ADDRESS BY THE HONORABLE ALLEN W. DULLES BEFORE THE US ARMY WAR COLLEGE, CARLISLE BARRACKS, PENNSYLVANIA 9 JUNE 1959 "NSS" THE WORLD SITUATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80M01009A001502780003-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
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• Document Page Count: 22
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 20, 2013
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: June 9, 1959
• Content Type: MISC

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ADDRESS BY THE HONORABLE ALLEN W. DULLES
BEFORE THE US ARMY WAR COLLEGE, CARLISLE BARRACKH, PENNSYLVANIA,
9 JUNE 1959
"NSW." THE WORLR,SITUATIQN
General Ennis, members of the Army War College, and distinguished
guests, it is a great pleasure to be here with you today. I have had
the honor and privilege to participate in' many of your previous meetings
of this character and I have always deemed it a high prtvilege. I
don't know any better audience before whom one can appear than one such
as this. It is always an inspiration to me to ,do it.
I wish to thank -you General Ennis, for your kind words of introduction,
you have had some very? encouraging words to say about intelligence. I
may say that the intelligence structure, as it is now organized in
Washington is a composite, a coordinated, and a united effort. I have
just come this morning before I arrived here, from a meeting of what we
call the USIB, the United States Intelligence Board. In that during
the past years, we have now collected together all those competent in
the government to deal with intelligence, and we have put into that
body dealing with all of our intelligence problems. I am deeply
grateful for the cooperation which we receive in that Board from the
Army Intelligence Organization, as well as from' the Intelligente Chiefs cf
of the other armed services, Defense, Department of State, Atomic Energy
Commission, the FBI, and I should have put it earlier -- the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. I hope General Ennis that you will kindly thank'my' good
friend Wilbur Brucker for the very kind words that he has sent here
today, the distinguished Secretary of the Army is an old friend, and a
real leader.
You always give me a nice easy subject to deal with -- small in
compass, succinct and one that can be easily encompassed in an hour or
50 minutes; namely, the World Situation. You will therefore excuse
Copy 1 of 3 copies.
It
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me if in dealing with it, I divide it up as best I can, touch upon the
points that I consider the most important; but if there are grave admissions
please do not necessarily conclude that I have ignored the particular
problem you may have in mind but that I haven't been able to get it into
the compass of the time allowed me, and that possibly during the question
period, we can then deal with some of the matters that interest you
that are not covered.
I propose therefore, to give what I might call a general balance
sheet, rather than a detailed appraisal of the situation as we face it
area by area. So try to give it analysis of the major forces of pro
and con affecting our position vis-a-vis the Communist Bloc as our
major potential opponent and the -major trouble-maker in the world
today. And then I will deal with other problems because while we can
ascribe most of our troubles to the communists (well there were some
troubles even before there were Communists and we can sometimes make the
mistake of ascribing everything that we have to deal with to ROM4
Machiavellian plan invented either in Moscow or Peiping.)
The basic element in this analysis is an understanding of the
objectives of international communist movement. Here I think we can
agree that over the years there has been no change in purpose on the part
of the leaders in the Kremlin or in Peiping. They still preach and they
still believe in the ultimate overthrow of our free world system, they
like to call it the Capitalist System and hence, the Communist take-over
of the Free World. Their techniques change, they can alter their timetables,
their objectives remain. And I think it is important to distinguish here
between the aims of international communism and the aims of the more
limited nationalistic objectives of the old Czarist Empire. If I can
indulge just a moment in a personal remark, during these last weeks
before my brother's death I had many talks with him, and the one thing that
I think worried him the most as he looked toward the future was not our
inability to deal with the Communist menace but possibly our difficulty
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in understanding its aims,. I remember he said to me again and again:
"We must clearly distinguish we are not up against
a Czarist type of objective, limited, it may be
large, but still limited. The aims of the Communist
movement are world-wide; they have no frontiers;
they wouldn't be there and-not satisfied with con-
cessions but merely feedon concessions and as the
French say, La petit croix plangent, the more we eat,
the hungrier we are.'
t
In promoting these aims the international Communist movement is trying
to press back the outposts of freedom, like Berlin, the Taiwan Straits;
it is probing weak spots around the periphery of the ?Communist orbit,
Iraq, Iran, Laos, ?and then going further afield as trying to subvert the
weak and newly-emerging states everrfaraway from the periphery of the
Communist orbit; for example, Black Africa, Indonesia and the like.
