'THE ARROGANCE OF POWER'- A CLASH OVER U.S. POLICY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200900035-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 17, 1999
• Sequence Number: 35
• Publication Date: May 23, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

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"THE ARROGANCE OF POWER" s*A*IN*L
-A CLASH OVER U.S. POLICY
Is the U. S. in danger of abusing its vast power
in the world-and, at the same time, overextend-
ing itself in global commitments?
That is a basic issue dividing the chairman of
the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee and the
Johnson Administration.
Senator Fulbright criticizes the conduct of
Fulbright: "U. S. Is in
American troops in Vietnam, of American tourists
abroad, and the handling of foreign policy.
On these pages is full text of the Senator's
address that stirred a controversy, together with
sharp rejoinders by President Johnson, Secretary
of State Dean Rusk, and a woman prominent. in
public affairs, just back from a tour of Vietnam.
Danger of Losing Its Perspective"
Fudl text of an address by Senator J. W. Fulbright, chair-
man of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, deliv-
ered at the School. of Advanced International Studies at
Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D. C., May 5, 1966:
America is the most fortunate of nations-fortunate in its
rich territory, fortunate in having had a century of relative
peace in which to develop that territory, fortunate in its di-
verse and talented population, fortunate in the institutions
devised by the Founding Fathers and in the wisdom of those
who have adapted those institutions to a changing world.
For the most part America has made good use of its bless-
ings, especially in its internal life, but also in its foreign rela-
tions. Having done so much and succeeded so well, America
is now at that historical point at which a great nation is in
danger of losing its perspective on what exactly is within the
realm of its power and what is beyond it. Other great na-
tions., reaching this critical juncture, have aspired to too much
and, by overextension of effort, have declined and then
fallen.
I do not think for a moment that America, with its deeply
rooted democratic traditions, is likely to embark upon a cam-
paign to dominate the world in the manner of a Hitler or
Napoleon. What I do fear is that it may be drifting into
commitments which, though generous and benevolent in in-
tent, are so universal as to exceed even America's great capac-
ities.
At the same time, it is my hope-and I repeat it here
because it is the major point that I wish to convey in these
lectures-that America will escape those fatal temptations of
power which have ruined other great nations and will in-
stead do only that good in the world. which it can do, both
by direct effort and by the force of its own example.
The stakes are high indeed: They include not only Amer-
ica's continued greatness, but nothing less than the survival
of the human race in an era when, for the first time in human
history, one generation has the power of veto over the sur-
vival of the next.
In. the seventeenth century, a distinguished Frenchman,
Jean de La Bruyere, asked a question that remains one of the
profound paradoxes of men and nations. "How," he asked,
"does it serve the people and add to their happiness if
their ruler extend his empire by annexing the provinces of
his enemies? . How does it help me or my countrymen
that my country be successful
and covered with glory, that
my country be powerful and
dreaded, if, sad and worried, I
live in oppression and poverty?"
The question, phrased some-
what differently, is how and
why it happens that the groups
into which men organize them-
selves come to be regarded as
ends in themselves, as living
organisms with needs and pref-
erences of their own which are
separate from and superior to
those of the individual, war-
sacrifice of the hopes, the
pleasures and the lives of individual men.
It is a paradox of politics that so great a part of our or-
ganized efforts as societies is . directed toward abstract and
mystic goals-toward propagating an ideology, toward enhanc-
ing the pride and power and self-esteem of the nation, as if
the nation had a "self" and a "soul" apart from the individ-
uals who compose it, and as if the wishes of individual men,
for life and happiness and prosperity, were selfish, dishonor-
able and unworthy of our best creative efforts.
When all is said and done, when the abstractions and sub-
tleties of political science have been exhausted, there remain
the most basic unanswered questions about war and peace
and why we contest the issues we contest and why we even
care about them.
As Aldous Huxley has written: "There may be arguments
about the best way of raising wheat in a cold climate or of
re-afforesting a denuded mountain. But such arguments
never lead to organized slaughter. Organized slaughter is the
result of arguments about such questions as the following:
Which is the best nation? The best religion? The best politi-
cal theory? The best form of government? Why are other
people so stupid and wicked? Why can't they see how good
and intelligent we are? Why do they resist our beneficent
efforts to bring them under our control and make them like
ourselves?"
Many of the wars fought by man-I am tempted to say
most-have been fought over such abstractions. The more I
puzzle over the great wars of history, the more I am inclined
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. . . "Our power to kill has become universal"
to the view that the causes attributed to them-territory,
markets, resources, the defense or perpetuation of great prin-
ciples-were not the root causes at all, but rather explanations
or excuses for certain unfathomable drives of human nature.
For lack of a clear and precise understanding of exactly
what these motives are, I refer to them as the "arrogance of
power"-as a psychological need that nations seem to have to
prove that they are bigger, better or stronger than other na-
tions. Implicit in this drive is the assumption that the proof
of superiority is force-that when a nation shows that it has
the stronger army, it is also proving that it has better people,
better institutions, better principles-and,.in general, a better
civilization.
"Hidden Causes of War"
The evidence for my proposition is the remarkable discrep-
ancy between the apparent and hidden causes of some mod-
em wars and the discrepancy between their causes and
ultimate consequences.
The precipitating cause of the Franco-Prussian War, for ex-
ample, was a dispute over the succession to the Spanish
throne, and the ostensible "underlying" cause was French re-
sistance to the unification of Germany.
The war was followed by German unification-which prob-
ably could have been achieved without war-but it was also
followed by the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, the humiliation of
France and the emergence of Germany as the greatest power
in Europe, which could not have been achieved without war.
The peace treaty, incidentally, said nothing about the Span-
ish throne, which everyone apparently had forgotten.
One wonders to what extent the Germans were motivated
simply by the desire to cut those haughty Frenchmen down
to size and have a good excuse to build another monument
in Berlin.
The United States went to war in 1898 for the stated pur-
pose of liberating Cuba from Spanish tyranny, but then, after
winning the war-a war which Spain had. been willing to pay
a high price to avoid-the United States brought the liber-
ated Cubans under an American protectorate, and, incident-
ally, annexed the Philippines, because, according to President
McKinley, the Lord told him it was America's duty "to edu-
cate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize
them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by
them, as our fellowmen for whom Christ also died."
Isn't it interesting that the voice was the voice of God but
the words were those of Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot
Lodge, Admiral Mahan, those "imperialists of 1898" who
wanted America to have an empire just because a big, power-
ful country like the United States ought to have an empire?
The spirit of the times was expressed by Albert Beveridge
who proclaimed Americans to be "a conquering race." "We
must obey our blood and occupy new markets and if neces-
sary new lands," he said, because "in the Almighty's infinite
plan ... debased civilizations and decaying races" must dis-
appear "before the higher civilization of the nobler and more
virile types of man."
In 1914, all Europe went to war, ostensibly because the
heir to the Austrian throne had been assassinated at Sarajevo
but really because that murder became the symbolic focus of
the incredibly delicate sensibilities of the great nations of
Europe.
The events of the summer of 1914 were a melodrama of
abnormal psychology: Austria had to humiliate Serbia in or-
der not to be humiliated herself, but Austria's effort to re-
cover self-esteem was profoundly humiliating to Russia. Rus-
sia was allied to France, who had been feeling generally
humiliated since 1871, and Austria, in turn, was allied to
Germany, whose pride required her to support Austria no
matter how insanely Austria behaved, and who may, in any
case, have felt that it would be fun to , give the German
Army another swing down the Champs Elysees.
For these ennobling reasons, the world was plunged into a
war which took tens of millions of lives, precipitated the
Russian Revolution and set in motion the events that led to
another world war, a war which took tens of millions' more
lives and precipitated the worldwide revolutions of which
we spoke last week, revolutions whose consequences are be-
yond the foresight of any of us now alive.
