoring the context or in some cases even the accuracy of the quotation, reveals a meaning the opposite of that intended by the State Department,
Dr. Fried points out that U.S. violations of international treaty commitments are, in essence, violations of the
U.S. Constitution since the Constitution makes treaty commitments the supreme law of the land.
Since Dr. Fried's work is the most comprehensive analysis, thus far, of the legal implications of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. it is likely that it will hecome a basic text for many draft cases, some now pending, in which the defendants are challenging U.S. involvement in Vietnam on legal grounds.
Dr. Fried's paper, entitled "Analysis of the Legality of United States Actions in Vietnam," is available at 50 cents per copy from the Lawyers Committee on American Policy TowardsVietnam, 38 Park Row, New York, N, Y, 10038,
25
ROCKS AND ROSES FOR THE GLASS HOUSE Two sharply-differing new books represent the United Nations as an effective means of collective security-and as an impotent debating society.
These books have one thing in common: They both profess to view the lLN. as it really is and not through the mythology of "man's last best hope on earth. "
Beyond this starting point, however, they have little in commOTI. T. R. Fehrenbach, a former intelligence officer with the U.S. Army in Korea and author of U.S. Marines in Action, quickly establishes his thesis: The U.N. is an impotent debating society. And it is destined to remain that way because the nations that compose it, and their peoples, wiH not face the reality that selfinterest alone motivates the foreign policy of countries.
Wadsworth, former chief of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, takes precisely the opposite view. Rather than seeing a need for more self interest, he says, "I suggest that the major reason underlying virtually all of these challenges [to the U.N.] can be simplified into one word. When applied to international usage that word is 'sovereignty'; when translated into its simplest terms, that word is 'selfishness'."
It would appear Mr. Fehrenbach has the better case to defend. The ambassador appears to be dealing with a hope; the intelligence officer, with the hard facts of life.
This impression does not last long. Fehrenbach's real politic is of a special variety. His is a Stalinist "two camp world" view turned the other way round. What is the U.N.'s function? "The U.N., in Dulles' view," says Fehrenbach approvingly, "was to be a political mechanism to help carry out American national aims. And American national aims, coming from a society without foreign ambitions, were to insure peace and justice. _ ."
Fehrenbach's Manichean hero, logically enough, is Dulles. With scholarly objectivity he states, "The whole story of Dulles' diplomacy was this: he took cold-nerved courage into each confrontation with communist power. ... He played containment the only way it could possibly have been played in the
Roy Bennett is the U.N. correspondent of The Tribune, of London.
2&
By Roy Bennett
THIS KIND OF PEACE. By T. R. Fehrenbach. 402 pp. McKay. $6.50. THE GLASS HOUSE. By James J. Wadsworth. 244 pp. Praeger. $4.95. ---------------
1950's, by 'brinkmanship'. But he only went to the brink because the other side pushed him there. He was not . " aggresSIVe.
Also, logically, he has praise for President Johnson and Dean Rusk. Their dissatisfactions with the U.N., he notes, "were several: One, the organization could no longer aid the tTnited States in its battle against encroaching communist power; Two, the U.N. seemed determined to create disorder and weaken the Western position by attacks on the vestiges of colonialism." Reasonable strategy, the author states, required that the United States keep predominance in the fringes of Asia and over all Latin America.
When the Assembly majority, from 1960, refused to accept this globalist doctrine, Fehrenbach tells his reader, "Mr. Johnson and Mr. Rusk had had enough."
A Dam Against Change The essence of Fehrenbach's view is
not that world government is a myth -although he stresses this point as if it were the immediate question-it is that collective security through an international organization, which reflects the world's power balance, is impossible. To Fehrenbach, the true function of the world organization is to guarantee the status quo under U.S. hegemony. He sees the U.N.'s task as providing a dam against social change, which he calls either instability or communism. He has no understanding of the political consequences of World War II and their considerable effect on the international balance of power: the extension of communist power to Central and Eastern Europe, the emergence of China and the liquidation of the world colonial system.
