Some editorialists looked in vain for their cherished “new approaches” in Secretary of State Dulles’ speech last week to the California State Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco; but as a summary of U.S. foreign policy, the speech was notable for the centuries-old news that a fighting faith in freedom is positive foreign policy in the truest sense: Excerpts:
IT is our policy to check the Communist use of threat of force by having retaliatory power and the will to use it, so that the Communist use of force would obviously be unprofitable to them. I emphasize both the power and the will, for one without the other is useless. Also, that will must be sufficiently manifest that potential aggressors will calculate that they could not aggress without disaster to themselves.
Furthermore, vast retaliatory power should not be and will not be invoked lightly. There must be an ability to oppose what may be limited probings in ways less drastic than general nuclear war. A capacity quickly to help Lebanon; such power as was rapidly deployed in the Formosa area; the presence of U.S. forces in such areas as Berlin, West Germany and Korea, all contribute essentially to the peace and security of our country.
The free nations which have accumulated capital need to assist the less developed countries to carry out, in freedom, development programs. The peoples of the less developed countries must feel that they live in an environment that is made dynamic by forces that will lift them out of what, for most, has been stagnant morasses of poverty. This task is, in the main, one for private capital and normal trade, but government must effectively supplement private efforts.
The Magnet. It is never sufficient to be defensive. Freedom must be a positive force that will penetrate. Freedom is still a magnet that attracts. Let me recall some facts:
¶Of the Chinese Communist prisoners taken in Korea, two-thirds rejected repatriation.
¶In Korea about 2,000,000 have gone from the Communist North to the South.
¶In Viet Nam nearly 1,000,000 went from the Communist North to the South.
¶During the Hungarian rebellion 200,000 escaped to freedom.
¶In Germany over 3,000,000 have gone from East to West.
Indeed the evidence seems to suggest a “law” of popular gravitation to democratic freedom. Within the past five years there have been violent outbreaks in East Berlin, East Germany, Poland, Hungary and Communist China. Today the Soviet rulers threaten West Berlin. Why? It is simple. It is because they have been put on the defensive by the inspiring demonstration there of what free men can do. Internally, Red China is feverishly imposing a communization program designed quickly to transform the Chinese nation into a great military and industrial power. The program involves human slavery, and cruelty on a scale unprecedented in all world history.
The Weakness. Communist rulers have shown a formidable capacity to impose their rule. But if free men show the good fruits of freedom, the enslavers will always be on the defensive and will face the ultimate collapse of their system.
Materialistic despotisms, with their iron discipline, their mechanistic performance, their hard and shiny exterior, always seem formidable. Democracies seem to stumble and falter; they advertise their differences and always seem vulnerable. But history has demonstrated that democracies are usually stronger and despotisms are always more vulnerable than they appear. For example, it is impossible for Communist nations to develop into modern industrial states without a large degree of education. But minds so educated also penetrate the fallacies of Marxism and increasingly resist conformity. Also, there are increasing demands on the part of the subject peoples for more consumer goods, for more of the fruits of their labor.
Such internal pressures are bound to alter the character of the Communist regimes, particularly if these regimes are denied the glamor and prestige of great external successes. You may recall that when Khrushchev, in 1956, attacked the abuses of Stalin, he explained that they could not have been corrected earlier because “many victories were gained during his lifetime.”
To deny external successes to International Communism is not merely a negative, defensive policy. It accelerates the evolution within the Sino-Soviet bloc of policies which will increasingly seek the welfare of their own peoples rather than exploit these peoples in world conquest.
If the non-Communist nations hold fast to policies which deter armed aggression; if they prevent subversion through economic processes; and, above all, if they demonstrate the good fruits of freedom, then we can know that freedom will prevail.
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