Both the causes and consequences of war may have more
to do with pathology than with politics, more to do with ir-
rational pressures of pride and pain than with rational calcu-
lations of advantage and profit.
It has been said that buried in the secret soul of every
woman is a drum majorette; it might also be said that there
is a bit of the missionary in all of our souls. We all like tell-
ing people what to do, but unfortunately they usually don't
appreciate it. I myself have given my wife some splendid
suggestions on household management, but she is so ungrate-
ful for my advice that I have stopped offering it. The phe-
nomenon is explained by the Canadian psychiatrist and for-
mer Director-General of the World Health Organization.,
Brock Chisholm, who writes:
. Man's method of dealing with difficulties in the past
has always been to tell everyone else how they should be-
have. We've all been doing that for centuries.
"It should be clear by now that this no longer does any
good. Everybody has by now been told by everybody else
how he should behave. The criticism is not effective; it never
has been, and it never is going to be......
Ineffective though it has been, the giving-and enforce-
ment-of all this unsolicited advice has, at least until recent-
ly, been compatible with the survival of the human race.
Man is now, however, for the first time, in a situation in
which the survival of his species is in jeopardy. Other forms
of life have been endangered, and many destroyed, by
changes in their natural environment; man is menaced by a
change of environment which he himself has wrought by the
invention of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
Our power to kill has become universal, creating a radi-
cally new situation which, if we are to survive, requires us
to adopt some radically new attitudes about the giving and
enforcement of advice and, in general, about human and in-
ternational relations.
"The Danger of Extinction"
The enormity of the danger of extinction of our species is
dulled by the frequency with which it is stated, as if a fa-
miliar threat of catastrophe were no threat at all. We seem
to feel somehow that because the hydrogen bomb has not
killed us yet it is never going to kill us.
This is a dangerous assumption because it encourages the
retention of traditional attitudes about world politics when
our responsibility, in Dr. Chisholm's words, is nothing less
than "to re-examine all of the attitudes of our ancestors and
to select from those attitudes things which we, on our own
authority in these present circumstances, with our knowledge,
recognize as still valid in this new kind of world......
The attitude, above all others, which I feel sure is no
longer valid is the arrogance of power, the tendency of great
nations to equate power with virtue and major responsibili-
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CPYRQMTWe have not harmed, people because we wished to"
ties with a universal mission. The dilemmas involyed are pre-
eminently American dilemmas, not because America has
weaknesses that others do not have, but because America is
powerful as no nation has ever been before and the discrep-
ancy between its; power and the power of others. appears to
be increasing.
I said in a speech in New York last week that I felt con-
fident that America, with its great resources and democratic
traditions, with its diverse and creative population, would
find the wisdom to match its power. Perhaps I should have
been more cautious and expressed only hope instead of con-
fidence, because the wisdom that is required is greater wis-
dom than any great nation has ever shown before. It must be
rooted, as Dr. Chisholm says, in the re-examination of "all
of the attitudes of our ancestors."
It is a tall order. Perhaps one can begin to. fill it by an
attempt to assess some of the effects of America's great
power on some of the small countries whom we have tried
to help.
Reflecting on his voyages to Polynesia in the late eight-
eenth century, Captain Cook later wrote: "It would have
been. better for these people never to have known us."
In a recently published book on European explorations of
the South Pacific, Alan Moorehead relates how the Tahitians
and the gentle aborigines of Australia were corrupted by the
white man's diseases, alcohol, firearms, laws and concepts of
morality, by what Moorehead calls "the long downslide into
Western civilization."
The first missionaries to Tahiti, says Moorehead,.were "de-
termined to re-create the island in the image of'lower-mid-
dle-class Protestant England. . They kept hammering
away at the Tahitian way of life until it -crumbled before
them, and within two decades they had achieved precisely
what they set out to do."
It is said that the first missionaries who went to Hawaii
went for the purpose of explaining to the Polynesians that
it was sinful to work on Sunday, only to discover that in,
those bountiful islands nobody worked on any day.
"A 'Fatal Impact' on Smaller Nations"
Even when acting with the best of intentions, Americans,
like other Western peoples who have carried their civiliza-
tion abroad, have had something of the same "fatal impact"
on smaller nations that European explorers had on the Ta-
hitians and the native Australians.
We have not harmed people because we wished to; on the
contrary, more often than not we have wanted to help peo-
ple and, in some very important respects, we have helped
them. Americans have brought medicine and education,
manufactures and modern techniques to many places in the
world; but they also brought themselves and the condescend-
ing attitudes of a people whose very success breeds disdain
for other cultures.
Bringing power without understanding, Americans as well
as Europeans have had a devastating effect in less advanced
areas of the world; without wishing to, without knowing
they were doing it, they have shattered traditional societies,
disrupted fragile economies, and undermined people's con-
fidence in themselves by the invidious example of their own
efficiency. They have done this in many instances simply by
being big and strong, by giving good advice, by intruding
on people who have not wanted them" but could not resist
them.
Have you ever noticed how Americans act when they go
to fnraign countries?
Foreigners frequently comment on the contrast between
the behavior of Americans at home and abroad; in our own
country, they say, we are hospitable and considerate, but, as
soon as we get outside our own borders, something seems to
get into us and, wherever we are, we become noisy and de-
manding and strut around as if we owned the place. The
British used to say during the war that the trouble with
the Yanks was that they were "overpaid, oversexed and
over here."
I recently took a vacation in Mexico and noticed in a
small-town airport two groups of students on holiday, both
about undergraduate age; one group was Japanese, the other
American. The Japanese were neatly dressed and were talk-
ing and laughing in a manner that neither annoyed anybody
nor particularly called attention to themselves. The Ameri-
cans, on the other hand, were disporting themselves in a con-
spicuous and offensive manner, stamping around the wait-
ing room in sloppy clothes, drinking beer and shouting to
each other as if no one else were there.
Why Americans Abroad Are "Boorish"
This kind of scene, unfortunately, has become familiar in
many parts of the world. I do not wish to exaggerate its
significance, but I have the feeling that, just as there was
once something special about being a Roman or a Spaniard
or an Englishman, there is now something about the con-
sciousness of being an American abroad, something about
the consciousness of belonging to the biggest, richest country
in the world, that encourages people who are perfectly well
behaved at home to become boorish when they are in some-
body else's country and to treat the local citizens as if they
weren't really there.
One reason why Americans abroad may act as though they
"own the place" is that in many places they very nearly do:
American companies may dominate large segments of a coun-
try's economy; American products are advertised on bill-
boards and displayed in the shop windows; American hotels
and snack bars are available to protect American tourists
from foreign influence; American soldiers may be stationed
in the country and, even if they are not, the population. are
probably well aware that their very survival depends on
the wisdom with which America uses her immense military
power.
I think that any American, when he goes abroad, carries
an unconscious knowledge of all this power with him, and it
affects his behavior just as it once affected the behavior of
Greeks and Romans, of Spaniards, Germans and Englishmen,
in the brief high noons of their respective ascendancies.
It was the arrogance of their power that led nineteenth-
century Englishmen to suppose that if you shouted at a for-
eigner 'loud enough in English he was bound to understand
you, or that now leads Americans to behave like Mark
Twain's "innocents abroad," who reported as follows on their
travels in Europe:
"The peoples of those foreign countries are very ignorant.
They looked curiously at the costumes that we had brought
from the wilds of America. They observed that we talked
loudly at table sometimes. . . . In Paris, they just simply
opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to therri in
French! We never did succeed in making these idiots under-
stand their own language."
