The Problem of Peace
It is now more than a year since the Japanese signed the Articles of Surrender to the allied powers aboard the Battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. On that historic day of August 14, 1945, a sigh of relief was heard throughout the world, for at long last the world’s most devastating war had come to an end. Our hopes were high. As the learned Ellery Sedgwick said in a letter published a few days ago: "We had accomplished the impossible. Now all else was East." But our hopes have not been realized. Our dreams of a glorious new world are being shattered bitterly with each day’s new headline. Today we face a world torn by suspicion, doubt, fear, and despair. The world scene is one of confusion.
At Paris, we found the victors were gathered in conference unable to agree. As we look to France, we see the people of this once glorious nation finding it difficult to set up a government to face the troublesome days ahead. As we look to Palestine, we see the long-suffering Jewish people at loggerheads with the British Empire. As we look to Eastern Europe we face the iron curtain. As we look to the Dardanelles, we hear Russia’s demand for a part in fortifying the straits. As we look to Yugoslavia, we see unarmed American planes shot down in cold blood, we see Archbishop Stepinac, a defender of sacred human rights, condemned to prison by the Russian puppet. As we look to Sweden, we hear strange reports of frequent flights of mysterious rockets over that country’s territory. As we look to China, with its far-flung territory, great natural resources and untold potentialities for world peace and prosperity, we find it in the grip of a tragic Civil War. As we look to Korea, we find the United States and Russia in bitter dispute and the country unnaturally divided by a line drawn arbitrarily at latitude 36 degrees.
And then we turn back to our own United States and here we see the country’s foreign policy thrown into confusion by Cabinet member Wallace’s irresponsible talk at the Madison Square Garden and the President’s casual endorsement of a speech fraught with dangerous possibilities. We see that foreign policy further confused by the release of Mr. Wallace’s letter questioning the Baruch Atomic proposals which had been worked out carefully and sincerely by some of the best of our country’s talent. And on the domestic scene we find labor and management engaged in a bitter war which can bring only irreparable harm to both and to the country.
In view of all this, it is most natural for you to ask: "What course do you think we should now take?" It is a question which is put to me daily. Every mail brings a questionnaire from some organization asking my opinion of this phase or that phase of our foreign policy. Many of them ask me, what is my overall program for insuring peace? Certainly anyone who answers these questions with a feeling that he is certain and right is most pretentious. The thing that seems clearest of all to me is that there is no clear answer to these questions. The terrible thing, however, is this. If we fail to offer a positive program for peace because we see no sure answer to our problems, then in all probability we will slowly drift into war. I think then that we are bound to adopt that program which we think best calculated to insure peace, even though there is no certain guarantee that we will accomplish that goal.
If we could get the nations of the world to agree upon a common philosophy and a common morality, it would be easy to lay down a program for peace. That program would be a program inspired by the spirit which activated the speech of Alcide De Gasperi at the Peace Conference and by the spirit which activated Dorothy Thompson’s article on De Gasperi’s speech.
I would like to quote from that speech and that article because I feel that at some distant future date when the history of this era comes to be written both that speech and that article will be remembered.
Surely, you all remember De Gasperi’s moving words to the peace conference:
"I lift my voice as the representative of a new republic which blends the humanity of Mazzini’s vision with the universal aims of Christianity and the international hopes of the working class, a republic striving toward the lasting and constructive peace which you are also seeking, and toward that cooperation between nations which it is your task to establish."
And then there are Dorothy Thompson’s words:
"You plead in vain, I fear, signor, before those who are partitioning the garments and casting lots – yes, though you plead not only for Italy, but for civilization.
"But the men before whom you plead are holding an autopsy on civilization.
"You plead for a peace of principle which alone endures.
"But you did not address a peace conference, but a war conference.
"You hoped, by raising the voice of reason, by recalling the name of a patriot who coveted nothing for Italy that he did not covet for all nations, by appealing to conscience and the great western tradition, to break that stone-faced silence by the catalyst of sweetness and light."
I say that, if we could get the nations of the world to agree upon a common philosophy and a common morality, I would offer the philosophy and the morality of De Gasperi and of Dorothy Thompson as the program which would bring world peace.
