ADDRESS BY ALLEN W. DULLES DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE TO THE WOMEN'S FORUM ON NATIONAL SECURITY WASHINGTON, D. C. JANUARY 30, 1959, 11 A.M. EST 'THE COMMUNIST CHALLENGE TO FREE GOVERNMENT'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84-00161R000100160005-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 12, 2002
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: January 30, 1959
• Content Type: SPEECH

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ADDRESS
BY
ALLEN W. DULLES
DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
TO THE
WOMEN'S FORUM ON NATIONAL SECURITY
WASHINGTON, D. C.
JANUARY 30, 1959, 11 AM . EST
"THE COMMUNIST CHALLENGE TO FREE GOVERNMENT"
I feel honored to have this opportunity to address the seventh annual
Women's Forum on National Security under the auspices of the American
Legion Auxiliary. The general subject of this Forum has been the
"Changing Dimensions in National Security. Certainly no audience has
a greater interest than you in our national security. For you it has a
direct and personal meaning. In helping to preserve it, many of you have
made great sacrifices.
You have suggested that in discussing the subject you have assigned
me -- "The Communist Challenge to Free Government, " -- I describe
psychological warfare as it is practiced by the Communist world.
.It may be presumptuous on my part to suppose that any man can tell
an audience of ladies much about the use of psychological techniques, but
I can assure you that the particular type of psychological warfare practiced
by the Soviet bears little resemblance to that which you are reputed to
employ.
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In fact, the term "psychological warfare" is a misnomer. The
threat faced by the Free World from international communism - apart
from the military threat with which we are more conversant - is not
merely a psychological one. It is an aggressive campaign based on a
series of very positive action programs with political, economic and
subversive objectives. It involves the radio and all means of mass com-
munication, visual as well as by the written and spoken word; subtle
political intrigue based on the control and manipulation of communist
parties and communist agents on a worldwide basis. It includes the use
of various front organizations which pretend to represent youth, labor,
professional groups and veterans, and are agencies for spreading com-
munist doctrine throughout the Free World. In their subversive arsenal,
they also have front organizations which use the slogans of "peace",
friendship and coexistence.
This challenge is being pressed forward under the growing threat
of Soviet industrial, scientific and technical advances.
To meet this threat we must understand it.. To penetrate the subtle-
ties of the Soviet political, economic, and psychological drive is harder
for us to do than to understand the military menace. Weapons of war are
visible, tangible, and comprehensible, even the highly sophisticated weapons
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of the present day, such as guided missiles, nuclear bombs and supersonic
planes. The impact of an idea, of a subversive political movement, of a
disguised economic policy is more subtle.
International communism is a ruthlessly proselytizing force.
It seeks to make converts of men and women wherever the opportunity
permits; just as it does not hesitate to make "convicts" of them as it has
done in Hungary. It has lost none of its faith in its world mission, as
outlined by Lenin and Stalin. This mission continues to be the domination
of the entire Free World.
The communists, for fear of retaliation, may well be deterred from
trying to reach their goals by military action. This does not mean that
they will stop their propaganda, infiltration, economic penetration and
the use of their front organizations.. In fact, the communists are confident
that even though they may have no adequate answer to our military retalia-
tory power, they still have the ability to close off their frontiers, their
air` space and their rigidly controlled society to retaliation through use of
the type of political and economic action they themselves, direct against -us.
They have their Iron Curtains not only on their frontiers but within the
country. They even try to draw down this Curtain within the minds of
their own people.
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A review of the various elements of the communist apparatus'
ready for export to the Free World, may help to an understanding of
the nature of this threat faced by the Free World.
First, I would list the use of written and spoken propaganda.
Throughout the Free World, to every level of society -,- to the
intellectual and to the common man, to the young and the old, the pro-
fessional workers and laborers, the arguments for communism are broad-
cast from the Soviet Union, their European satellites and Communist China.
These are heard in scores of languages, beamed to the entire Free
World from openly acknowledged and from clandestine transmitters.