An analysis of past balance sheets show serious debits in the latter
days of World War II and the immediate post-war period. Then, it seems
to me that our understanding of the aims of Communism were blurred by our
military partnership with Russia, and by ill-placed hope in Soviet futute
intentions. During this period, Eastern Europe andllainland China were
lost to Communism, I haven't time nor haven't had any real inclination
to try to pass On now whether this result could have been prevented by any
action an our part short of war. I am merely constating that it did
take place and possibly we did not realize clearly enough that it was
taking place.
But going back a little over 10 years, beginning with, the Truman
Doctrine for Greece :and Turkey-in .1947, and following through. the days
the: Berlin blockade in-1948, and then-later in 'North Karea, and its
attack on the Sout#, thewar:cver ITOrth Vietnam, we began: to' gain increasing.
understanding -of Soviet aims, increasing byrappreciation_of their-
teChniques. And in:. this education .we: went through, the bloodless takeover
by: subversionn-cf Czechoslovakia, and. the veryseripua,threat to- France
and to Italy, particularly to Italy in: 1948 helped to' educate us..to.
the problems before us. However, I am. 'not sure on. ..a country-wide, basis",
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and certainly this applies even more strongly to some other countries,
whether we now have an adequate awareness of this problem that we face.
It is too easy to be befuddled by the temporary appeasing attitudes of
the Kremlin; which in my opinion are intended only to lure 'us into
forgetfulness while they carry on their plans.
During this period I mentioned, if we look at it from a balance sheet
basis -- that is 10 or 11 years, the lasses by the free world in terms
of territory and people roughly balance the gauge. The one major loss that
we had territory-wise, was in North Vietnam which, passed behind the Iron
Curtain and to balance that, we had the recovery for the Free Wbrld
of the Soviet Zone Of Eastern Austria. Bence, eyen looking at it from
this point of view, I don't approach the future or even the immediate past
with the pessimistic gloom that I find sometimes our columnists and others
(
,take. We haven't done so badly during recent years, we have not retreated
and I don't see why we should retreat in the future.
Further, as we look at the balance sheet economically and politically,
the major free world powers in Europe, and Japan in the Far East, have
been very substantially strengthened during this period. Now to counter-
balance that to some extent, we have the fact that the relative military
power of the Soviet, particularly in acquiring a nuclear capability, and
guided missiles has increaded. So the Soviet vis-a-vis this country is
certainly stronger than it was 10 years ago when they were just detonating
their first nuclear bomb.
And further, entering into this balance sheet as possible debits hut
not necessarily so for the Free World, are the problems created_ by the
liquidation of Colonialism, the revolutions of natinnalism, particularly
in Asia and in Africa and right here in this hemisphere we are now seeing
more and more the growing pains resulting from rather inadequate and
ineffective attempts at industrialization coupled in many places with the
inadequate development of their own natural resources, one-crop economy,
and political instability. But all these are problems which are challenges
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to us and we don't have to write off any of this area as gone, merely be-
cause the political situation 'or the economic situation is unstable and
may remain unstable for some time.
Now turning from these generalities to certain specifics with
regard to the present position of the Communist Bloc and I shall limit
myself there to the USSR and Communist China without getting into much
of the satellite situation, as the satellites do not add_ very much
strength to the Communist Bloc, although they have certain advantages
for the Communist bloc from the economic point of 'view.
? First as to the USSR -- tiere- we see the' emergence of an educated
class, and a managerial class under Khrushchey. Khrushchev as far as we
can see today, is firmly entrenched. Mao is firmly entrenched in China.