Thus, he examines the world in terms of yesterday's presumed exclusivity of American power, '''''hile being victimized by his own myth that he is square-
Iy facing today's reality. Almost at the opposite pole of
Fehrenbach's pseudo-realism is Wadsworth's Glass House. In his over-op· tirnistic review, one almost loses the reality that the U.N. was founded as a treaty organization of sovereign nations; that its basic political assumption was unanimity of the great powers. Since this unanimity was aborted at its birth, the organization had to carve out a useful existence with its foundations ripped away.
One could make a good case for the ingenuity, flexibility and resourcefulness of the organization in establishing for itself a creative peacekeeping role -not provided for anywhere in the Charter-and in turning the organization into an effective forum for the underdeveloped world, most often to the discomfort of the big powers, themselves deeply involved in the Cold War.
Wadsworth's aim, however, seems to have been to write a popular book approximately at the senior high school level. He covers the organization's structure, a conventional view of its history and not very much on its probable prospects.
One omission is glaring. Nowhere in the book, although there is a chapter on "Perennial Challenges," is there more than a one-sentence reference to the most significant and consistent challenge that has faced the organiza. tion since 1950: the China representation question. From an author who honestly and fervently believes in the universality of the organization as a step toward world government, this is all the more surprising.
As an uncomplicated overview, the Wadsworth book is a good primer for all its limitations. It gives the reader a sense of presence that could come only from someone who has experienced the day-to-day activity of the organization.
As a pseudo-scholarly, hard-nosed review of the past, present and future of the U.N., This Kind of Peace is en· titled to an honored place on the literature table of, if not the John Birch Society, then, say, the Republican National Women's Committee.
WAR/PEACE REPORT
A Report on the U. N. A.
HOW TO BUILD A BETTER U.N. As one step, the V.N. should assume title to the high seas and outer space and exploit these areas to raise revenue, a V.N.A. report urges.
A proposal that the United Nations assume title to the high seas and outer space - and exploit these areas to generate U.N. revenue - has been advanced by the Commission to Study the Orga;'ization of Peace, a research affiliate of the United Nations Association of the United States.
In other recent developments, the V.N.A.-U.S.A. received a research grant of nearly half a million dollars from the Ford Foundation, held a conference on arms control and disarmament, and elected the chairman of the Xerox Corporation to the chairmanship of its board.
The Seventeenth Report of the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace suggested that the U.N., by ad· ministering rights to the exploitation of the high seas and outer space, could accomplish at least three objectives: it could eliminate a possible source of conflict between nations over rights to resources; it could prevent the spread of the arms race to the ocean floor and to outer space, and it could provide itself with an independent source of income through the licensing of certain resource exploitation rights.
The commission report also suggested a bicameral United Nations, with a lower house that would have a system of weighted voting based on the size and political power of nations. This house would more accurately reflect the ability of the member states to give effect to their decisions. The upper house would, of course, be the General Assembly, with its one-voteper·state system. The two houses would function under a dual-voting system in much the same way that the Senate and the House of Representatives work together in the U.S.
The commission asked for greater stress on the ''"rule of law" in the U.N. To begin with, it urged the government of the United States "to recognize that the United Nations Charter is a constitution and therefore observance of its principles and use of its procedures is not a matter of diplomatic choice or convenience." Second, it urged the U.S. Senate to ratify the four human rights conventions before it. These are the Genocide Convention and the Conventions on Slavery,
JUNE/JULY, 1966
Forced Labor, and the Political Rights of Women. Third, it called upon the U.S. to repeal the Connally Amend, ment, which allows the U.S. to exempt itself from the decisions of the World Court if it so chooses. Fourth, it recommended that the General Assembly promote its International Law Commission to full-time status. Finally, it suggested that the General Assembly appoint a committee to study the possibilities for transforming the General Assembly into a world legislative body.
In the area of peacekeeping, the commission proposed that the secretary general should have a "fire-brigade" of 2,000 men ready for duty in time of crises. The troops could be stationed at various military bases belonging to member states. In a sense, they would become "police stations for the United Nations," the commission said. To finance emergency peacekeeping, the commission recommended a continuing peace and security fund.
The 27-year-old commission was formerly a research affiliate of the League of Nations Association. Its current chairman is Clark M. Eichelberger.
