Chapter XI · CONCLUSIONS
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The Communist Manifesto in its closing words declared war on all non-Communists. The Communists have continued this warfare even until now. It will culminate, they are confident, in the complete victory of communism. Although they want to avoid World War III, if they can attain their aims without it, they are now waging cold war, as well as hot war, against us in order to ultimately make possible world conquest.
The present period of peaceful coexistence is but another phase of their war on non-Communist societies. In the Statement by 81 Communist Parties in Moscow, November, 1960, this was clearly set forth.
“The policy of peaceful coexistence meets the basic interests of all peoples, of all who want no new cruel wars and seek durable peace. This policy strengthens the positions of socialism, enhances the prestige and international influence of the socialist countries and promotes the prestige and influence of the socialist countries and promotes the prestige and influence of the Communist Parties in the capitalist countries. Peace is a loyal ally of socialism, for time is working for socialism against capitalism.
“The policy of peaceful coexistence is a policy of mobilizing the masses and launching vigorous action against the enemies of peace. Peaceful coexistence of states does not imply renunciation of the class struggle as the revisionists claim. The coexistence of states with differing social systems is a form of class struggle between socialism and capitalism. In conditions of peaceful coexistence favorable opportunities are provided for the development of the class struggle in the capitalist countries and the national-liberation movement of the peoples of the colonial and dependent countries. In their turn, the successes of the revolutionary class and the national liberation struggle promote peaceful coexistence. The Communists consider it their duty to fortify the faith of the people in the possibility of furthering peaceful coexistence, their determination to prevent world war. They will do their utmost for the people to weaken imperialism and limit its sphere of action by an active struggle for peace, democracy and national liberation.
“Peaceful coexistence of countries with differing social systems does not mean conciliation of the socialist and bourgeois ideologies. On the contrary, it implies intensification of the struggle of the working class, of all the Communist Parties, for the triumph of socialist ideas. But ideological and political disputes between states must not be settled through war.”[238]
Communist doctrine, action and aggression, however, has called forth anti-communism. Those who are for liberty and righteousness are aroused when they realize the inroads which communism is making throughout the world. If men are for the traditional values of Western civilization, for example, they must be against communism which endeavors to destroy those values.
It is very unfortunate that Senator Fulbright should brand so many informed anti-Communists as belonging (as Gus Hall puts it) to the ultra-right,[239] or extreme radical rightwing (as Senator Fulbright puts it). It is tragic that the Senator has helped knock the military out of the cold war (one of the prime objectives of the Communists in America). It also is harmful to the cause of anti-communism and freedom that he has identified this so-called radical rightwing with fascism. It does not help military morale to raise the idea of “French Generals” in America in the future threatening civilian authority.
We hope that the Senator will reconsider and that he will use his tremendous influence to get the Secretary of Defense and the White House to disregard his very influential secret memorandum. We are not asking that mistakes of anti-communists not be pointed out, but we are asking him not to lump together so many different groups of anti-communists and label them as “radical rightwingers”. We are not asking that the military engage in partisan politics, but in view of the great danger we stand in we are asking that at least some of the individuals in the military, who are equipped to wage the cold war, be allowed to help inform and alert the public, as well as the military, concerning the history, philosophy, strategy and tactics of communism. The need to meet the enemy in the cold war, and to win over the very present danger of communism, is a pressing reality; and in dealing with it we should use all necessary forces without being held back by the fear that in some distant future some military leaders might get out of hand. It is not realism to refuse to do what we can, including the use of the military in the cold war, to meet a very real present danger because of a fear of a danger which the Senator admits does not now exist.
The great problems which face us today center in communism and the war which it is now waging on civilization. We hope that the influence of Senator Fulbright, and those of like mind, on the President will not keep him from implementing one of his own statements wherein he said: “So, therefore, the problem always is, how can the military remain removed from political life, how can civilian control of the military remain removed from political life, how can civilian control of the military be effectively maintained, and at the same time the military have the right and the necessity to express their educated views on some of the great problems that face us around the world?”[240] This, however, it will be impossible for them to do if the Fulbright memorandum continues to have an influence on the Government.