We all, as Dr. Chisholm explains, enjoy telling people how
they should behave, and the bigger and stronger and richer
we are, the more we feel suited to the task, the more, in-
deed, we consider it our duty. Dr. Chisholm relates the story
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CPY.R 30FI doubt the ability of U. S. to. achieve" its aims in Vietnam
of an eminent cleric who had been proselyting the Eskimos
and said:
"You know, for years we couldn't do anything with those
Eskimos at all; they didn't have any sin. We had to teach
them sin for years before we could do anything with them."
I am reminded of the three Boy Scouts who reported to
their scoutmaster that as their good deed for the day they
had helped an old. lady cross the street. "That's fine," said
the scoutmaster, "but why did it take three of you?" "Well,"
they explained, "she didn't want to go."
The good deed above all others that Americans feel quali-
fied to perform is the teaching of democracy and the dignity
of man. Let us consider the results of some American good
deeds in various parts of the world.
Over the years since ]?resident Monroe proclaimed his doc-
trine, Latin Americans have had the advantages of United
States tutelage in fiscal responsibility, in collective security
and in the techniques of democracy. If they have fallen short
in any of these fields, the thought presents itself that the
fault may lie as much with the teacher as with the pupils.
When President Theodore Roosevelt announced his "corol-
lary" to the Monroe Doctrine in 1905, he solemnly declared
that he regarded the future interventions thus sanctified as a
"burden" and a "responsibility" and an obligation to "inter-
national equity."
Not once, so far as I know, has the United States regarded
itself as intervening in a Latin-American country for selfish
or unworthy motives-a view not necessarily shared by the
beneficiaries. Whatever reassurance the purity of our motives
may give must be shaken a little by the thought that prob-
ably no country in all human history has ever intervened in
another except for what it regarded as excellent motives.
"The wicked are wicked, no doubt," wrote Thackeray,
and they go astray and they fall, and they come by their
deserts; but who can tell the mischief which the very vir-
tuous do?"
"Tutelage by U. S. Marines"
For all our noble intentions, the countries which have had
most of the tutelage in democracy by United States Marines
are not particularly democratic. These include Haiti, which
is under a brutal and superstitious dictatorship, the Domini-
can Republic, which is in turmoil, and Cuba, which, as no
one needs to be reminded, has replaced its traditional right-
wing dictatorships with a Communist dictatorship.
Maybe, in the light of this extraordinary record of accom-
plishment, it is time for us to reconsider our teaching meth-
ods. Maybe we are not really cut out for the job of spread-
ing the gospel of democracy. Maybe it would profit us to
concentrate on our own democracy instead of trying to in-
flict our particular version of it on all those ungrateful Latin
Americans who stubbornly oppose their North American
benefactors instead of the "real" enemies whom we have so
graciously chosen for them.
And maybe-just maybe-if we left our neighbors to make
their own judgments and their own mistakes, and confined
our assistance to matters of economics and technology instead
of philosophy, maybe then they would begin to find the
democracy and the dignity that have largely eluded them
and we, in turn, might begin to find the love and gratitude
that we seem to crave.
Korea is another example. We went to war in 1950 to de-
fend South Korea against the Russian-inspired aggression of
North Korea. I think that intervention in that war was justi-
fied and necessary. We were defending a country that clearly
wanted to be defended: Its army was willing to fight and
fought well, and its Government, though dictatorial, was a
patriotic Government which commanded the support of the
people.
Throughout the war, however, the United States empha-
sized as one of its war aims the survival of the Republic of
Korea as a "free society," something which it was not then
or for a long time after the war.
We lost 33,629 American lives in the war and have since
spent $5,610,000,000 on direct military and economic aid
and a great deal more on indirect aid to South Korea. The
country, nonetheless, remained until recently in a condition
of virtual economic stagnation and political instability.
These facts are regrettable, but the truly surprising fact
is that, having fought a war for three years to defend the
freedom of South Korea, most Americans are probably igno-
rant of, and almost certainly uninterested in, the current state
of the ward for whom they sacrificed so much.
We are now engaged in a war to "defend freedom" in
South Vietnam. Unlike the Republic of Korea, South Viet-
nam has an Army which is without notable success and a
weak, dictatorial Government which does not command the
loyalty of the South Vietnamese people.
The official war aims of the United States Government, as
I understand them, are to defeat what is regarded as North
Vietnamese aggression, to demonstrate the futility of what
the Communists call "wars of national liberation," and to cre-
ate conditions under which the South Vietnamese people will
be able freely to determine their own future.
I have not the slightest doubt of the sincerity of the Pres-
ident and the Vice President and the Secretaries of State
and Defense in propounding these aims. What I do doubt-
and doubt very much-is the ability of the United States to
achieve these aims by the means being used.
I do not question the power of our weapons and the ef-
ficiency of our logistics; I cannot say these things delight me
as they seem to delight some of our officials, but they are
certainly impressive. What I do question is the ability of the
United States, or France or any other Western nation, to go
into a small, alien, undeveloped Asian nation and create
stability where there is chaos, the will to fight where there
is defeatism, democracy where there is no tradition of it and
honest government where corruption is almost a way of life.
Our handicap is well expressed in the pungent Chinese
proverb: "In shallow waters, dragons become the sport of
shrimps."
Early last month demonstrators in Saigon burned American
Jeeps, tried to assault American soldiers, and marched
through the streets shouting, "Down with the American im-
perialists," while one of the Buddhist leaders made a speech
equating the United States with the Communists as a threat
to South Vietnamese independence.
"Why Are Foreigners Ungrateful?"
Most Americans are understandably shocked and angered
to encounter such hostility from people who by now would
be under the rule of the Viet Cong but for the sacrifice of
American lives and money. Why, we may ask, are they so
shockingly ungrateful? Surely they must know that their very
right to parade and protest and demonstrate depends on the
Americans who are defending them,
The answer, I think, is that "fatal impact" of the rich and
strong on the poor and weak. Dependent on it though the
Vietnamese are, our very strength is a reproach to their weak-
ness, our wealth a mockery of their poverty, our success a
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CPYRGMT1We are trying to remake Vietnamese society"
reminder of their failures. What they resent is the disruptive
effect of our strong culture upon their fragile one, an effect
which we can no more avoid than a Haul can help being
bigger than a child.
What they fear, I think rightly, is that traditional Viet-
namese society cannot survive the American economic and
cultural impact..
"Saigon: an American Brothel"
Both literally and figuratively, Saigon has become an
American brothel.
A "New York Times" correspondent reports that many
Vietnamese find it necessary to put their wives or daughters
to work as bar girls or to peddle them to American soldiers
as mistresses; that it is not unusual to hear a report that a
Vietnamese soldier has committed suicide out of shame be-
cause his wife has been working as a bar girl; that Viet-
namese have trouble getting taxicabs because drivers will not
stop for them, preferring to pick up American soldiers who
will pay outrageous fares without complaint; that, as a result
of the American influx, bar girls, prostitutes, pimps, bar own-
ers and taxi drivers have risen. to the higher levels of the
economic pyramid; that middle-class Vietnamese families
have difficulty renting homes because Americans have driven
up the rent beyond their reach, and sonic Vietnamese fami-
lies have actually been evicted from houses and apartments
by landlords who prefer to rent to the affluent Americans;
that Vietnamese civil servants, junior Army officers and en-
listed men are unable to support their families because of
the inflation generated by American spending and the pur-
chasing power of the GI's.
The Secretary of Defense recently reported with pride that
his Department is providing 9.2 pounds of goods a clay for
each GI for sale in the PX's; what the Secretary neglected
to point out was that these vast quantities of consumer
goods are the major source of supply for the thriving Viet-
namese black market.
It is reported that 30,000 cans of hair spray were sent to
Vietnam in March of 1966. Since it is unlikely that the
American fighting men are major consumers of hair spray, it
seems reasonable to suppose that this item has found its way
to the black market.