We do not see any immediate challenge to either one of these men; however,
each face problems due to a variety f factors. One of these factors
I have just alluded to is that in the USSR, change is the -order of the-
day with 'education, with the decentralization of industry. We have new
classes of people coming to the fore with new ideas, new ambitions,
they will over the period -of the future and I hope of the not too ,distant
future, have some effect on the form of government in the Soviet Union.
There have been far more changes in Russia over the last six years
since the death, of Stalin than I would have dared predict at the time
of his death. Further while the Iron Curtain and Russia is still maintained
from many points of view, they won't allow in our literature, our broa.dc`asts,
'nevertheless, with the exchanges of missions between the two countries
and delegations, trade, economic and industrial, which the Kremlin apparently
does not dare us to stop. Although I think if we push ahead on this we
my find them trying 'nkoniarad" some where down the line. But so far
they have not desired to stop c,these exthanges and we have a growing
awareness and understanding in the Soviet Union', and the people of the
Soviet Union, of what the outside world looks like and that may itself,
be a revolutionary force. That is the first problem that Khriishchev has
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to face, the second is the agricultural problem. He has gone into a
great gamble in his new lands project, putting millions of acres into cul-
tivation down the other side ?of the Caspian Sea. It is an area where the
rain fall is marginal -- 15 inches, if he has his fifteen inches he has
a marvelous crop, if he has 10 inches, he may have a dust bowl. So far
mature has been good to him, but he has to watch (he, Khrushchev) his
agriculture problem all the time. Then' he is faced with the problem
of balancing of the economic demands of his people against rapacious
requirements of his vast military machine. That I will deal with later.
We have the problem of the succession. Khrushchev so far, and it
doesn't happen in dictatorships very often, but so far he has not attempted
to build up any successor to himself. He is not young but I would be
the last one myself to say that he was old, because he is a bit younger
than I am. He probably leads a little tougher life than I do. The
two men talked of in, at least in intelligence circles, as possibilities
to succeed him are Kozlov and Kirichenko. Kozlov will be coming to visit
us for the first time now in a few weeks. He is coming aver to open
the Soviet Fair in New York. We will have a chance to have a look at him.
Mikoyan is probably the smartest man and thenDst experienced man in the
immediate entourage of Klmushchav, but having had an experience with a
Georgian we don't think they will choose an Atmenian as the top man
in Moscow, and further Mikoyan is no longer in his first blush of youth
although still has some years ahead of him in all probability. Finally,
next to finally, I see I have got one or two more still, we have .the
problem that I have alluded toolbriefly to whether the Soviet can maintain
the Iron Curtain against ideas and meet the demands, the growing demands
of the educated class in thtr country. That is one of the most difficult
problems, and as I say I have already alluded to it once. And with all
of this there is the growing pressure of the Russian people for a greater
share of this world's goods. They hear Khrushchev talk about the vast
production of the Soviet Union and how it is going to catch the United States
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in a decade, in the 70's or 80's; and yet they get a vdry small share -of
this. Fortunately for Khrushchey however, they started from such a low
standard that they do- see some gradual improvement in cOnsumer goods
available to them and to the general standards of living although- it is
stillfar below our own. It is possible however, that there will be growing
,demands and growing pressure in Khrushchev to divert a greater share of
their gross national product to the .consumer sedtor as against the military
sector. Their gross -national product today, is about 457. of _ours, it is
growing however, at a rate 9f about 77.`where our -own is growing at a
rate cf about 3%. That does'not mean that the absolute gap 'changes very
much but the relative gap is changing. But again they started from very
low base and 7% -Of a low base isn't as much as a smaller percentage
of a much higher base. They are moving rapidly and we cannot discount
the power of their industrial achievement.
Turning briefly to their military situation which you will be
discussing in much greater detail, we estimate that the current annual
military effort 'of the Soviet Union in terms :of military hardware,
personnel, equipment and the like, is roughly comparable to ours and
that is a great achievement when you think as .'I have said before, that
their gross national product Is a little le-ss than half _of ours.