Literally millions of words are spewed out to the Free World every
day. There is no special uniformity in their messages. They are tailored
to the particular vulnerabilities of each area and to the particular audience.
Communist China, for example, which intervened against the United Nations
in Korea, proudly advertised the fact that it was a signatory to the Bandung
agreement pledging non-interference in the affairs of. other countries.
Their radios carried on for months on end a campaign-accusingour country
of engaging in germ warfare in Korea -- then cut it off abruptly and turned
to some other theme.
Naturally in the Free World, these broadcasts are monitored and
analyzed.
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We find that. Moscow is highly selective .in the dissemination of its
propaganda programs. It selects a. particular audience for a particular
theme. A broadcast from Moscow may go only to the Western Hemisphere.
This has one meaning. If it goes only to Europe, it has another. It may
go only to Africa and the Middle East. Or then again it may be broadcast
only to the peoples of the Soviet Union, or only to the Soviet Union and the
satellites. Or the broadcast may be on a worldwide basis. We draw quite
different deductions from each of these maneuvers. and they help us to
understand whether a general Soviet policy is involved, or merely a particu-
lar propaganda ploy for a particular audience.
Wisely, I believe, the Free World takes no steps to jam or interfere
with Soviet radio propaganda. This would be a sad admission of weakness.
The Free World must be strong enough and discriminating enough to
take anything of this nature they wish to send us, and recognize it for what
it is.
Furthermore, it would be tremendously costly to do the jamming.
The modest effort which this government and other free governments and
free peoples devote to broadcasting to the communist world involves only
a small percentage of the cost, which the Soviet Union, Communist-China,
and their satellites devote to the jamming of the radio messages beamed
to their countries from the Free World.
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Another instrument of Soviet political warfare, directed largely
to the less developed areas of the world, is the spreading of Soviet
propaganda by the printed word. The communists cater to the thirst of
these countries for technical and other literature. They supply it in
inexpensive and readable form. Of course, much of this literature
stresses the growing competence of the Soviet Union in the fields of
science and technology, and now in the mysteries of outer space.
There is no intention here to leave this field to the Soviet. After
all, in many of the new and emerging countries of the world, English is
the language common to the largest portion of these peoples. By and
large, English literature appeals more than any other on a worldwide
basis. In fact, the Russians themselves recognize this and print a great
deal of what they distribute in these countries in the English language.
However,. it is not easy on a straight commercial basis, to compete
with the subsidized flow of low cost publications, printed and paid for by
a communist government to serve communist ends.
International communism has also made effective use of the
communist parties which exist, either legally recognized or under cover,
in most of the free countries of theworld. These parties vary greatly in
strength. Here in the United States the party has had rough going due to
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our high living standards, our recognition of the communist danger, and
the technical competence of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in pene-
trating and disclosing party activities. Such is not the case in many
countries of the world. Even in some of the highly developed countries
of the Free World, the communist party, in terms of popular vote, ranks
among the strongest of the political parties.
Today, the 21st Congress of the Communist Party is meeting in
Moscow. At this Congress, in addition to the communist leaders of the
USSR, China and the Soviet European satellite countries, there are repre-
sentatives of communist parties from about sixty countries in the Free World.
Even the communist party of the United States claims representation.
While all except the Soviet representatives are guests rather than
full participants in the Congress, they will undoubtedly be getting together
with the leaders of the Soviet communist party to review common policies
and programs for undermining our free societies. I suggest that one is
entitled to ask whether the Soviet believe this is really the best way of
persuading. us that the worldwide communist conspiracy and the Cold War
is over and that "peaceful coexistence" is the sole purpose of these
deliberations.
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To supplement communist party worldwide activities, the inter-
national communist movement also has its stable of front organizations,
to which I have referred.