One Vietnamese explained to the "New York Times" re-
porter whom I mentioned that "any time legions of prosper-
ous white men descend on a rudimentary Asian society, you
are bound to have trouble." Another said: "We Vietnamese
are somewhat xenophobe. We clout like foreigners, any kind
of foreigners, so that you shouldn't be surprised that we don't
like you."
Sincere though it is, the American effort to build the foun-
dations of freedom in South Vietnam may thus have an effect
quite different from the one intended.
"All this struggling and striving to make the world better
is a great mistake," said Bernard Shaw, "not because it isn't
a good thing to improve the world if you know how to do it,
but because striving and struggling is the worst way you
could set about doing anything."
One wonders as well ]row much our commitment to Viet-
narnese freedom is also a connnitinent to American pride.
The two, I think, have become part of the same package.
When we talk about the freedom of South Vietnam, we
may be thinking about how disagreeable it would be to ac-
cept a solution short of victory; we may be thinking about
how our pride would be injured if we settled for loss than
-- cps n1it to a('hipyp. we, may he thinking about our renuta-
tion as a great power, as though a compromise se emen
would slnanic its before the world, marking us as a second-
rate people with flagging courage and determination.
Such fears are as nonsensical as their opposite, which is
the presumption of a universal mission. They are simply un-
worthy of the richest, most powerful, most productive and
best-educated people in the world.
One can understand an uncompromising attitude on the
part of such countries as China or France; both have been
stricken low in this century, and arrogance may be helpful
to them in recovering their pride.
It is much less comprehensible on the part of the United
States, a nation whose modern history has been an almost
uninterrupted chronicle of success, a nation which by now
should be so sure of its own power as to be capable of mag-
nanimity, a nation which by now should be able to act on
the proposition, as expressed by George Keenan, that "there
is more respect to be won in the opinion of the world by a
resolute and courageous liquidation of unsound positions than
in the most stubborn pursuit of extravagant or unpromising
objectives."
"The Wrong Kind of Power"
The cause of our difficulties in Southeast Asia is not a
deficiency of power, but an excess of the wrong kind of
power, which results in a feeling of impotence when it fails
to achieve its desired ends.
We are still acting like Boy Scouts dragging reluctant old
ladies across streets they do not want to cross. We are trying
to remake Vietnamese society, a task which certainly cannot
be accomplished by force and which probably cannot be ac-
coinplished by any means available to outsiders. The objec-
tive may be desirable, but it is not feasible.
There is wisdom, if also malice, in Prince Sihanouk's com-
parison of American and Chinese aid. "You will note the dif-
ference in the ways of giving," he writes. "On one side, we
are being humiliated, we are given a lecture, we are re-
quired to give something in return. On the other side, not
only is our dignity as poor people being preserved, but our
self-esteem is being flattered-and human beings have their
weaknesses, and it would be futile to try to eradicate
[thCill]."
Or, as Shaw said: "Religion is a great force-the only real
motive force in the world; but what you fellows don't under-
stand is that you must get at a man through his own religion
and not through yours."
The idea of being responsible. for the whole world seems to
be flattering to Americans, and I am afraid it is turning our
peaces, just as the sense of global responsibility turned the
heads of ancient Romans and nineteenth-century British.
A prominent American is credited with having said re-
cently that the United States was the "engine of mankind"
and the rest of the world was "the train."
A British political writer wrote last summer what he called
"A Cheer for American Imperialism." An empire, he said,
"has no justification except its own existence." It must never
contract; it "wastes treasure and life"; its commitments "are
without rhyme or reason." Nonetheless, according to the
author, the "American empire" is uniquely benevolent, de-
voted as it is to individual liberty and the rule of law, and
having performed such services as getting the author re-
leased from a Yugoslav jail simply by his threatening to in-
volve the American consul, a service which he describes as
"sublime."
What romantic nonsense this is. And what dangerous non-
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CPYRGI-IIITL h '
? .. a uman race is demanding dignity and independence"
sense in this age of nuclear weapons. The idea of an "Ameri-
can empire" might be dismissed as the arrant imagining of
a British Gunga Din, except for the fact that it surely strikes
a responsive chord in at least a corner of the usually sensible
and humane American mind. It calls to mind the slogans of
the past about the shot fired at Concord being heard round
the world, about "manifest destiny" and "making the world
safe for democracy" and the demand for "unconditional sur-
render" in World War II. It calls to mind President McKinley
taking counsel with the Supreme Being about his duty to the
benighted Filipinos.
The "Blessings-of-Civilization Trust," as Mark Twain called
it, may have been a "daisy" in its day, uplifting for the soul
and good for business besides, but its day is past.
It is past because the great majority of the human race
are demanding dignity and independence, not the honor of
a supine role in an American empire.
It is past because whatever claim America may make for
the universal domain of its ideas and values is countered by
the Communist counterclaim, armed like our own with nu-
clear weapons.
And, most of all, it is past because it never should have
begun, because we are not the "engine of mankind," but
only one of its more successful and fortunate branches, en-
dowed by our Creator with about the same capacity for
good and evil, no more or less, than the rest of humanity.
An excessive preoccupation with foreign relations over a
long period of time is a problem of great importance, be-
cause it diverts a nation from the sources of its strength,
which are in its domestic life.
A nation immersed in foreign affairs is expending its capi-
tal, human as well as material; sooner or later that capital
must be renewed by some diversion of creative energies from
foreign to domestic pursuits.
I would doubt that any nation has achieved a durable
greatness by conducting a "strong" foreign policy, but many
have been ruined by ,expending their energies on foreign ad-
ventures while allowing their domestic bases to deteriorate.
The United States emerged as a world power in the twen-
tieth century not because of what it had. done in foreign re-
lations, but because it had spent the nineteenth century de-
veloping the North American continent; by contrast, the
Austrian and Turkish empires collapsed in the twentieth
century in large part because they had for so long neglected
their internal development and organization.
"Excessive Involvement Abroad"
If America has a service to perform in the world-and I be-
lieve it has-it is in large part the service of its own example.
In our excessive involvement in the affairs of other coun-
tries, we are not only living off our assets and denying our
own people the proper enjoyment of their resources; we are
also denying the world the example of a free society enjoy-
ing its freedom to the fullest. This is regrettable indeed for
a nation that aspires to teach democracy to other nations, be-
cause, as Burke said, "Example is the school of mankind,
and they will learn at no other."
There is, of course, nothing new about the inversion of
values which leads nations to squander their resources on
fruitless and extravagant foreign undertakings. What is new
is the power of man to destroy his species, which has made
the struggles of international politics dangerous as they have
never been before and confronted us, as Dr. Chisholm says,
with the need to re-examine the attitudes of our ancestors so
as to discard those that have ceased to be valid.
Somehow, therefore, if we are to save ourselves, we must
find in ourselves the judgment and the will to change the
nature of international politics in order to make it at once
less dangerous to mankind and more beneficial to individual
men.
"Source of War: Human Nature"
Without deceiving ourselves as to the difficulty of the task,
we must try to develop a new capacity for creative political
action. We must recognize, first of all, that the ultimate
source of war and peace lies in human nature, that the study
of politics, therefore, is the study of man, and that if politics
is ever to acquire a new character, the change will not be
wrought in computers but through a better understanding of
the needs and fears of the human individual.
It is a curious thing that, in an era when interdisciplinary
studies are favored in the universities, little, so far as I know,
has been done to apply the insights of individual and social
psychology to the study of international relations,
It would be interesting-to raise one of many possible ques-
tions-to see what could be learned about the psychological
roots of ideology: To what extent are ideological beliefs the
result of a valid and disinterested intellectual process and to
what extent are they instilled in us by conditioning and in-
heritance? Or, to put the question another way: Why exactly
is it that most young Russians grow up believing in Com-
munism and most young Americans grow up believing in
democracy, or, for that matter, what accounts for the coin-
cidence that most Arabs believe in Islam and most Spaniards
in Catholicism?