Let us not lose sight of the basic issues which are involved. First, we have been forced into the cold war by the aggressive acts and designs of the Communists. Second, there is no reason to believe that the Communists will change their minds and abandon their efforts to conquer the world and to remake man into the image demanded by their godless philosophy of life. Third, the cold war is a real war. Fourth, the cold war is the major war which the Communists are now waging against us. Fifth, the military has within its ranks experts on the history, the philosophy, the strategy and the tactics of communism. Sixth, international communism not only operates outside of the borders of our country, but also inside the borders through its various agents, including the Communist Party. Seventh, the oath taken by the military binds the military to defend the country against enemies both domestic and foreign. Communism today is the foreign and domestic enemy. Eighth, informing the troops and the public concerning communism is not the same as participating in partisan politics. Ninth, there is a need for both the troops and the public to know more about the enemy who faces us. Tenth, civilian control of the military is not really being threatened. Eleventh, it is possible to deal with a military official who oversteps his bounds without nullifying the directive issued in 1958 by the National Security Council. Twelfth, the Fulbright memorandum was aimed at the nullification of this directive and was designed, therefore, to take the military out of the cold war in the very sense in which the directive was designed to put the military into the cold war. Thirteen, the memorandum and the Stanford speech introduce a new concept of government. Fourteen, the memorandum is a serious matter whose implementation hinders, not helps, the United States in the cold war. Thus the author believes that the memorandum is against the real interests of Senator Fulbright and all other Americans.
Furthermore, let it be observed, in conclusion, that Senator Fulbright has recognized elsewhere that the people need to be both alerted and informed, although at times the Senator seems confused on these matters. Thus in the memorandum Senator Fulbright said: “Fundamentally, it is believed that the American people have little, if any, need to be alerted to the menace of the cold war. Rather, the need is for understanding of the true nature of that menace, and the direction of the public’s present and foreseeable awareness of the fact of the menace toward the support of the President’s own total program for survival in a nuclear age.”[241]
Does the Senator mean that the American people have already been sufficiently alerted? Only a year before he doubted that Americans had yet heeded the warning. He further thought that the President was failing to sound the warning sufficiently. “We have been warned, but have we heard? If we should perish it will not be for lack of warning but for lack of the will to survive.”[242] “Mr. Sprague insisted that the United States be awakened to the scope of the overall Russian threat to us. But who is to ring the alarm bell?
“‘There is only one man in the United States that can do this effectively, and that is the President,’ said Mr. Sprague. He continued: ‘I believe, and this is a personal belief, that the danger is more serious than the President has indicated to the American public.’”[243]
As late as December 1960 the Senator was saying: “The greatest crisis confronting the West is not Berlin. It is the apathy of the free world and its incomprehensible unwillingness to look facts in the face. Evolution and the survival of the fittest are concepts we understand when applied to plants and animals—but we seem not to realize that these concepts apply to us.”[244]
Toward the end of April 1961 President Kennedy said: “Our greatest adversary is not the Russians. It is our own unwillingness to do what must be done.”[245]
Senator Fulbright agrees that the people need to be informed. “The successful waging of peace requires a vigorous national administration, an informed people, and a mature people who know that you cannot be adult without being willing to pay for what you want.”[246] “The American people ought to be told the bleak truth about their world, the character of the forces arrayed against them, and what they must do, at whatever cost, to survive or even to bring about a state of high security. They must be told that, however humane their society, whatever its ideals, this alone will not save them from destruction by a society armed with the prodigious mechanisms of our times and an implacable determination to dominate all men.”[247]
Since this is the case, there is no real reason why qualified men in the military should not be used in alerting and informing America.
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