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In Asia he attacks the Democrats for their most disastrous foreign policy failure: "The Administration passes on to the people this cheerful, if astonishing, news: 'We have blocked the road to Communist domination of the Far East.' In honest stupefaction the people must ask: Can this man [Adlai Stevenson, who made the remark on Sept. 27 in Louisville] be serious? Can an Administration frankly confessing that it could not prevent the loss of China—the whole heart of Asia—have the audacity to boast nonetheless of having 'blocked' the Communists in Asia?" Eisenhower favors an effective Pacific defense pact. He advocates top priority in U.S. aid to the "newborn and reborn nations" of Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Korea. Eisenhower has said repeatedly that we "must make certain that those southern Koreans . . . can be prepared to defend their own front lines" with only relatively small U.S. forces remaining. He has not said that such a changeover can take place in the near future. He has not advocated U.S. withdrawal. He has said several times that he has no panacea to offer for the ending of the Korean war. But in his Detroit speech last week, in which he pledged to go to Korea himself, if elected, to survey the situation (see above), Eisenhower denounced defeatism which "dares to tell us that we, the strongest nation in the history of freedom, can only wait, and wait, and wait."
Communism at Home. He pledges to cleanse the Government from top to bottom of subversives, without using the methods that wound "the innocent as well as the guilty . . . Freedom can defend itself without destroying itself."
One of the Democratic charges against Eisenhower is that he is vague on issues. Actually, while Ike's prose is vague in style, his speeches are highly specific in content. He has never made a speech so specific as Stevenson's Labor Day speech on the Taft-Hartley Act—but Stevenson has never made another one like that, either.
It is evidence of Ike's amazing education about U.S. affairs that he has discussed in detail an extraordinarily large number of issues, and has been a good deal more specific than most political candidates. Some of the issues:
FEPC. Against a federal compulsory FEPC on the grounds that it has no chance of passing the Senate, would therefore be of no real help in the fight against discrimination. He favors state FEPCs, and has promised that as President he would do everything in his power for state legislation against discrimination, including presidential influence on governors. He also promised strict anti-discrimination policies in federal employment.
Social Security. Wants to improve and extend it, particularly in regard to old-age pensions. "I believe the social gains we made are overwhelmingly supported by everybody and they are no longer a political issue."
Socialized Medicine. Against it, but for use of federal aid to local hospitals and public health programs, etc., where states are doing an inadequate job.
Education. Against federal aid to schools, except where states are doing an obviously inadequate job.
Farm Policy. For price supports at 90% of parity.
Labor. For retaining and amending the Taft-Hartley Act, against repealing it.