What, in short, is the real source of ideological beliefs and
what value do they have as concepts of reality, much less as
principles for which men should be willing to fight and die?
I recently had the privilege of a luncheon with the dis-
tinguished Johns Hopkins psychiatrist, Dr. Jerome Frank, and
he explained to me some psychiatric principles which may
be pertinent to a better understanding of international rela-
tions. He pointed out, for example, that an ideology gives us
an identity beyond our own trivial and transitory lives on
earth and also serves the purpose of "organizing the world"
for us, giving us a picture, though not necessarily an accurate
picture, of reality.
A person's world view, or ideology, says Dr. Frank, filters
the signals that come to him, giving meaning and pattern
to otherwise odd bits of information. Thus, for example, when
a Chinese and an American put radically different interpre-
tations on the Vietnamese war, it is not necessarily because
one or the other has chosen to propound a wicked lie, but
rather because each has filtered information from the real
world through his ideological world view, selecting the parts
that fit, rejecting the parts that do not, and coming out with
two radically different interpretations of the same events.
There is a "strain toward consistency" which leads a coun-
try, once it has decided that another country is good or bad,
peaceful or aggressive, to interpret every bit of information
to fit that preconception, so much so that even a genuine
concession offered by one is likely to be viewed by the other
as a trick to gain some illicit advantage.
A possible manifestation of this tendency is the North
Vietnamese view of American proposals to negQtiate peace as
fraudulent plots. Having been betrayed after previous nego-
tiations-by the French in 1946 and by Ngo Dinh Diem in
1955 when, with American complicity, he refused to allow
the elections called for in the Geneva Accords to take place
-the Hanoi Government may now feel that American offers
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CPYRQ1iIBefore China can accept friendship, she must recover pride"
to negotiate peace, which we believe to be genuine, are in
reality plots to trick them into yielding through diplomacy
what we have been unable to make them yield by force.
Another interesting point is the shaping of behavior by ex-
pectations, or what is called the self-fulfilling prophecy.
Thus, for example, China, fearing the United States but lack-
ing power, threatens and blusters, confirming the United
States in its fears of China and causing it to arm against her,
which, in turn, heightens Chinese fears of the United States.
Prof. Gordon Allport of Harvard made the point some
years ago that ". . . while most people deplore war, they
nonetheless expect it to continue. And what people expect
determines their behavior. . . . The indispensable condition
of war," wrote Professor Allport, "is that people must expect
war and must prepare for war, before, under war-minded
leadership, they make war. It is in this sense that `wars be-
gin in the minds of men."'
"China-a Menacing Abstraction"
Another striking psychological phenomenon is the tendency
of antagonists to dehumanize each other.
To most Americans, China is a strange, distant and dan-
gerous nation, not a society made up of 700 million individ-
ual human beings, but a kind of menacing abstraction. When
Chinese soldiers are described, for example, as "hordes of
Chinese coolies," it is clear that they are being thought of
not as people but as something terrifying and abstract, or as
something inanimate like the flow of lava from a volcano.
Both China and America seem to think of each other as
abstractions: To the Chinese, we are not a society of in-
dividual people, but the embodiment of an evil idea, the
idea. of "imperialist capitalism"; and, to most of us, China
represents not people, but an evil and frightening idea, the
idea of "aggressive Communism."
Obviously, this dehumanizing tendency helps to explain
the savagery of war.
Man's capacity for decent behavior seems to vary directly
with his perception of others as individual humans with hu-
man motives and feelings, whereas his capacity for barbarous
behavior seems to increase with his perception of an adver-
sary in abstract terms.
This is the only explanation I can think of for the fact that
the very same good and decent citizens who would never fail
to feed a hungry child or comfort a sick friend or drop a coin
in the church collection basket celebrate the number of Viet
Corn killed in a particular week or battle and can now con-
template with equanimity, or indeed even advocate, the use of
nuclear weapons against the "hordes of Chinese coolies."
I feel sure that this apparent insensitivity to the incinera-
tion of thousands of millions of our fellow human beings is
not the result of feelings of savage inhumanity toward for-
eigners; it is the result of not thinking of them as humans at
all, but rather as the embodiment of doctrines that we con-
sider evil.
I)r. Chisholm suggests: "What we the, people of the world
need, perhaps most, is to exercise our imaginations, to develop
our ability to look at things from outside our accidental area
of being." Most of us, he says, "have never taken out our
imaginations for any kind of run in all our lives," but rather
have kept them tightly locked up within the limits of our
own national perspective.
The obvious value of liberating the imagination is that it
might enable us to acquire some understanding of the view
of the world held by people whose past experience and
present situations are radically different from our own.
It might enable us to understand, for example, what it
feels like to,be hungry-not hungry in the way that a middle-
class American feels after a golf game or a fast tennis match,
but hungry as an Asian might be hungry, with a hunger that
has never been satisfied, with one's children having stunted
limbs and swollen bellies, with a desire to change things that
has little regard for due process of the law because the desire
for change has an urgency and desperation about it that few
Americans have ever experienced.
Could we but liberate our imagination in this way, we
might be able to see why so many people in the world are
making revolutions; we might even be able to see why some
of them are Communists.
Having suggested, as best an amateur can, some of the
psychological principles that might be pertinent to interna-
tional relations, I now venture to suggest some applications.
Paranoid fears, says Dr. Frank, are not entirely false fears;
certainly, China's fear of American hostility, though distorted
and exaggerated, is not pure invention.
In dealing with paranoid individuals, Dr. Frank suggests,
it is generally desirable to listen respectfully without agree-
ing but also without trying to break down or attack the
patient's system of beliefs. It is also important not to get
overly friendly lest the patient interpret effusive overtures as
a hostile plot.
Dr. Frank also suggests that the paranoid patient is certain
to rebuff overtures of friendship many times before begin-
ning to respond.
"Reduce Expressions of Hostility"
Applying these principles to China, perhaps the best thing
we can do for the time being is to reduce expressions of
hostility, put forth only such limited proposals for friend-
ship as might be credible, and otherwise leave her strictly
alone.
In the wake of the historical trauma, China's fear and
hatred of the West is probably still too deep, and likely to
remain so for some time to come, to permit of positive co-
operation, or, indeed, of anything beyond what we might call
mutually respectful relations from a distance.
Before China can accept the hand of Western friendship,
she must first recover pride. She must recover that sense of
herself as a great civilization which was so badly battered
in the nineteenth century and, with it, the strength to open
her door to the outside world.
Having been all but destroyed as a nation by the forced
intrusions of the West, China must first know that she has the
strength to reject unwanted foreign influences before she
can be expected to seek or accept friendly foreign asso-
ciations.
Or, to make the same point from the side of the United
States, before we can extend the hand of friendship to China
with any expectation of its being accepted, we must first
persuade her that we respect her right to take what we offer
or leave it as she thinks best.
There is no better way to convey this message to China
than by leaving her alone.
If we can give our imaginations a "good run," as Dr.
Chisholm recommends, we are likely to learn that the "way
of life" which we so eagerly commend to the world has little
pertinent either to China's past experience or to her future
needs.
China, Dr. Fairbank [of Harvard] tells us, :s a society In.
which the concept of "individualism" which we cherish is
held in low esteem because it connotes it chaotic selfishness,
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. ? . ?
Let us meet these difficulties like wise and sensible men"
the opposite of the commitment to the collective good which
is highly valued by the Chinese.