But there is no hope of that. For when this man De Gasperi sat down after the greatest speech which had been given at the peace conference he was greeted with a stony silence. Not a handclap, not a cheer for the man who had told them the way to peace. Molotov passed De Gasperi by with a cold and hardened face of hate. Molotov would not speak to De Gasperi, this De Gasperi who has always been an anti-fascist and a democrat under the most trying circumstances. And who is Molotov to treat De Gasperi in this manner? As Dorothy Thompson so well pointed out:
"You, signor, never embraced Herr Ribbentrop under the swastika, nor led your armies at Hitler’s side to divide helpless nations. But one who did is your judge."
Thank God that it can always be said to the lasting credit of the United States that our Secretary of State, Mr. Byrnes, stood up and shook De Gasperi’s hand at the conclusion of his speech, the one sign of approval given to him at the Peace Conference.
The problem of peace is a hard one, for the two most powerful nations of the world – the United States and Russia – do not have a common philosophy and a common morality. In the United States we believe in freedom of thought, freedom of expression, freedom of worship and freedom of opportunity. But what is the story in Soviet Russia?
Before we can rightly determine our policy with regard to the Soviet Union, we must first understand that great goliath to the east and west of us. On some sides you hear the apologists for Russia, and there are many of them, who tell you that Russia’s seizure of territory is merely an attempt to obtain security and that while the Soviet system has limited individual liberty it has provided its citizens with economic security. What are the facts? What exactly are the accomplishments of the communist system that make some Americans wish to supplant our own system with that of the Soviet. These are the facts:
Many people will tell you that the Russian experiment is a good one, since the Russians are achieving economic security at a not too great cost in loss of personal freedom. The truth is, that the Russian people have neither economic security nor personal freedom. Here is the evidence:
The right of labor to strike has been abolished in Russia. It is punishable by death. Despite the high-sounding communistic theories about equal opportunity for all, education in the high schools is open only to the children of commissars and soviet officials while the rest of the children are conscripted to four year’s compulsory labor service. The upshot of the matter is, that the children of workers and peasants are shackled to the machine and their tractor. They are literally chained to the hammer and sickle.
The Russian propagandists will reply that this is not too high a price to pay for the economic security which is theirs. What is the story on this much-vaunted security?
Russia’s own statistics show that the food consumption per head in Russia, fell by 30% from 1915 to 1934. This figure stands 30% below that found for the worst fed 10% of the British population. Is that economic security? If it is, I hope and pray that we never have Soviet economic security in the United States.
Here is the Soviet idea of justice:
A Russian law decrees the deportation for five years to the remote regions of Siberia, of all the dependents of a man who escapes military service by deserting abroad, even though the dependents do not know about his desertion. Russia is the only country in the civilized or uncivilized world which punishes a man who has committed no crime.
Soviet Russia internally today is run by a small clique of ruthless, powerful, and selfish men. Soviet Russia today is a slave state. Soviet Russia today is embarked upon a program of world aggression.
Now what are Russian intentions with respect to the rest of the world? Which is what we are chiefly concerned with tonight. Here is a factual review of the territory they have grabbed since 1917: the north of Finland; the strategic areas of south Finland which abut on the Gulf of Finland and control access to the Baltic Seas; Estonia; Latvia; Lithuania; the northern part of German East Prussia; the eastern half of Poland; the eastern part of Czechoslovakia (represented by the Carpatho-Ukraine); that part of Rumania which comprised Bessarabia and Bukovina; Tannu Tuva; Port Arthur; the southern half of Sakhalin Island; and, the Kurile Island.
Here is a list of the countries which are now under Soviet domination: Poland; the eastern half of Germany; Czechoslovakia; Eastern Austria; Hungary; Rumania; Bulgaria; Yugoslavia; and, Albania.
In Asia, the middle zone includes: Outer Mongolia; Manchuria (where the U.S.S.R. has rights in Darien and in the Manchurian Trunk Railway lines); the northern half of Korea; Sinkiang Province of China (where there has been considerable penetration from the Soviet Union, but as to which little reliable up-to-date information is available); and, the Puppet Province of Azerbaijan in Northern Iran.
Russia is now waging a relentless struggle to gain control of the following areas:
Greece (where there is still a bitter struggle for ascendancy between the Soviet-sponsored E.A.M. and the other Greek parties); Turkey (which is under Soviet pressure); Kurdistan (where the Kurds are being encouraged to establish an autonomous state under Soviet protection); the southern part of Korea (where there is Soviet sponsorship of local political groups); and, Spain.