-It is a hard -comparison to, make, I am not _doing that in terms of dollars
but we make this computation in terms of let's say, aircraft for aircraft,
tank for tank, -man for man, missile for missile, and the like. In some
sectors of coUrse they exceed us - number of men under arms. In some
I believe we exceed them ? in the nuclear field and in aircraft
production. I will come to the guided missile field a little later,
that is one of the most contentious points we face today. It is our
estimate however, that the USSR does not propose to initiate general
war now, and is not planning on war at any fixed determined period in the
future, but in such a world as we live in, there is always the danger of
miscalculation. Meanwhi4, in developing its 'military establishment, the
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v\ EGRET
USSR has highly developed its defensive organization and worked day and
night on its nuclear deterrent. And in the nuclear deterrent is the great
power of military blackmail that they have used from time to time, they
used it at the time of Suez with missile threats, and again in the crisis
aver the Turkish-Syrian incidents of several years ago.
One of the questions you well may be studying over these next few days
is whether the USSR will be more adventuresome now that it has nuclear
semi-plenty and a growing missile potential. There is some difference
of thought in the Intelligence Community, we take into account the fact
that Stalin even without nuclear capability was extremely adventuresome
in his enterprises in Greece with the Berlin Blockade, and in clearly supporting
and egging on Communist China to attack us in Korea. In fact you 'may'
remember that when Khrushchev made his famous speech, the de-Stalinization
speech it is called, in February'1956 he attacked Stalin for willfulness
in international relations. And when Khrushchev first came into power,
he was rather cautious in his initial years; however, I think it is fair
to conclude from his present actions with regard to Berlin, his aggressiveness
in the Middle East, that he is exhibiting ..a ,growing willingness to take
risks and that in the next five years, the Soviet may well be more active
than in the past five years, more aggressive; but still in our view,
not taking risks that the Kremlin would conclude would involve grave risks
of war. Here again comes in the danger of miscalculation, Meaawhile
we feel that the USSR will emphasize the subversive type of activities as
they are doing in Iraq and elsewhere today and in particular they will
capitalize on the incompetence of new countries to govern themselves.
Their jobitsmucheasier than ours. They _can thrive on chaos and we have
to thrive on reconstruction.
Now for the point of limited wars, which I know is one that you
will be dealing-with, here again there is some difference of views
in the Intelligence Community, I think it is clear that me may have to
Lace' limited wars between non-nuclear powers. If a nuclear power
intervenes in that limited mar there is great danger that that war will
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then become a general war, unless the action of the nuclear power is so
quick and so decisive that what one is faced with a fait accompli before
intervention is possible.
Now where do we stand militarily? In the intelligence Community we
do not consider ourselves qualified to give overall net estimates as to
where the United States stands vis-a-vis Soviet Union in any particular
element of military hardware; because that obviously requires a technical
knowledge at where we stand and therefore the responsibility for preparing
net estimates lies with others than the intelligence officers. However,
I think that I have high authority, not my own, and a judgment that I
agree with, that they are not overall ahead of us militarily but rather
that we are today, ahead of them. They are tending of course, to
specialize in' theballistic missile field, missile launching submarines,
their nuclear capability and of course, strogg conventional weapons. If
we can believe our intelligence and I do, certainly if we believe what
they themselves,say, which I don't always do, they are down-grading the
manned bomber and turning to the ballistic missile as their chosen
weapon in the event of war with the United States. I thinkyou probably
will be discussing the so-called missile gap and I don't propose to get
into any of the details of that in the short time that is allowed me
here; there is no doubt that they started sooner than we did in the
aggressive development of the ballistic missile. Looking back on it I
think that we May have missed a bet ten years, fifteen years, at the end
of World War II. There were probably good and sufficient reasons for it
at that time, there was a great question as to whether a -nuclear weapons
could be made small enough in order to be used in a ballistic missile.