One of the most important of these is the World Federation of Trade
Unions. While they do. not .tolerate free trade unions in the. Soviet Union,
they put a tremendous effort into the attempt to control the trade unions of
the Free World. Here they have succeeded in controlling some of the
largest of the, trade unions, for example in France, Italy, Japan, .Indonesia,
and several other countries. They claim that the WFTU has 92 million
members throughout the world. This is an exaggeration, and the number
of their trade union followers fortunately is decreasing, but certainly they
still have many millions and they constitute a sinister power in the labor
movement.
In the field of student and youth affairs, the Soviet Union exerts its
influence through the World Federation of Democratic Youth, a major
communist front which has claimed a membership of 86 million in 96
countries. This organization, working closely with ano,ther..fr.ontin this
field, the International Union of Students, produces two major publications
in eleven languages, together with hundreds of pamphlets, and even a
weekly radio broadcast in seven languages from Budapest.
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The communists maintain the Women's International Democratic
Federation to reach audiences of women throughout the world with the
theme that the living conditions of women and children, particularly in
underdeveloped areas, are far behind those in Russia. This organization
has claimed a membership of over 200 million.
A number of other front organizations, moreover, have been created
to disseminate communist themes and influence professional audiences.
These include the World Federation of Teachers Unions, the International
Association of Democratic Lawyers, the International Organization of
Journalists, the International Medical. Association for the Study of Living
Conditions and Health, and the International Federation of Resistance Fighters.
Cutting across professional lines, but designed to have a special appeal to
intellectuals, the communists have created the World Peace Council, which,
through its National Peace Committees in 47 countries, has been the most
aggressive of all the communist fronts in reaching non-communists in the
Free World, trading on the magic word
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The disruptive power of the Soviet economic and industrial machine
is also overhanging the Free World economy. Never before, except for a
brief bout with a Hitlerite Germany in the 1930s, has world trade had to
face a great economic power whose trade practices are wholly dominated
by an autocratic government and can be used and channeled to meet political
rather than economic ends.
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In the case of Germany, such economic power was devoted almost
exclusively to domestic rearmament purposes. Until recently this has
been true, of the USSR. But today there have been instances where Soviet
trade, its purchases and sales -- as well as its promises to purchase or
sell -- have been turned on and off to disrupt a price structure or upset
established trade patterns. Tin in Malaya, cotton in Egypt, coffee in
Brazil, and copper in Chile are examples of commodities which are
vulnerable to such disruptive trade practices.
This is a brief outline of the mechanism used by international
communism. It would not necessarily be a menace to our safety if the
communist world did not have dynamic ideas to export and vulnerable
social and economic conditions to exploit.
.We should recognize that although communist doctrine has little
appeal to us, it does exercise great influence on the minds of many of the
peoples of the Free World, including particularly those of the less developed
areas. Economic progress and.material development, as described by the
Soviet, present an attraction to the less developed areas of the world and
seems of more immediate importance there than the realization of the
great principles and ideals for which we fought our own revolution.
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Our forefathers were not struggling primarily for economic or
industrial betterment, for better food and housing and better living
conditions. They were fighting for the great ideals of liberty, the right
to organize a free and representative government of the people. This
was an end in itself, not werely a means to an end.
In fact, the communist threat is receding in most of the countries
of Western Europe where such ideals are the guiding force. After Hungary
it has become increasingly difficult for the Soviet to export their political
wares in Europe, where the Soviet is facing the most sophisticated of.
revolutionary societies, the society of representative institutions.
And here, too, they see that Eastern Europe today, after more than
ten years of enforced indoctrination, can offer the Soviet only the criticism
- of intellectuals, rebellious youth, dissatisfied wage earners, a despised
and resented police force, and almost totally undependable armies.
But if Europe has proved a poor battleground for Soviet psychological
warfare, there are vast stretches of the world in which great opportunities
do exist for them. Lenin himself recognized as long ago as 1916 that the
European workers were not the best target for the communist revolution.