Similarly, the very word for "freedom"' (tzu-yu) is said to
connote a lack of discipline, everi'license, the very opposite
ofthe Chinese ideal of disciplined co-operation.
Even such basic Western ideas as "loyal opposition" and
"self-determination," Professor Fairbank points out, are alien
to the Chinese.
The cultural gap is further illustrated by the difference
in attitudes toward philanthropy: To Americans, it is a
Christian virtue; to the Chinese, it is, unless reciprocal, in-
sulting and degrading-something that we might keep in
mind if relations ever thaw enough to make conceivable
American economic aid or, more plausibly, disaster relief in
the event of some natural calamity such as flood or famine.
In the light of these profound cultural differences, shall
we, in Mark Twain's words, "go on conferring our civiliza-
tion upon the peoples that sit in darkness, or shall we give
those poor things a rest?"
"Seating Red China in U. N."
There are, I think, some limited positive steps which the
United States might take toward improved relations with
China. It would do the United States no harm in the short
run, and perhaps considerable good in the long run, to end
our opposition to the seating of Communist China in the
United Nations, and, depending on events, to follow that up
with some positive suggestions for more normal relations.
The United States has already proposed visits by scholars
and newspapermen between China and the United States
and, although these proposals have been rejected by the
Chinese, it might be well, though not too often and not too
eagerly, to remind them of the offer from time to time.
In proposing these and other initiatives to the Senate For-
eign Relations Committee as major components in a policy
of "containment without isolation," Prof. Doak Barnett made
the point that "In taking these steps, we will have to do so
in full recognition of the fact that Peking's initial reaction is
almost certain to be negative and hostile and that any
changes in our posture will create some new problems. But
we should take them, nevertheless, because initiatives on our
part are clearly required if we are to work, however slowly,
toward the long-term goal of a more stable, less explosive
situation in Asia and to explore the possibilities of trying to
moderate Peking's policies."
The point of such a new approach to China, writes Pro-
fessor Fairbank, is psychological:
"Peking is, to say the least, maladjusted, rebellious against
the whole outer world. Russia as well as America. We are
Peking's principal enemy, because we happen now to be the
biggest outside power trying to foster world stability.
"But do we have to play Mao's game? Must we carry the
whole burden of resisting Peking's pretensions? Why not lei:
others in on the job?
"A Communist China seated in the U. N.," Fairbank con-
tinues, "could no longer pose as a martyr excluded by
'American imperialism.' She would have to face the self-,
interest of other countries, and learn to act as a full member
of international society for the first time in history. This is
the only way for China to grow up and eventually accept
restraints on her revolutionary ardor."
The most difficult and dangerous of issues between the
United States and China is the confrontation of their power
in Southeast Asia, an issue which, because of its explosive
possibilities, cannot be consigned to the healing effects of
time. I have suggested in recent sNeinentc brow I. think this
issue might be resolved by an agreement for the neutraliza-
tion of Vietnam under the guarantee of the great powers, and
I will not repeat the specifications of my proposal tonight.
Should it be possible to end the Vietnamese war on the
basis of an agreement for the neutralization of Southeast
Asia; it would then be possible to concentrate, with real
hope of success, on the long, difficult task of introducing
some trust into relations between China and the West, of
repairing history's ravages and bringing the great Chinese
nation into its proper role as a respected member of the
international community.
In time, it might even be possible for the Chinese and
Taiwanese on their own to work out some arrangement for
Taiwan that would not do too much damage either to the
concept of self-determination or to the Chinese concept of
China's cultural indivisibility-perhaps some sort of an ar-
rangement for Taiwanese self-government under nominal Chi-
nese suzerainty. But that would be for them to decide.
All this is not, as has been suggested, a matter of "being
kind to China." It is a matter of altering that fatal expect-
ancy which is leading two great nations toward a tragic and
unnecessary war.
If it involves "being kind to China," those who are repelled
by that thought may take some small comfort in the fact
that it also involves "being kind to America."
On Nov. 14, 1860, Alexander Hamilton Stephens, who sub-
sequently became Vice President of the Southern Confed-
eracy, delivered an address to the Georgia legislature, in
which he appealed to his colleagues to delay the secession
of Georgia from the Union: "It may be," he said, "that out
of it we may become greater and more prosperous, but I am
candid and sincere in telling you that I fear if we yield to
passion and without sufficient cause, shall take that step, that
instead of becoming greater or more peaceful, prosperous
and happy-instead of becoming gods, we will become de-
mons, and at no distant day commence cutting one another's
throats. This is my apprehension. Let us, therefore, whatev-
er we do, meet these difficulties, great as they are, like wise
and sensible men, and consider them in the light of all the
consequences which may attend our action." -
What a tragedy it is that the South did not accept Ste-
phens' advice in 1860. What a blessing it would be if, faced
with the danger of a war with China, we did accept it today.
"Humility to Match Our Pride"
In its relations with China, as indeed in its relations with
all of the revolutionary or potentially revolutionary societies
of the world, America has an opportunity to perform services
of which no great nation has ever before been capable. To
do so, we must acquire wisdom to match our power and
humility to match our pride.
Perhaps the single word above all others that expresses
America's need is "empathy," which Webster defines as the
"imaginative projection of one's own consciousness into an-
other being."
There are many respects in which America, if it can bring
itself to act with the magnanimity and the empathy appro-
priate to its size and power, can be an intelligent example
to the world.
We have the opportunity to set an example of generous
understanding in our relations with China, of practical co-
operation for peace in our relations with Russia, of reliable
and respectful partnership in our relations with Western Eu-
rope, of material helpfulness without moral presumption in
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our relations with the developing nations, of abstention from
the temptations of hegemony in our relations with Latin
America, and of the all-around advantages of minding one's
own business in our relations with everybody.
Most of all, we have the opportunity to serve as an example
of democracy to the world by the way in which we run our
own society. America, in the words of John Quincy Adams,
should be "the well-wisher to the freedom and independence
of all" but "the champion and vindicator only of her own."
If we can bring ourselves so to act, we will have over-
come the dangers of the arrogance of power. It will involve,
no doubt, the loss of certain glories, but that seems a price
worth paying for the probable rewards, which are the hap-
piness of America and the peace of the world.
The President's Reply to Senator Fulbright
Without using Mr. Fulbright's name, President Johnson
replied to the Senator's criticisms in a speech at Princeton
University on May 10. Excerpts from the President's address:
Abroad we can best measure America's involvement,
whatever our successes and failures, by a simple proposi-
tion: Not one single country where we have helped mount
a major effort to resist aggression-from France to Greece to
Korea to Vietnam-today has a government servile to out-
side interests.
There is a reason for this which I believe goes to the
very heart of our society: The exercise of power in this cen-
tury has meant for the United States not arrogance, but
agony, We have used our power not willingly and recklessly,
but reluctantly and with restraint.
Unlike nations in the past with vast power at their dis-
posal, the United States has not sought to crush the auton-
omy of her neighbors. We have not been driven by blind
militarism down courses of devastating aggression. Nor have
we followed the ancient and conceited philosophy of the
"noble lie" that some men are by nature meant to be
slaves to others.
Surely it is not a paranoid vision of America's place in
the world to recognize that freedom is still indivisible-still has
adversaries whose challenge must
be answered.
Today, of course, that challenge
is sternest in Southeast Asia. Yet
there, as elsewhere, our great
power is tempered by great re-
straint. What nation has announced
such limited objectives or such
willingness to remove its military
presence once those objectives are
achieved?
What nation has spent the lives
of its sons and vast sums of its for-
tune to provide the people of a
small, striving nation the chance to elect a course we might
not ourselves choose?
