The United States stood triumphant at the end of World War II. Americans had been spared the worst ravages of the global conflict. In contrast to the plight of other combatants, their homeland had not been scorched by fighting, they had lost relatively few fighting men, and their economy was snapped out of depression and whipped into robust trim as a result of the war effort. Confident of the future, Americans immediately after the war launched a baby boom that added some 50 million persons to the nation's population over the next decade and a half. The beginnings of vast changes in family life and especially in the role of women were apparent as Americans moved en masse to the burgeoning suburbs.

Meanwhile, the end of World War II provided only short-lived relief to an aching world, for a new "Cold War" contest between the Soviet Union and the United States began to take shape. Many observers traced the origins of the Cold War conspicuously to the "Big Three" meeting at Yalta.

In February 1945, while Germany was still fighting desperately and Japan was far from finished, an ailing Roosevelt arrived at Yalta in the Russian Crimea. There, in collaboration with Prime Minister Churchill, he thrashed out final agreements with Stalin. Nine weeks later Roosevelt was dead. The ultimate communist takeover of the satellite governments of Central Europe, which appeared to contradict Stalin's pledges at Yalta, deepened U.S. fears. In 1947 President Truman proclaimed the Truman Doctrine, designed in the short run to shore up communist-threatened Greece and Turkey, but aimed in the long run at defining a global policy of "containment" of communist expansionism.

In 1948, Truman implemented the Marshall Plan, designed to rehabilitate war-torn Western Europe. The Marshall Plan proved conspicuously successful in attaining its objectives. But continuing fear of the Soviet Union forced the United States, despite its ancient anti-alliance tradition, to negotiate in 1949 an epochal military defense alliance in the form of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The "containment" policy suffered a severe blow in 1949, when communists emerged the victors in China's civil war. The "fall" of China touched off bitter political warfare between Republicans and Democrats in the United States and contributed to the rise of McCarthyism--fanatical and often irresponsible pursuit of alleged communist "traitors" in the United States. The outbreak of a shooting war in Korea in 1950 seemed to confirm the worst fears about communist intentions and provided the opportunity for a massive U.S. military buildup.

A Working Mother Lauds the New "Two-Income Family" (1951)
In post World War II America, a quiet revolution in women's status was grinding inexorably forward as more and more women--including mothers--took up wage-labor jobs. In the 1960s the women's movement would burst noisily into public consciousness, and women would storm all kinds of previously male bastions in the workplace and elsewhere; but in the 1940s and 1950s the issue of working women was still controversial. When the following article appeared in Harper's Magazine in 1951, one reader wrote to the editor that she was "violently agitated" by it. Another wrote that he and his wife were "singing hallelujahs that the days of financial necessity which compelled for a time two-income living have passed." Still another lamented that the spectacle of women trading home and hearth for factory and office "is contrary to all standards, ethics, etc. which Western civilization has practiced and protected. . . . Woe to Western civilization and especially to the family unit as we know it--for it is the hub around which our civilization revolves, and when that is gone, everything is gone--if such thoughts as are expressed, and evidently supported, by Mrs. Mavity [author of the article] ever become universally accepted by society." In her article that follows, what does Nancy Barr Mavity see as the root cause driving women into the workplace? What role does she assign to the Great Depression and World War II?

I am a wife, a mother, and a grandmother, and I have been a continuous jobholder since I graduated from college. Besides all that, I am a dodo.

I never used to think of myself as a dodo, but it has been brought home to me by my married daughter and her contemporaries that I most certainly am. These young people have perpetrated a revolution right under the noses of my generation. There have been no parades, no crusading arguments or lectures or legislative lobbying. They did not fight for a revolution--they simply are one.

The whole argument of marriage versus a career which burned like a roaring fire when I was my daughter's age is now as dead as wet ashes. The revolution that we were so vociferous about as a matter of principle has taken place unobtrusively as a matter of hard necessity.

My daughter and her friends and the young married women who work in my office do not call themselves career women. They do not harangue about the right to develop their individual capacities. They do not discuss the primary function of woman as a homemaker. They do not argue the propriety of muscling in on the labor market. They just plain work. . . .

Under present circumstances, a single pay envelope will not meet the needs of a white-collar-class family. It is as simple as that. . . .

Through a good many years of my life I heard men say, "I'd be ashamed to let my wife work." The standard of a man's success in America was--and to some extent still is--his earning capacity. It was a symbol of his masculine prowess and an extension of his virility. To maintain his social, his economic, and his psychological position as titular head of the family by virtue of being its source of supply, he often had to relinquish long-term goals for temporary advantages and to sacrifice his natural aptitudes to the demands of an immediate and steady job. No wonder Thoreau said that "most men lead lives of quiet desperation."