That was one of the reasons I think, we did not pus ahead as fast as
possible as the Soviet did. But cettainly from 1948 ion, ballistic
missile research development was a major consideration on the part of the
SOviets and that they have carried on from there to the present time when
they have considerable nuclear capabiity in all of the intermkliate ranges
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the Commune issue in China he would run for cover and turn the subject as fast
as he could He didn't want to say anything one way or the other, because this
issue has Soviet Russia oyer a barrel. You have got two alternatives, either
the Communes will fail, if the Communes fail that is a black-eye for
Communism even though it is not the kind of Communism the Russians like
today. You have the alternative they might succeed. If they succeed
and the Chinese Communist regime, 14so and company succeed in harnessing
500 million people to that rigid regime of the Communes you have got a
mighty force there. The indications are today that they are not succeeding
too well. The first blush is off, they have had to modify their regime
in many respects. We pick up hundreds of letters from people in the Communes
writing to their relatives outside in Southeast Asia, the overseas
Chinese in Hong-Kong _and. other places, many of these letters are very
pathetic reading and one thing that hurts China a good deal; a good many
of the letters say don't bother to send us any money, because if you send
us money all we have to do is turn it over to the Communes. You better
keep it and spend it yourself. And the remittances from the overseas
Chinese to China has gone down. Their project in the Communes of haying
these little blast furnaces, you know, sort of bath-tub, gin-type of blast
furnaces in the back yard apparently have been pretty well a failure and
they are cutting that down. The iron produced was not really worth using,
it had to be reprocessed entirely. So that the Communes are the
big qUeztion point today in China and r don't think they are entirely
happy with them but they have not given them up.'Their industrialization
is going on at a pretty rapid rate; they claim tremendous advances in
agriculture. They have had some, but recent reports indicate a good deal
of trouble as regards to agriculture in China and they have stubbed their
toe in Tibet. No matter what the result may' b' as far as Communist
China is concerned obviously if they put in force they can hold the
country. But they have received a black-eye in all of Southeast Asia, much
greater than any that they have ever had before. And if you consider the
position of Communist China at the time of the Bandung Conference and the
Position of Communist China today in thR eyes of the people of the Southeast
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and where they have presumably, or will have shortly a capability we believe,
in the Long-range guided missile.
Today if we exclude for the moment :the danger of a planned war on us
in the near future what are the basic :objectives :of the Soviet Union?
First they want to solidify their position on their Western Front in Eurepe.
That is I believe, one of the major purposes of their campaign in Berlin
today. Their position in the satellite area has been a troublesome one,
Hungary showed it up, and showed up its weakness. They de -not feel
adequately free to do- what they want in the rest of the world as leng as
they are tied clown to some extent in -Western Europe and that is one of their
-major purposes. They wish to have more freedom to push, their subversive
activities in the: Middle East, in Asia and in Africa. Obviously they want to
break -up NATO, they -want to push us out of our forward nuclear base-s
in- Europe and in Asia. They want to: split the United States and Great
Britain and its ether Allies. That was one of their clear-cut purposes
in connection with Berlin which I will come back to in a moment.
Turning now briefly to Communist China. As far as we can see the
alliance between the USSR and Communist China is still firm and strong.
Are there fissures? I think one of the major problems that the USSR is now
having xkith Communist China is one net entirely dissimilar to one we are
having in certain areas as indicated in- the morning paper; namely, the
question of whether or not to give Communist China nuclear weapons.
We do not have any intelligence at the present time that the USSR has yet
turned -over any nuclear weapons to the Chinese Communist military authorities.
I am :not sure that we would know it if they had done it, we are inclined
to think they have not 'done it. Clearly whether they have stockpiled any
in Communist China for eventual possible use either jointly or otherwise, that
is another matter where the answer is not clear. We as yet have no- evidence
that they b:aye done se. Certainly that is a :potential cause of friction
between the two countries. Another potential cause of friction is the
Commune development in China. From all we can gather, from what the' Soviets
say, and I may say that when Mikoyan was here, if you tried to draw him :out on
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Asia, there has been a great decline and a great plus for the free world,
and the Tibetan thing isn't over yet. I will deal with Taiwan in just a moment.
Now having dealt with some of the basic problems and briefly with the
position :of the Soviet Union and China I want to deal topically-with certain
of the important grave issues that we face today. First Berlin --I have
indicated already what I think of Khrushchevis intentions were in starting the
Berlin crisis. In the first place he thought he didn't have anything to lose
and maybe something to gain. On the whole the Soviet Union cal run a project
?of this kind, an international negotiation of this kind, for more easily than
we can. It has no allies it has to cnnsult. Occasionally it has to consult.