These are the truths that Soviet Russia is seeking to hide behind the iron curtain. These are the facts that no Russian can deny.
But there is one other undeniable truth about Russia and that is, whether we like it or not, and without regard to how much of it is our own doing – Russia today throws her threatening shadow over all of Europe and Asia. With communist control of those small states along her western boundaries, with the destruction of Germany, with the partitioning of Austria, the desolation of Italy, the sheer physical weakness of France, with the active communist parties in nearly every country in Europe, except Spain, the traditional system of checks and balances has been broken and only Britain and America now prevent the complete domination of Europe and Asia by the Soviets.
Recognizing the fact that internally Soviet Russia is a ruthless dictatorship, and externally is on the march, what should be the policy of the United States? Our foreign policy is predicated upon the assumption that our security would be dangerously threatened if any one power gained control of Europe or Asia, or, as it seems possible, of both. We have gone to war twice before to prevent this and I believe we would go again. Both Mr. Wallace and Mr. Byrnes would agree on that.
Where Mr. Byrnes and Mr. Wallace disagree is in their interpretation of Russian dynamism. Mr. Wallace feels, and I believe I am interpreting him correctly, that Soviet Russia from 1917 to the present day, has been threatened with capitalistic encirclement; that she was cruelly maligned in the twenties; made the object of British appeasement in the thirties, which had as its aim the turning of Germany to the east against Russia. With this interpretation of history, Mr. Wallace believes it natural that Russia should be suspicious of American and England in these post-war days, and that her efforts to control the countries surrounding her are merely to build buffers against invasion form the east and west. Mr. Wallace believes that only by speaking softly, or not carrying the big stick, at least not waving it, if we carry it. By not supporting conservatives like King George of Greece, or tolerating anti-communism like France, by accepting the Russian plan for atom control, by taking these and other steps can we ease Russia’s suspicion, and work out a peaceful solution. So argues Mr. Wallace.
Mr. Byrnes, if his statements and actions mean what they appear to mean, disagrees with both Mr. Wallace’s assumptions and conclusions. He believes that by the public statements and actions of the communists they have shown that they have grave doubts that the world is big enough for both western democracy and communism – that they cannot, in the words of Lenin, "Exist for a long period side-by-side – ultimately one or the other must conquer." Byrnes appears to believe that Russia’s policy seems predicated on the assumption that the Soviet conception of Soviet security means a communistic world, for as long as there are capitalistic states Russia has no security. If this is their belief, and there is every evidence that this is true, her outright seizure of independent states, her efforts to gain control through communistic parties in countries outside her direct sphere of influence, are not directed towards establishing her "security" as Mr. Wallace understands, but it is an effort to establish communistic security as Lenin and Stalin understand it, and as Mr. Byrnes does, and as we must understand it.
Mr. Byrnes’ policy to prevent that spread and achieving of that security is to support those governments that are now standing up against Russian expansion. To some of the countries we have given outright loans such as our recent loan to Great Britain. To others, relief shipments which have helped prevent sheer misery and starvation from driving the sufferers into the hands of the communists. In Italy, Japan, and Germany we have kept occupation troops. In Korea and China we have sent elements of the American Army and the Marines, and we have taken a firm stand of the Dardanelles and of Trieste, and the freedom of the Danube; and in his now famous speech at Stuttgart, Mr. Byrnes promised that our troops would remain in Germany as long as troops of any other power. All of these independent events add up to the central theme of our American Foreign Policy – the prevention of Russian domination of Europe and Asia. That is the Byrnes Policy – the so-called "get tough with Russia" policy. That is the policy that I support most vigorously. Upon it depends our security and I believe the best hope for peace. Russian expansion can best be balked by, in the words of Louis Fisher, "Blocking the Russian territorial expansion by an effective international organization and blocking Russian idealized expansion by increasing the contentment and cohesion of the countries in her path."
Dante once said "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality." This crisis is both moral and physical. The years ahead will be difficult and strained, the sacrifices great, but only by supporting with all our hearts the course we believe to be right, can we prove that that course is not only right, but that it has strength and vigor.
Sources: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. House of Representatives Files, Box 94, "Russian Speech, Professional and Business Women, Lynn 21 October 1946"; David F. Powers Personal Papers, Box 28, "Foreign Policy, Lynn, MA, 21 October 1946." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.