No wonder, then, that men jealously guarded their prerogatives. To be a "good provider" was one of the chief criteria--and in the eyes of many was the criterion--of man's achievement. Every woman of my generation who worked in what was called a "man's job" knew what it was to walk on eggs. With a diplomacy that would make Machiavelli look like a coal-heaver in a conference of foreign ministers the masculine ego had to be protected from the slightest scratch in both marital and occupational relations.

This often made the women of my generation hopping mad. What we did not realize was that the restrictions foisted on us by the masculine ego were not prompted by innate sex cussedness. They were imposed by a cultural code which men dared not flout under penalty of losing face, and which they would keep women from flouting, if they could, for the same reason. But something has happened to alter this code, something that has convinced men as well as women that the rigid demarcation of their spheres of action made them both the losers. . . .

These young people were children during the great depression of the thirties. They learned the facts of economic life by experiencing or observing the collapse of financial security. They were married either just before or during or after the late war, and when their husbands were called into the armed forces the young wives had to learn to stand alone in a practical as well as an emotional sense.

Once the war was over and husbands returned, few of them had had a chance to accumulate any savings. The allotments they received from the government were insufficient to support their families in accordance with middle-class standards of living. Wives with or without children either had to produce income or throw themselves on the mercy of relatives who had problems of their own. . . .

How does a two-income family cope with the problem of bringing up young children? Not so long ago a woman of proved vocational ability was adjured to divide her life into two--or, more rarely, three--periods. She might work until she produced a baby, but then she must either bury her vocation altogether, exchanging it for that of housewife-and-mother, or else lay it away for long years with the rather feeble hope of resuscitating it after the children were grown. That picture has now changed out of all recognition. Indeed, one hears wives arguing that children, instead of constituting the unanswerable argument against the two-income family, are strong arguments in its favor.

"If it weren't for the children," said one wife to me, "I'd be tempted to try to get along on one salary, even if it meant skimping. But we need two incomes to enable us to have a house with a yard that the children can play in; to live in a neighborhood where I don't have to worry about their playmates; to provide a guitar for the musical one and dancing lessons for the one who needs to improve her muscular coordination--not to mention teeth-straightening and medical insurance and the bonds we are stowing away for their education. . . ."

The depression years, the war years, and the postwar years have cracked the old economic-social family mold. These were forces outside the control of individual women, but they have learned a lesson from circumstances. The working wives of 1951 have learned to recognize the mistakes of my generation, and are determined not to repeat them. . . .

"The Two-Income Family," by Nancy Barr Mavity, pp. 57-63.

The Move to Suburbia (1954)
Americans by the millions abandoned the cities and joined the exodus to suburbia in the 1940s and 1950s. Most migrating Americans were young married couples just beginning to form families and have children. They took up residence in spanking-new neighborhoods that they obviously preferred to the crowded, and expensive, turmoil of the cities. Yet countless observers found much to criticize in the new suburban way of life that was quickly becoming an American norm. What aspects of that life-style does the following article criticize? How persuasive is the criticism? If life in the suburbs was really as thin and conformist as the author claims, why did all those millions of people keep moving to suburbia? How was the raw, history less character of suburban life any different from life on the thinly populated frontier?

A young man who had attended an exclusive preparatory school and an Ivy League college felt that his horizon had been restricted because, during the years of his education he had met only the sons of bankers, brokers, executives, lawyers and doctors. He determined that, when the time came, his children would go to public school.

The time came. The young man and his wife moved out to the suburbs where their children could get fresh air and play space, go to public school and grow up with children of all kinds. "And whom do my children meet?" he asks. "The children of bankers, brokers, executives, lawyers and doctors!"

Despite the drawback that depressed this particular parent, the suburb into which he moved had certain things in its favor, besides the obvious attraction of lebensraum.* It was a town, one of the older suburbs. It had grown up gradually over the years with its own schools, churches and deepening civic consciousness until it had developed into a real community with traditions of its own.

New Suburbia is something else again. Around every major city from the Atlantic to the Pacific the new suburbs have been springing up like mushrooms in a damp season. They are sometimes created by dividing large estates--as on Long Island, in Westchester County and in areas around Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles. More often the new suburbs are built on what had been until recently empty acreage. Whether in California or New Jersey they are typically "prefabricated" in all their details and the parts are suddenly assembled on the spot. Unlike towns and cities and the suburbs of the past, they do not evolve gradually but emerge full-blown. They are designed and constructed by corporations or real estate operators who work on mass-production principles. A hundred or a thousand houses open their doors almost simultaneously, ready for occupancy.

Since there has been an acute shortage of dwellings in all urban areas for well over a decade, these housing developments serve an immediate need for thousands and thousands of families. The mass development of small houses has meant that vast numbers of families have had the chance to get out of small apartments in crowded cities into homes of their own. They may not intend to spend the rest of their lives there, but for the time being fathers, mothers and children all have a stake in making the home as attractive as possible and in keeping it in good repair. It is "home," far more than a rented apartment in the city could ever be. And surrounding even the smallest jerry-built suburban home is a piece of ground on which to have a garden or to place a sand box or a swing.