Occasionally it has to consult with China if anything relates to Chha but China
is not immediately involved here and of course it doesn't have to consult
its satellite allies. We have to consult, we have to coordinate and while the
unity of the alliance remats, nevertheless, it is a time consuciaing exercise
and somewhat reduces one's efficiency in dealing with the monolithic power
of the Soviet Union across the diplomatic table. And further- while they
send a man they call their Minister of Foreign Affairs., their Minister of
Foreign Affairs is far down the ladder, he is not even a member of the Presidium.
He is a hired hand, A pretty efficient hired hand. We on the other hand
have to send our Secretary of State and many of the ablest men in our State
Department and occupy them with Berlin while the rest of the world. has to go on.
That is another plus they get, that they can handle international negotiations
somewhat more casually than we can. And having gained the reputation of
saying but no for the first time in any negotiationit makes it fairly easy
for them to proceed. In the Berlin issue, the problem of East Germany looms
large. All I can say about that is, that in my opinion if you took a vote in
East Germany today not 10% of the people would vote Communist, probably
much less than that. Ulbricht, the head of the party is a stooge, Grotewohl
is a stooge, there is no independence of thought there. They arelike mannequins
that operate exactly asthey are told. I think there we have 'a weakness that
can be and should be more exploited than it is, really show up the issue of the
Eastern German situation, and to compare East Germany with West Germany is
comparing black with white and they know it. They are sensitive to it and
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Mr Bolsche, who has been in Geneva has. not handled. himself in a way to
endear himself either to any of the negotiators or the Swiss either. So
there is a weakness in their armor to be exploited in the Berlin situation.
Our problem in,Berlin is very different than it was in 1948. Since 1948
Berlin has become a flourishing industrial city. It has a trade flow of over
one billion dollars each 'way from Berlin- to West Germany and then from West
Germany of course out to other parts of the world, high rate of employment,
high industry. Your problem is not as it was in 1948 though an airlift
to keep the people alive and with enough fuel to keep them from freezing.
Now you ,have not only that problem which is relatively simple, but
you have the problem of feeding the raw materials into a large industrial
machine and then importing the product of that machine out to the free
-world. So the problem is more difficult and more complicated than it "was
in 1948. And Khrushchey of course views, and Ulbricht has himself 'said
that, "West Berlin is a cancer to them, it is a cancer right in the middle
of their body politic." They would give anything to try to get us out of
there, they would feel that wuld solidify their position for a long time
to come in all of Eastern Europe, and while I don't think they expect to
accomplish that by the present negotiations they hope to make a move
towards it. Our problem is preventing their succeeding in that.
The next major problem I want to take up is the Middle East. Here
we see that Communist and the old Imperialist Russian ambitions to some
extent, coincide. Khrushchev's concentration on Iraq, if you look at the
map, is a very natural one. All be would have to do is add to the Kurdish
area of Iraq, Turkey and Iran to Iraq and then you have a territorial
bridge right down from Russia to the Middle East. fortunately the Kurds-
are not a very comfortable bridge. They run in all directions and the Kurds
are by no means on the side of the Soviets, in fact, I think hardly
a half of them are. So it is not an easy program to carry out. But if
he succeeded in taking over Iraq and the Communist threat there is
extremely grave today, he would have gone far in getting a base to
realize his ambitions as far as the Middle East is concerned. For various
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reasons, and according to our latest reports, the Kremlin is advising the
Iraq goyernment to move a little slowly. 'they are not quite ready yet,
sI think, to take over and I don't say that they will take over or can take
over. If Iraq wept Communist and was taken over by: Moscow that would pre-
sumably mean the cutting off of its -oil supplies to the West. That alone
as far as the West is concerned Would not be too serious although it
would be very unpleasant for the Iraq Tetroleuni Company, because there'
is an excess of oil in the Middle East; but it would mean that the
Communists -would have to supply the revenues to Iraq which would be lost
by- that and since they could not get oil,