Large Ford Grant
Some new organs of the U.N.A.U.S.A., called the National Policy Panels, came into being as the result of a Ford Foundation grant of $450,. 000. These panels will consider major issues facing the U.S. in the U.N. and other international organizations. The first of the National Policy Panels to be set up will develop policy recommendations on "China, the United Nations, and United States Policy."
Work under the three-year grant will be directed by a Policy Studies Committee headed by Joseph E. John· SOIl! president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Philip M. Klutznik, Chicago businessman and a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Elmore Jackson, until recently special assistant to the assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, will direct the staff work as D.N.A.'s vice president for policy studies.
A less formal panel was organized by the Disarmament Issues Committee of the U.N.A.·U.S.A. to discuss the citizens' report on arms control and disarmament made last fall at the White House Conference on International Cooperation. Among the principal points of the citizens' report were: that the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. proclaim a three-year moratorium on the production and deployment of antiballistic missile systems; that a nonaggression pact be signed between NATO and Warsaw Pact countries; that China he brought into the United Nations and included in a world disarmament conference, and that efforts be made to regularize relations between the U.S. and China.
George Bunn, general counsel to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and a member of the U.S. delegation to the 18 Nation Disarmament Committee, said that, thus far, the Soviets had shown no interest in any moratorium on the production and deployment of anti-ballistic missile systems, although they were obviously aware of U.S. policy on A.B.M.'s from Secretary of Defense McNamara's annual posture statements. He said that the suggestion for a NATO-Warsaw Pact non-aggression treaty was dealt with, in part, by the Bonn diplomatic note of March 25, which expressed a willingness on the part of West Germany to take part in agreements renouncing the use of force in settling any disputes existing between the Federal Republic of Germany and states of Eastern Europe. He said that the U.S. welcomes the Bonn proposal.
On the issue of China, Bunn said that the U.S. had submitted numerous proposals to the Chinese representatives at Warsaw but had received no response. He said that China had rejected participation in the World Disarmament Conference and had also rejected U Thani's suggestion that it participate in the Geneva disarmament talks.
Betty Goetz Lall, for mer I y of A.C.D.A. and now with the National
27
Research Council on Peace Strategy, said that the choice would have to be made between the military integration of NATO and the integration and unifi~ cation of Europe. She hoped that U.s. policy would shift from the former to the latter ohjective. On the China issue, she proposed that the U.S. offer to remove its military forces from Formosa in exchange for a pledge from Communist China not to threaten that island.
Bernard Feld, professor of physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said, "The proposal for
a 'no-first-use-against-non-nuclear-nations' pledge is probably the most important single guarantee which can be given by the nuclear powers."
New Addition. to Staff
Arrangements for the conference were made by Josephine Pomerance, chairman of the Disarmament Issues Committee of the U.N.A.·U.S.A. The other two sponsors were the Congress of Scientists on Survival and the Na· tional Research Council on Peace Strategy.
Two well-known men haw' assumed new positions with the U.N.A.·U.S.A. Joseph C. Wilson, chairman of the
ON THE PEA£E FRONT
New U. S. China Policy Group Formed A newly-formed association of Asian experts called the National Committee
on United States-China Relations will promote widespread public discussion of U.S. policy toward Communist China.
The committee announced that it seeks to promote knowledge about mainland China and high-level debate on policy. It will not, however, take positions on U.S. China policy.
The chairman of the new committee, Robert A. Scalapino, University of California political scientist and Asian scholar, ,said, "The rising American interest over China's role in international affairs has created an increasing demand for objective and analytical information about China. Through conferences, seminars, special studies, and public information the committee hopes to create a constructive atmosphere in which U.S.-China relations can be evaluated in terms of the national interest and peace and security of the world."
Over 50 nationall y prominent academic, business, labor, professional and religious leaders have taken part in the formation of the committee. Among these are John C. Bennett, president of Lnion Theological Seminary j A. Philip Randolph. vice·president of the A.F.L.· C.1.0.; Jerome B. Wiesner, dean, School of Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Grenville Clark, lawyer and author; Robert Gilmore, president, Center for War jPeace Studies; Frederick Barghoorn, professor of political science at Yale University, and many others. Among the Asia scholars are A. Doak Barnett and O. Edmund Clubh, of the East Asian Institute, Columbia University; John K. Fairbank, director, East Asian Research Center,
28
Harvard University; and Tang Tsou, Department of Political Science, University of Chicago.