But the new suburbanites take what they can afford and can get. And they pay a subtle psychological price. For one thing, the new suburb is a community only in the sense that it is an aggregate of dwellings--often identical houses. It may in time become a community, but not yet. No one has grown up in it; it has no traditions. We really don't know what effect it will ultimately have on children; we can only conjecture.

The families of New Suburbia consist typically of a young couple with one or two children, or perhaps one child and another on the way. The child living here sees no elderly people, no teenagers. Except on weekends and holidays he sees only mothers and other children of his own age. This dearth of weekday variety was remarked on by a woman who had moved to a new suburb and returned after some months to visit friends in her former city neighborhood. "Though I have lived in the city most of my life," she said, "I was actually startled to see such a variety of people, of every type and age. It seemed so long since I had seen old people and school kids, since I had seen men around in the daytime!"

If Old Suburbia is lacking in a variety of work going on that boys and girls can watch or actively share in, it at least has a garage, a movie theatre, a shoe repair shop. In New Suburbia there is often nothing but a supermarket and a gasoline station. In Old Suburbia children grow up seeing people of all ages and playing with children older than themselves--from whom each child normally learns the ways and customs appropriate to the age into which he matures day by day. In New Suburbia the children are likely to be nearly of the same age. In Old Suburbia the fathers take the train to the city each day, leaving the car with the mothers. In New Suburbia there is often no railroad station, so the fathers drive to work in their own cars or by "car pool." The mothers remain--with the house and yard and children.

The children growing up in New Suburbia run the danger of becoming "homogenized." In many of the new suburbs the white child never sees a Negro. In others the Jewish child never plays with any but Jewish children. Some of these suburbs are virtually all Catholic. In others there are no Catholics. Even without racial and religious segregation--and in these new developments groups tend to segregate themselves to an alarming degree--the pressure to conform is intense, and stultifying.

Children derive their models primarily from their parents. Where the parents live in an atmosphere of general conformity the children will select their friends and associates from among the like-minded, from those who act and speak and judge everything as they themselves have always done at home. And growing up without meeting older children is not conducive to children's dreaming and planning for their own future. Better than the home or the school, older companions challenge the child to try himself out in many ways, to discover the range and variety of his capacities, as well as his limitations.

Moreover, in this atmosphere children are likely to picture the good life in terms of uniform, standardized patterns; and that tends to block invention and experiment. Because nothing out of the way ever happens in these quiet, sanitary and standardized surroundings, one wonders what will arouse the imagination of these children. What spiritual equivalent will they find for the challenge and inspiration that an older generation found during childhood in city streets, on farms, in market towns?

In one new Eastern suburb with a population of 30,000, there is no high school. There is not yet any need for a high school. One may wonder how these young children, lacking many of the normal associations, will ever fit into a high school. One wonders, too, how large a high school such a town will eventually need. Between the parents who are newcomers--and therefore typically lacking in civic initiative--and those who hope to move away as soon as their finances are more secure, the children live in an atmosphere of transiency. Will any of these children grow up there, or will the families, one by one, move away as the children near high school age?

Many of the mothers in these new suburbs have had considerable training in offices or shops and some have a degree of executive ability. In New Suburbia they find no outlets for their talents and energies and they tend to focus all their efforts upon their children. Everything that the mothers do, all the little chores, tend to take on disproportionate significance, so that the children feel the pressures while the mothers cannot help feeling frustrated and discontented. This does not mean that they are unhappy with their homes and their children, for they have, essentially, what every woman wants; but they are confused and often feel that there is something lacking in the lives they lead. At the same time, their children cannot help but get a picture of adults as being constantly concerned with trivialities.

Some of the other obvious shortcomings of the new suburbs are incidental to their very newness. In time, a church will be built, perhaps several. A meeting place or assembly hall will rise. In some new suburbs the school from the very first offers a meeting place for parents. But the important question, it seems to me, is how the parents can keep the benefits of New Suburbia without paying too heavy a price. . . .

*A German word meaning space required for life, growth, or activity.

"Homogenized Children of New Suburbia," by Sidonie M. Gruenberg, New York Times Magazine (September 19, 1954):14. 