The aims for which we struggle are aims which, in the
ordinary course of affairs, men of the intellectual world ap-
plaud and serve: the principle of choice over coercion, the
defense of the weak against the strong and aggressive, the
right of a young and frail nation to develop free from the
interference of her neighbors, the ability of a people-how-
ever inexperienced, however different, however diverse--to
fashion a society consistent with their own traditions and
values and aspirations.
Rusk: "Power Has Not Corrupted American People"
Secretary of State Dean Rusk was asked about the Ful-
bright speech when he appeared on an ABC radio and TV
program, "Issues and Answers," on May 8, 7 966. Following
excerpts are from his comments:
Secretary Rusk: One always has to be careful about the
abuse of power. Lord Acton [English historian] once said
that power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts
absolutely. But I think it is a matter of the greatest histori-
cal importance that the almost unbelievable power of the
United States since 1945 has not corrupted the American
people. That power has been used to support the simple
and decent purposes of the American people in world af-
fairs.
Now let's look at the record since 1945 onward: We de-
mobilized almost totally after World War II, to a point
where, in 1946, we did not have a single division ready for
combat or a single air group ready for combat.
We tried to eliminate nuclear weapons from the arsenals
of the world by giving them up for ourselves under the
Baruch proposals [a U. S. plan, developed by Bernard Ba-
ruch, for the international control of atomic energy, present-
ed to the U. N. in 1946].
We reduced our defense budgets to something like 10
billion dollars in 1947.
We took the leadership in insist-
ing upon a peaceful reconciliation
with our enemies, Germany and
Japan.
We spent over a hundred billion
dollars not only binding up the
wounds of war, but trying to help
other countries get on with their
economic and social development.
We put some 14 billion dollars
in food assistance to other countries.
When crises have come up, upon
occasion we have to act with firm-
ness, but we have also acted with
great prudence.
We flew an airlift into West Berlin to help those people
survive while we explored the possibilities of peaceful set-
tlement rather than engaging our troops in combat.
In Korea we took enormous casualties to try to defend
the ability of the South Koreans to live at peace without
unleashing the Pandora's box of nuclear war.
When the Cuban missile crisis came up, President Ken-
nedy took extraordinary effort to leave the door open to a
peaceful settlement of that great crisis.
We waited four years, through increased infiltration from
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North Vietnam into South Vietnam, before we struck at
North Vietnam.
Now there may have been mistakes along this period, but
they are not mistakes of arrogance.
The United States has committed itself to trying to build
a decent world order. Why? Because the tens of millions of
casualties in World War II, and the prospect of hundreds
of millions of casualties in World War III make it a com-
pelling necessity that we organize a peace, that we not
leave these things just to hopes for peace, or we not leave
them to the ideas of the 1930s, that if you are not too rude
to the aggressor, maybe he will be satisfied and leave you
alone.
We have got to organize a peace. That is what the United
States has been all about in this postwar period. And we
don't go around looking for business in these matters.
There have been dozens and dozens of crises in which we
have not taken part. We are not the gendarmes of the uni-
verse. But it has been necessary upon occasion for us to move
to defend the possibility of an organized peace, particularly
where we have specific commitments through alliances.
Now this is not arrogance. The attitude of the American
people in this postwar period has not been one of arrogance
despite the unbelievable character of the power which is
available. But this power must not be used by ourselves, the
Russians or others, because the survival of the human race
depends upon it.
These problems should be approached on one's knees.
These problems make pygmies of us all, and unless we ap-
proach them with humility we will never solve them.
Senator Fulbright's charge that American troops are mak-
ing a brothel of South Vietnam came into the discussion.
Secretary Rusk: I must say I was disturbed by the char-
acterization of a city of. 2.5 million people, a proud and sen-
sitive people, as an American brothel, It just isn't true, as a
matter of fact.
We all know that the world's oldest profession is present
in every big city throughout the world, and the world's old-
est profession is supported by men, and has been since the
beginning of time, whether in uniform or in civilian clothes.
But what also disturbs me is that this reflects unfairly
and inaccurately upon what our men are doing out there.
The overwhelming majority of our men are fighting, stand-
ing guard, patrolling, carrying rice to people who are hun-
gry, running aid stations for those who are sick, teaching
classes, building schools and doing the things that are neces-
sary to help the South Vietnamese people get on with the
job.
Now the characterization of a city of 2.5 million people
as a brothel, and the :implication that this is preoccupying
the attention of our soldiers out there, I think, is not very
helpful under present circumstances.
The questioning turned to Senator Robert Kennedy's
argument that a policy of no sanctuary for Communist
planes which might attack from bases in Red China could
cause real trouble.
Secretary Rusk: Any decisions on that subject would
be, of course, made by the President in the light of all the
circumstances at the time. I think that we would not be
building a peace if we should somehow establish the prin-
ciple in international law that nations can conduct military
operations against their neighbors, and be themselves safe
under a sanctuary of some sort. This would greatly distort
the possibilities of organizing a decent peace. But the source
of a danger, if that issue should arise, would be from those
who would inject themselves into a conflict which we are
trying to settle.
I would be in Geneva tomorrow afternoon if there was
anybody there to talk with me about peace in Southeast
Asia.
For five years we have gone to the ends of the earth to
talk about peace in Southeast Asia.
We went to the Laos Conference in Geneva. We accepted
the Soviet nominee as the Prime Minister of Laos. We ac-
cepted the idea-produced by the Laotians themselves-that
they should have a coalition Government. We signed that
agreement. So did Peiping and so did Hanoi. But from
the very day of the signature, Hanoi refused to withdraw its
troops from Laos, refused to cease sending its troops through
Laos into South Vietnam.
Now, the question is, who is interested in peace, and who
is insisting upon taking over somebody else by force?
A lot of these things ought to be sorted out on the basis
of those very simple things. It isn't necessary to confuse
these with a great deal of speculation and all sorts of philos-
ophy and all sorts of ambiguity and murkiness. At the heart
of the matter is, how are we going to organize peace and
who is prepared to join in doing that, and who is deter-
mined to gobble up their neighbors by force?
Mrs. Lord: "Fuibright Should
See Good Work of Our GI's"
Senator Fulbright's speech prompted the following state-
ment from Mrs. Oswald B. Lord, who has served in United
Nations posts and on presidential commissions, and who
has just returned from a tour, sponsored by the U. S. State
Department, of South Vietnam and other countries.
I wish Senator Fulbright could go to Vietnam to see for
himself the good work so many of our young men there are
doing in their off-duty hours.
When people back here talk about Saigon, they talk about
the bar girls. You don't hear about all the time our young
men are spending to build and
operate day schools, care centers,
orphanages, other things for the
people.
A leprosy village is being built
on an island about 5 miles from
Saigon. A French woman started it.
The men in an American Army
unit learned about it and pitched
in. They are building a bridge and
a road to give access to the island.
There is an orphanage in Saigon,
started by, the Vietnamese Wom-
en's Association. The children are
either war orphans or refugees from
the North. GI's off duty are build-
ing new classrooms so the children won't have to eat, sleep
and go to school in the same room.
Near Da' Nang, a new settlement is being built for refu-
gees who fled from the Viet Cong. I saw GI's working
there, playing with the kids, helping older people learn new
trades and new methods of farming.
These are just a few examples. I want to bring the posi-
tive to the attention of people. I am anxious that the moth-
ers and wives of this country realize how much good these
boys are doing out there.
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CPHNSIBLE AND IRRESPONSIBLE CRITICISM OF FOREIGN POLICY
(Continued from the back of this page
should it surrender? The Arkansas Senator implies that
there is something honorable about capitulation and
something dishonorable about asserting a nation's right
to defend its territory or to assist in the defense of
helpless peoples who request us to come to their aid.
Another criticism voiced by the Chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee is that Americans
misbehave when they go abroad, and appear to be
"boorish when they are in somebody else's country."