Shortly after the committee's formation, it was challenged to a debate by the Committee of One Million, an organization opposed to the admission of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations. In reply, Carl F. Stover, a spokesman for the National Committee, said, "Because we do not take positions we are not able to engage in advocative debate with the committee. But, we would be happy to talk with them on jointly arranging public meetings at which issues can be debated."
Although the National Committee on United States-China Relations describes itself as having a wide range of opinions on China, the views of its members are for the most part in opposition to those taken by the Committee of One Million.
CANDIDATES SUPPORTED
The Council for a Livable World, which raises funds both for peace research and for political campaigns in which issues of war and peace are central, is concentrating its 1966 political efforts in four Senate races.
The four being backed by the council include two incumbents, Sen. Clifford P. Case, New Jersey Republican, and Sen. Lee Metcalf, Montana Democrat; the others are Rep.-at.Large Teno
Xerox Corporation, was elected chairman of the board of U.N.A.·l',S.A. James B. Carey, a well·known leader in the international labor movement, has been appointed director of labor participation in the Council of Organizations of the U.N.A.-V.S.A. Carey helped found the International Confederation of Free Trade l Tnions in 19 .. l .. 9. Until recently, he was secretarytreasurer of the A.F.L.·C.I.O.
Former Presidents Harrv S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenho'wer, along with Paul G. Hoffman, administrator of the U.N. Development Program, have been named honorary chairmen of the l:.N.A.·U.S.A.
Roncalio, Wyoming Democrat, and Ralph Harding, Idaho Democrat who was a congressman from 1960·6~.
The Council has also made limiteJ contributions to six other contests, three for the Senate and three for the House. Senatorial candidates who have received help are Thomas B. Adams (D.·Mass.), Howard Morgan (D.·Ore.), and Roy Romer (D.-Colo.). The candi· dates for the House, none of whom face primaries, are George Leppert (D.·Calif.·lOth C.D.). Rep. John G. Dow (D.·N.Y .. 27th C.D.), and Ed Ca· denhead (D.-Okla .. lst C.D.).
The Council for a Livable World was founded in 1962 by the late Leo Szilard "to turn the world off the road to war." Its current president is Bernard T. Feld, M.LT. professor of physics. In seeking candidates the council looks for individuals with foreign policy views it considers construe· tive who have a realistic chance of winning. Council headquarters are at 1346 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Washington D.C. 20036.
U_ W. F_ ON VIETNAM The United World Federalists urged
the United States to "employ the good offices of the United Nations, the Geneva Conference or other international body for resolution of the conflict" in Vietnam, at their 20th Assembly June 17·19 in Washington, D.C. They also called for inclusion of the National Liberation Front in peace talks.
The action followed a poll of the membership made in March, in which 74 per cent of the Federalists replying favored recognition of Viet Cong representatives as a "primary party" to the negotiations. The replies were also
WAR/PEACE REPORT
strongly in favor of de-escalation in Vietnam and further U.N. involvement.
Jerome B. Wiesner, provost of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former science adviser to President Kennedy, told the Assembly, '''Disarmament after World War III is not attractive to me. The task for us today is to insure that we find peaceful means to adjust our international structure." Wiesner advocated that nuclear powers commit one half of one per cent of their military budgets to the U.N. or· gans for peacekeeping and economic aid. "It obviously takes more courage to switch than fight," he said.
Lord Caradon, Britain's permanent representative to the United Nations, declared, "Many governments have not accepted the purposes of international order or even the aim of peaceful settlement of international disputes." Later he said, "We must in the future look for peace and progress not to national power but to international authority." Defending the United Nations, Lord Caradon said, "'Of course the United Nations is in trouble. The United Nations is in the trouble business."
Arnold S. Zander, formerly international president of the Amer"iean Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, succeeded C. Maxwell Stanley as president of U.W.F.
Randolph P. Compton, controller of the New York U. W. F., was named ""Federalist of the Year," and Federal· ist Founders Awards were presented to Senator Georg-e S. McGovern of South Dakota and Secretary of Defense McNamara. After the award to McNamara, several Federalists walked out in protest, tearing up their membership cards on the way.
