LETTER TO HONORABLE NELSON ROCKEFELLER FROM ALLEN W. DULLES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01676R004200100025-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 1, 2002
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: June 13, 1955
• Content Type: LETTER

Approved For Release 2002/10/10 : CIA-RQ 80BO1676R004200100025-0 f off- ,,C~
Ruchef
to the Presldent
y'PPreesate4 your lette
f
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MY CoLu gj tom.
TAM Thnreday ere" me:tin
nmeful ....r T L _ _ _ _ aeelned
a we will
get a
#r list -
p4r
jo* in the next few days
matoze etvd..
AUOA W. Dule8
Director
AWD:ji (12 June 55)
Distribution
1 - ER w/basic
1 -DCI
1 - Reading
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7/'
 Approved For Release 2002/10/10 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R004200100025-0
The Truth May . ee em!1s
Speaking to a group of Columbia
University graduates, Director Allen W.
Dulles of the Central Intelligence Agency
has advanced an interesting and hopeful
theory regarding the possibilities inher-
ent in the Soviet Union's ever-expanding
educational system. - The ;theory is simply
this: That with the continuing growth
of, that system-"with more knowledge,
more training of the mind, given more
people"-the day must inevitably arrive
when more and more Russians, vast num-
b. ers of them, will.develop more and more
doubt about the Communist tyranny and
!thus set in motion mass forces and pres
cures that may in time compel the Krem-
lin'to let freedom ring throughout the
USSR.
Right now, of course, this,seems to
be a very remote prospect at best. In-
::deed, viewed in its less promising light,
!Soviet education constitutes a -serious
potential threat to the free world be-
I cause of the way it is rapidly catching
!up with'the United States : in developing
a huge supply of scientists and engineers.
aii?x5~+.i3We still have the lead in that'respect,
but we are fast losing it. And we are
(losing it because there has been a drastic
and. continuing drop in the number of
such personnel being graduated by our
schools. Hence, as Mr. Dulles has warned,
unless we quickly take new measures to
increase our own facilities and. reverse
the present trend, the Kremlin's scien-
tific manpower is. likely to be greater
.than ours. within the coming decade-
a fact -that. could be most ominous in the
atomic-hydrogen age.
I J1-
Yet, with that said, Mr. Dulles has
recalled how Wendell Willkie, during a
Kremlin conversation in 1942, listened
to a lot of glowing statistics about Rus-
sia's expanding school system, and then
observed to his dictator-host: "If you
,,continue to educate the Russian people,.
Mr. Stalin,. the first thing. you know you'll
educate yourself out of a job." Mr.
Willkie was in. a bantering mood ,at the
time, but Mr. Dulles feels that he may
have been prescient and that what Gen-
eralissimo Stalin regarded as a joke may
well prove, to be anything but funny for '
the Kremlin in the. future. True, the.
Soviet rulers still are capable of condi-
tioning the minds ' and controlling the
thoughts of their educated. subjects, but
the process of. control can hardly _ fail to
become harder. and harder as time goes
on and as such people grow more and
more numerous. . Thus, with enlighten-.
ment spreading throughout the, country,
Marxist ideology-colliding with objec-
tive truth and the hard challenges of
demonstrated knowledge--is likely to be
put increasingly on the defensive until
i2t ,,.,ltt retreats, sooner or later, to a point. F>i
where it may be discredited altogether
and forever.
Mr. Dulles has not ventured to predict
that all this will. surely happen. But
he has made clear that lie attaches great
importance to the idea as a long-range:
possibility. For he . is convinced that!
mass education-which they actually
cannot stop but must continue to pro-
mote-is a threat to today's `.`troubled
Soviet leaders" and that they will hence-
: forth find it "very difficult ... to close
.off their own people from access to the
realities of the outside world." Perhaps
his view is too optimistic, but these area
times of such, rapid change and flux
that nothing seems inconceivable-not
even the eventual triumph of liberty and
truth in Russia and its satellite empire.
Approved For Release 2002/10/10 : CIA-RDP80BO1676R004200100025-0
 Approved For Release 2002/10/10 :-RDP80B01676R004200 0 2
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
June 6, 1955
Dear Allen:
I appreciate so much your thoughtfulness
in sending me a copy of your speech at Columbia.
seems to me it
I enjoyed it tremendously, and it
best presen-
tation get wide
of the subject I have seen.
Have you made any plans for its publica-
tion, and would you mind if I sent it to DeWitt
Wallace to use in the Readers Digest?
With very best wishes,
Sincerely,
elson A. Rockefeller
Special Assistant
Honorable Allen W. Dulles
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington 25, D. C.
uG'_~ I~GCv4f/1c
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