But are there not many more Americans who are cour-
teous and respectful and who have made enduring
friendships while traveling around the world? Mr. Ful-
bright: makes another blanket indictment when he says:
"Both literally and figuratively, Saigon has become
an American brothel,"
Secretary of State Rusk rebutted this charge by
pointing out that there are brothels all over the world,
but that they do not typify the behavior of the entire
population of any big city.
The Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee criticizes the mission of American forces
in Vietnam, even though their help was formally re-
quested by the government there. He doesn't see any-
thing wrong with an uncompromising attitude toward
peace by Red China or North Vietnam but thinks the
United States ought to compromise anyhow. He adds:
"Having been all but destroyed as a nation by the
forced intrusions of the West, China must first know
that she has the strength to reject unwanted foreign
influences before she can be expected to seek or accept
friendly foreign associations....
"There is no better way to convey this message to
China than by leaving her alone."
But what shall be said of a government on mainland
China that interferes with the independence of other
nations in Southeast Asia and fights South Vietnamese
as well as American soldiers?
Notwithstanding such unmoral conduct, the Chair-
man of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee favors
the seating of Communist China in the United Na-
tions. He does not answer Secretary Rusk, who asks:
"What do you do about Formosa? ... It has a pop-
ulation equal to more than half of the members of the
U. N.; it was a charter member of the U. N. Peiping
has made it very clear, not only that the Republic of
China must be expelled, but that the U. N. must apolo-
gize and reorganize and do all sorts of other things."
Abstract advice by Mr. Fulbright, such as "to set
an example of generous understanding in our relations
with China," does not tell us what good it will do to
ignore the behavior of the Red Chinese and their ag-
gressive policies in Korea and elsewhere, when there is
still no sign of any change in policy in Peiping.
The Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Com-
mittee says that, if America "can bring itself to act
with the magnanimity and the empathy appropriate
to its size and power," it can be "an intelligent exam-
ple to the world." He adds:
"If we can bring ourselves so to act, we will have
overcome the dangers of the arrogance of power. It
will involve, no doubt, the loss of certain glories, but
that seems a price worth paying for the probable re-
wards, which are the happiness of America and the
peace of the world."
But suppose this involves the loss of the prestige
of the United States on every continent and leads to
insurrections and depredations which threaten the lives
and property not only of Americans but of other for-
eign nationals? What would become of the West Ger-
man people, for instance, if we withdrew from Europe
and thus gave the Communists a free rein. to take over
the new German Republic?
The issue presented is'whether or not we should sur-
render and forsake our responsibilities, desert our own
allies and appease the enemy. Did appeasement ever
pay before? Was not appeasement in 1938 the direct
cause of World War II in 1939?
Mr. Fulbright may have conscientiously tried
to be provocative and get attention in an earnest search
for alternative policies. But he paints an image of his
own country as irresolute in the middle of a war and
as reaching out desperately for peace at any price.
As President Johnson said in his speech at the dedi-
cation of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs at Princeton University a few
days ago, the American record speaks for itself. He
declared :
. "The exercise of power in this century has meant
for all of us in the United States not arrogance, but
agony. We have used our power not willingly and reck-
lessly ever, but always reluctantly and with restraint.
"Unlike nations in the past with vast power at their
disposal, the United States of America has never sought
to crush the autonomy of her neighbors. We have not
been driven by blind militarism down courses of devas-
tating aggression....
"As I look upon America this morning from this plat-
form of one of her greatest universities, I see instead a
nation whose might is not her master but her servant."
The United States Senate should adopt a resolution
affirming the above quotation and directing that it be
proclaimed as the true voice of America. ` [END] -
nit
U.S. NEWS & W0?LAgCW'1&ixgf6,-, proved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000200900035-6123
9qw
 (This page peentsee ionH J J V d T d F R I & CtALRDP7&,W49RVO
of these A-19.9 views. o part or this or any other page may be reproduced without written -permission.)
RESPONSIBLE AND IRRESPONSIBLE
CPYRGHT CRITICISM OF FOREIGN POLICY
BY DAVID LAWRENCE
T ERE ARE TWO KINDS of criticism of public pol-
iHcy. Responsible criticism presents facts and, after
fair analysis, offers constructive alternatives. Irrespon-
sible criticism ignores certain facts germane to a con-
troversy, misconstrues basic motives, and sometimes
argues that the best way to deal with trouble is to run
away from it.
Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, Democrat,
has just delivered a series of lectures before college au-
diences denouncing the foreign policy of the United
States during the last 70 years. He downgrades his own
Government as bumptious and domineering. He accuses
it of brandishing military force and displaying through-
out the world an "arrogance of power."
As Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Corn-
mittee, Mr. Fulbright has a responsibility-not only to
the people of his own country but to other peoples as
well-to be objective. Because the legislative branch of
our Government is considered co-ordinate with the
executive, the rest of the world takes seriously the
speeches and. proposals of a Chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee.
Mr. Fulbright was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford
for three years, and. observed that the parliamentary
system in England places responsibility on the party
in power. Leaders within that same party who dissent
on a major policy must resign or perhaps join an op-
position party. The issue can then be decided by the
people in a national election.
Every Senator has the right of dissent, but no Sena-
tor should be permitted to represent his party as chair-
man of an important committee if he is in fundamental
disagreement with the policies of an Administration
controlled by his own party.
The present Chairman of the Senate Foreign Rela-
tions Committee continues to advocate proposals
that are diametrically opposite to those of the Admin-
istration in power. Even in the midst of the war in
Vietnam, in which 250,000 Americans in the armed
services are engaged, the Senator not only assails his
own Government but scoffs at policies of the United
States for more than a half-century, questions its mo-
tives, and minimizes its altruistic endeavors.
Mr. Fulbright begins his tirade with the charge
that our war against Spain in 1898 was imperialistic.
He omits reference to the action of the Spaniards in
blowing up the battleship Maine in Havana harbor,
killing 286 Americans. He disregards the effect upon
the American people of the atrocities committed in
Cuba by the oppressors.
The Senator bemoans the fact that the liberated
Cubans were ruled for many years under an American
protectorate. He disregards the help we gave them in
developing their resources.
We did the same thing in the Philippines. Yet Mr.
Fulbright cynically condemns President McKinley for
saying it was America's duty "to educate the Filipinos,
and uplift and civilize" the people of the Islands and
"by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as
our fellowmen for whom Christ also died."
We have intervened for a time in many countries in
Latin America to restore order, and have always with-
drawn when a stable government could be established.
Mr. Fulbright, moreover, in a welter of words about
the conflicting ambitions of European nations in the
major wars, ignores the reasons for our participation'
in World War I nearly three years after it began. He
doesn't mention that it was the interference with Amer-
ican merchant shipping which caused Congress in 1917
to declare a state of war. Several vessels-including the
unarmed British steamer Lusitania-had been sunk by
German torpedoes with the loss of many American
lives. We tried in vain for two years to get assurances
that our ships would not be attacked.
Was or was not the "freedom of the seas," a vital
principle of international law, worth fighting for? Was
President Woodrow Wilson wrong when he said we
must do our part to "make the world safe for democ-
racy" and to get rid of autocratic governments?
The Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, however, characterizes all this as not for
"the defense or perpetuation of great principles" but
rather as "explanations or excuses for certain unfath-
omable drives of human nature." He seems to think that
what we did in World War I and World War II was an
example of "arrogance of power, the tendency of great
nations to equate power with virtue and major respon-
sibilities with a universal mission."
Mr. Fulbright also appears indifferent to the
fact that the United States certainly could not keep
out of World War II after the Japanese bombed Amer-
ican territory at Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Should a nation defend itself when attacked, or
(Continued on preceding page)
==1z4 -aa~aQO~. 1966