C.N.V.A. FARM HARASSED Frequent raids by groups of irate
young men hurling firecrackers and stones and threatening to "get the pacifists" have harassed the staff of the New England Committee for Nonviolent Action at their headquarters in Voluntown, Connecticut.
Originally created as a summer proj.
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eet in 1960 to protest the launching of Polaris submarines, the New England C.N.V.A., known as the Polaris Action Farm, sponsors year-round peace education projects and anti-war demon· strations.
The Polaris Action Farm is not the only scene of harassment. The Boston C.N.V.A. has had to move because the building in which it was housed had been b;oken into. ~t on fire and torn up.
The New England C.N.V.A. commented, "It is a statement of this country's health that those who so strongly believe in the war and its pur· pose to defend freedom and democracy. should take it upon themselves to u~~ terrorist tactics to dispel the freedom of others."
INGO DISARMAMENT SEMINAR The recent International Non-Gov
ernmental Organizations Disarmament Seminar held at Geneva was attended for the first time by two communist groups: the World Federation of Scientific Workers and the World Association of Democratic Y Duth. Representatives of the 38 organizations present heard several speakers from the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Conference,
including delegates from the United States, U.S.S.R., Poland. Sweden and Canada.
Pointing out that the Test Ban Treaty of 1963 resulted from the pres· sure of public opinion, E.N.D.C. representatives urged the non-governmental organizations to stimulate pub· lie opinion and influence their governments to take more positive action on disarmament.
For the immediate future, plans were made to develop public support for the proposed World Disarmament Conference in 1967 and to consider the possibility of an N.G.O. meeting in conj unction with that conference.
COMPUTERIZED LAW It is technically feasible now to set
up a system so that lawyers can punch a button and within seconds have the law of Italy on wills, the law of Greece on taxes, or the law of any other countryon any other subject, Charles S. Rhyne, president of the World Peace Through Law Center, declared before the annual banquet of the North Dakota Bar Association on June 24.
Rhyne said that on June 21 a system went into operation whereby for $10 one can have the full text of anyone of
"No more war, never again war. Peace, it is peace which must guide the destinies of peoples and of all mankind."
POPE PAUL VI, before the United Nations
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some 3,000,000 federal and state court decisions stored in Western Union's "on line" computer drums, within seconds.
The World Peace Through Law Cen· ter, which has its headquarters in Geneva, has agreed to use a computer plan of George Washington University Law School under which the tax laws of all nations will be stored and re· trieved, said Rhyne. "I hope that hI> fore long a lawyer of North Dakota whose client is selling grain to some foreign nation can get the contract law, or other law, of that nation in seconds. Computerization of law is no longer a dream. It is fact."
In explaining the relationship of do· mestic law to world law, Rhyne said, "It will be impossible to put a meaningful over-all roof of law on the world in the form of international law unless and until law within nations is strengthened to provide a better foundation."
In August Rhyne will make his second trip to Russia with leaders of the bar from other nations in an effort to reach agreement with Russian lawyers on ways of cooperation, including use of the center's library and the law computerization projects.
Rhyne said, ~~We are at the point where I have been given a ~guestimate' of $15 million as the overall initial cost of a worldwide computerized law system."
PEACE GARDEN VIGIL
An international inter-church vigil for peace will be held on Labor Day, September 5. The vigil, initiated by the peace organizations of the Mennonites, will be held at the International Peace Gardens on the U.S.-Canadian border between Dunseith, North Dakota, and Boissevain, Manitoba.
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The International Peace Gardens are set in the Turtle Mountains midway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They were dedicated on July 14, 1932, and a cairn on the international boundary pledges the two countries never to take up arms against one another as long as men shall live.
The vigil will include prayers, medi~ tations, sacred and folk music and two major addresses.
SANE'S UNION DIVISION
Thirty New YOik labor unions met in early May to form the first Trade Union Division of the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) .
The union leaders stated their opposition to continued escalation of the Vietnam War and urged that negotiations be sought "among all those involved in the armed struggle" in Vietnam.
The new group plans to encourage discussion and debate at union meetings and in the pages of their union newspapers. They hope to stimulate discussion in other parts of the country in an effort to form a national trade union division of SANE.