In trying to explain the fact that the European socialists supported their
national governments during the First World War, Lenin stated that the
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workers of Europe had become capitalists to some degree. The true
proletariat, and therefore the real target for communism, according
to Lenin, were really the peoples of the then colonial areas.
When we look to Asia and Africa we can see that a great revolution,
perhaps the greatest of our time, is taking place before our eyes. During
the next ten years new governments may be born in a score of countries
in Africa.
The leaders of world communism are alert to the opportunity which
this great transformation provides them. They realize that the future of
communism can be insured only by expansion and that the.best hope of
such expansion lies in Asia and Africa. Thus, while the weekly total
broadcasting hours from communist stations to Europe has remained
fairly constant, the number of broadcast hours from communist stations
to Africa rose.by over 50 per cent and increased substantially in Asia.
The same has been true. of the other elements of their propaganda effort.
In this psychological offensive, the Soviet Union and Communist
China employ two of the most compelling symbols for the newly developed
countries -- the image of the machine, which can promise an end to
economic want, and the symbol of the revolution, which strikes such a
responsive chord in people who have so recently won their own freedom.
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Further, these new countries are coming into existence saddled with
enormous problems which the communists recklessly promise to cure
quickly and easily, while we, in all honesty, must suggest more austere
measures.
First of all, there is the problem of poverty - a crushing poverty
which combines with high birth rates and large populations to produce
food shortages, disease and low living standards. These areas must
strive for enormous economic advances simply to keep abreast-of rising
populations, not to mention improvement in the standard of living. And
they must attempt this in the face of great disadvantages due to the lack
of technicians and education.
It is at this point that communism claims to offer a short cut; its
leaders say that the Soviet Union also was an underdeveloped country, only
forty years ago, and through the advantages of communism, has now become
a leader of nations.
The fallacies of this claim are obvious to us -- not to them, and it
remains one of the weapons communism possesses for the psychological
warfare campaign in the less developed areas.
There is also the problem of making democracy work in countries
where the political background and standards of education are lacking to
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support a truly representative form.of government. We tend to forget
that real democracy does not spring from a piece of paper, from a
constitution, no matter how admirable. It depends upon the existence
of a democratic spirit -- the liberality.of mind, the ability to compromise
when necessary and hold fast when required, the art of living up to a
constitution and making it function in the people's interest. This art is
not easily or quickly acquired.
Such a situation obviously contains numerous opportunities for
communist exploitation. Lenin wrote: "No parliament can in any circum-
stances be for communists an arena of struggle for reforms for the better-
ment of the situation of the working class . . The only question can be
that of utilizing bourgeoise state institutions for their own destruction."
This they have sought to do. Disciplined communist agitators are
working to immobilize the parliamentary institutions of newly independent
states, to stifle the ability to make decis ions, harass and oppose the
govern'1 nt -- not with any intention of offering a substitute policy, but
merely to discredit and eventually to destroy a free electoral system.
Very often the presence of such communist efforts tends to destroy the
possibility of a moderate; constructive position, with the result that the
people are forced to choose between military dictatorship and a so-called
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"people's front", a way station on the road to all-out communism.
Such are some of the opportunities which international communism
attempts to exploit today across vast.stretches of the world.
If we are to meet these challenges we must first of all keep ourselves
fully informed and understand the nature of the struggle between communist
and Free World ideals. We must realize that the choice between communism
and freedom is not always as simple and easy a decision for great masses
of peoples as it might seem to us.
We cannot, as some suggest, leave them. alone and unaided in making
this choice. There must be some sharing with them of our heritage, not
only of ideals but of the tools which make for a better material existence.
Winning in this contest is not beyond the
capabilities of the Free
World once it is.aroused to the task. .There is a growing realization
that man cannot live by bread alone and that the communist program
with its appeal to the materialistic side is an inadequate answer. We
have the resources and the capacity to show that our form of free society
is able not only to promote human happiness and individual welfare, but
also that .it answers the cravings of people for the moral and spiritual
values which are lacking in a communist society.
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