WATER FOR PEACE
A proposal to hold an International Conference on Water for Peace in 1967 was introduced in the Senate on June 15 by Senator Fulbright. The confer· ence would be held in the U.s.
Fulbright said that the proposed legislation had been requested by the secretary of state. The resolution, which
asserted that "there exists throughout the world a common problem in planning the use of water to meet adequately the needs of the world's rapidly expanding population," was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
WAR PLEBISCITE SOUGHT
A national referendum on U.S. policy in Vietnam was proposed by New York State Supreme Court Justice Samuel Hofstadter in a letter to Senator Robert Kennedy.
Contending that "the Vietnam War cannot he considered as within the sole province of the executive department" and that "the members of Congress ... have defaulted in their obligation as guardians of the people's trust," the judge urged Kennedy to introduce a resolution in Congress to place the referendum, reflecting the di. verse views on the war, on the ballot in November. The results of such a vote, according to Hofstadter's proposal, would be "morally controlling" on President Johnson.
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WAR/PEACE REPORT
r
LETTERS TO TilE EDITOR
To the Editor:
The Lesson of Munich Russia, and a world community almost united in .its hatred of American imperialism.
What was the real blunder of Munich?
100,000 Copies now in print
QUESTIONS AND Representative McCormack has now
added his voice to those who warn that if we don't continue fighting in Vietnam, there will be a second Munich. Those subscribing to this dramatic but" naive analogy include representatives of the military and State Department as well as various editorial writers.
In Western Europe and the U.S., the hysterical fear of communism blinded us to the greater evils and dangers of fascism. The West helped Hitler to re-arm. It was profitable business. Lyndon Johnson called Diem a 'Churchill,' and publicly embraced General Ky, a professional admirer of Hitler. In Vietnam, Santo Domingo, Cuba, Haiti, Guatemala and Spain the U.S. is supporting, or has supported, Fascist-like military dictatorships.
ANSWERS ON THE
Let us examine the alleged parallel be· tween the Nazis and the Communists. The Nazis frankly believed in and practiced the subjection of women. The Communists do not. The Nazis were racists convinced that the Master Race had a right and an obligation to rule over the lesser breeds. Not so the Communists. Hit Ief glorified international war; declared that it kept a nation clean and strong. The Communists recommend such wars to the capitalist nations for their mutual destruction, but try to avoid fighting such wars themselves. Russia tried to intimidate Finland, but when war developed .it quickly settled for co-existence. Russia fought Hitler out of stark necessity, in self-defense.
Hitler's threat was monolithic. Communism under Stalin had some of this character, but now, monolithic communism is a legend. Yet it is still cherished by the military mind, which sees a simple solution to most international crises: namely, victory in international war. Russia's satel1ites are demanding and getting more autonomy. Communism has signally failed in Ghana and is on the skids in Indonesia and elsewhere. Ho Chi Minh has always distrusted China and fought against Chinese control. The Viet Cong, many of whom are neither North Vietnamese nor Communists, have a similar attitude toward Ho.
Would it not be wise strategy to assist the growth of decentralization, of plural. ism and liberalism in the old dogmatic communist ideology'! Would it not be smart to strengthen such tendencies by encouraging trade and economic aid to the deviants '!
In"tead the U.S. is making great sacri· fices, doing its best to drive the quarreling Communists together. The U.S. mav bring about what sane Americans mo~t fear: nuclear war against China and
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Yes, Munich is a warning all right, but not precisely for the reasons that have been advanced.
GERALD BARNES Denver, Colo.
Neither Communists Nor Fools
To the Editor: Just a word of congratulations on your
April issue. The China debate cover is excellent, and I fully agree that the recent debates are the start of a great and much-needed discussion on what has been spoken of (if at all) in whispers as "the China question" for too many years.
For the first time in years people are coming to realize that all of us who are in favor of a more realistic view of the lUainland are not Communists or even necessarily fools out of kindergarten.
ROBERT L. MAYALL Asian Information Service Editorial Director
New York, N. Y.
JUNE 1966 ISSUE (IX, 2) :
UNITED NA nONS
4th Edition, 1966
By Arthur Larson
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RESOLUTION
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Predicting the termination of war: battle casualties and population losses Prank L. Klingberg
On the identification of real and pretended Communist military doctrine George Quester
Coping with Cuba: divergent policy preferences of state political leaders Paul Ekman and others
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i
WPR INDEX-JANUARY-JUNE/JULY, 1966 The {oHowing articles appeared in
War/Peace Report from January through June/July, 1966. (Indexes appear in June and December each year. Back ,copies are available at 50 cents each.)
JANUARY-Another 'Vietnam' in Af. rica?, an interview with Dr. Eduardo Mondlane, leader of the Mozambique Lib. eration Front, with a comment by the Portuguese Embassy to the U.S.; What Chance for Universal Rights?, by Roger N. Baldwin; The Big Blackout: Unwit· ting Rehearsal for NucJear War?, by Tom Stonier; Toward a U.S. Peace Movement, by Homer A. lack.
FEBRUARY-Special Issue: Is the U.S. Losing the Cold War?: The West Loses its U.N. Majority, by Roy Bennett; The Failure of Cold War I, by D, F, Fleming, with a commentary by the edi· to.r of WPR and. a reply by Fleming; VIetnam: Where dId the U.S. Go Wrong?, by Stanley K. Sheinbaum; New Chal. lenge From Cuba, by Marshal1 Wind· miller.
MARCH-Is Germany on the March Again?, by Erich Fromm; How to Co· exist in Vietnam, by the foreign editors of !he Economist, of London, and of Pohtyka, a Polish weekly, with a com· ment from the editor of WPR; Letter From a G.I. in Vietnam; A Minority View: Disarmament and the Economy, by Sumner M. Rosen; Arms: How Much is Enough?, by Harland B. Moulton; Is U.S. Involvement in Vietnam Legal?
APRIL-The Great China Debate Be· gins: The Case for 'Containment But Not Isolation.' excerpts from statement of A. Doak Barnett before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; 'China . . . A Sort of Land Animal,' excerpt from C.B.S. television program with John K. Fairbank and Dr. Alice L. Hsieh; The House of Lords Debates China' China, The U.N., and the U.S., by Loui~ B. Sohn; also, The Day Victory Came to ~ est Vhtnnng, by Arthur Hoppe; Halt· mg the Spread of Nuclear Arms, by Josephine W. Pomerance; An Inter.R~. ligious Exchange on Peace, by Herman Will, Jr.; Arms Control Debate: 'High Posture' or 'Low Posture'? (Report on the Third International Arms Control Symposium).
MAY-The Great NATO Boondoggle, by Senator Stephen M. Young; Dulce et Decorum Est, poem by Wilfred Owen; More 'Humane' Warfare in Vietnam?, by Amitai Etzioni; Vietnam: 'End of the Road for Indiscriminate Anti·Commun· ism'?, by Roy Bennett (Report on the 1966 national convention of the Ameri· cans for Democratic Action) ; The 'Face' of the Viet Cong, by Jean Lacouture (rf" view of an article, "The Faceless Vit't
Cong," by George A. Carver, Jr., in Foreign Affairs); What are the Rules for Coexistence? by the foreign editor tlf The Economist, with a comment by the WPR editor; South West Africa: Test for the Rule of Law, by Elizabeth S. Landis; A Power·Conscious Peace March, by Jennifer Seymour.
JUNE/JULY-How Nations See Each Other, by Jerome D. Frank, M.D.; What Should the People Be Told?, a discussion of press coverage of the Vietnam War, with Morley Safer, Arthur Sylvester and others; 'Peace' in the '66 Elections, by Arthur Waskow; Nel1bright and the Great Big Bull, by Arthur Hoppe; Japan,
China and the Bomb, by Arthur J. Dommen; Edgar Snow Answers Questions on the U.S. and the Chinese Civil War; New Hope for an Underground Test Ban; Latin Progress on a Nuclear-Free Zone; Should the U.S. Withdraw From Eu· rope?, by Robert M. Lawrence; The Last Stage of Nkrumah, by J. Kirk Sale; Rocks and Roses for the Glass House, by Roy Bennett; How to Build a Better U,N,: A Report on the U,N,A,
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