Franklin Roosevelt "Betrays" China and Japan (1945)
One of President Roosevelt's primary objectives at the Yalta Conference was to coordinate with Stalin the final blows of the war. The American people were eager to induce the Soviet Union to enter the conflict against Japan so as to reduce their anticipated losses in the final stages of the assault. The Soviets had already suffered millions of casualties in fighting Hitler, and Stalin told Roosevelt that he would have to receive concessions if he were to justify another war to his war-weary people. The following, one of the top-secret Yalta agreements hammered out between Roosevelt and Stalin, was not made public until exactly a year later. The basic reason for secrecy was that the Soviet Union and Japan were not then at war, and publication or even leakage of the terms might prompt a Japanese attack before the Soviet Union was ready. A need for the utmost secrecy was the excuse given for not then notifying China, an ally of the United States, that its rights were being bartered away in Outer Mongolia and in Manchuria (the Manchurian railroads and the ports of Dairen and Port Arthur). In what ways did the deal "betray" China? Was Roosevelt justified in agreeing to these terms?

The leaders of the three Great Powers--the Soviet Union, the United States of America, and Great Britain--have agreed that in two or three months* after Germany has surrendered and the war in Europe was terminated, the Soviet Union shall enter into the war against Japan on the side of the Allies on condition that:

1. The status quo in Outer Mongolia (the Mongolian People's Republic) shall be preserved; [This area, twice the size of Texas, had been under China's sway until 1912; it had become a Soviet satellite in 1924.]

2. The former rights of Russia violated by the treacherous attack of Japan in 1904 shall be restored, viz.:

a) The southern part of Sakhalin, as well as all the islands adjacent to it, shall be returned to the Soviet Union. [Japan and Russia had shared control until 1905, when Japan secured South Sakhalin.]

b) The commercial port of [China's] Dairen shall be internationalized, the preeminent interests of the Soviet Union in this port being safeguarded, and the lease of [China's] Port Arthur as a naval base of the USSR restored. [FDR here recognized Russia's age-old need for an ice-free port. Dairen was internationalized, and the Port Arthur naval base was leased to the Soviet Union. Both were ultimately restored to communist China.]

c) The Chinese Eastern Railroad and the South Manchurian Railroad, which provides an outlet to Dairen, shall be jointly operated by the establishment of a joint Soviet-Chinese Company, it being understood that the preeminent interests of the Soviet Union shall be safeguarded and that China shall retain full sovereignty in Manchuria; [The Yalta agreement ensured the Soviet Union temporary control of these two key railroads in China's Manchuria.]

3. The Kurile Islands [of Japan] shall be handed over to the Soviet Union. [Though colonized by both Russians and Japanese, these islands had become a Japanese possession in 1875. Giving away the territory of enemy Japan raised little protest at the time.]

It is understood that the agreement concerning Outer Mongolia, and the ports and railroads referred to above, will require concurrence of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek [Jiang Jieshi]. The President will take measures in order to obtain this concurrence on advice from Marshal Stalin.

The Heads of the three Great Powers have agreed that these claims of the Soviet Union shall be unquestionably fulfilled after Japan has been defeated [that is, whether China consented or not].

For its part, the Soviet Union expresses its readiness to conclude with the National Government of China a pact of friendship and alliance between the USSR and China in order to render assistance to China with its armed forces for the purpose of liberating China from the Japanese yoke. [The pact of friendship was concluded after some demur by the Chinese on August 14, 1945, six days after the Soviet Union opened war on Japan. Following the dropping of the atomic bomb, the Russians could not wait for China's acquiescence.]

I. [J.] Stalin

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Winston S. Churchill

*The Soviet Union entered the Far Eastern war exactly three months after Germany surrendered. Some scholars have argued that the U.S. decision to drop the two atomic bombs on Japan was hastened by the desire to conclude the fighting before the Soviet Union could fully enter the war and play a major role. Of course, at the time of Yalta, Roosevelt could not know when--or even if--the bombs would be available.

Foreign Relations of the United States: The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1955), p. 984.

The Freeman's Bill of Indictment (1953)
Roosevelt left Yalta pleased with the victory for Allied unity. He had secured Stalin's consent to a conference at San Francisco to frame the United Nations Charter, and he had won a concession from him limiting the use of the veto. But Roosevelt and Churchill had been forced to agree to Soviet retention of eastern Poland, with compensating western territory to be given to the Poles at the expense of Germany. All this did violence to the rights of millions of Poles and Germans, as well as to the plain terms of the Atlantic Charter of 1941. On the other hand, Stalin had promised free elections for dismembered Poland and for the other satellite nations of Central Europe--a pledge he later flouted. Critics have charged that Roosevelt should have known by this time that the Soviet Union did not honor agreements that it found inconvenient, and that he should have stood firm for principle.* The Freeman, a critical journal, published the following attack eight years later. How balanced is its appraisal?

Yalta was the most cynical and immoral international transaction to which the United States was ever a partner. It was a repudiation of all the ideals for which the war against Nazism was supposedly being fought. America came very close to losing its soul at Yalta. What was even more ominous than the provisions of the agreement was the absence, at the time of its publication, of any loud or audible outcry of protest.** It would seem that the normal American ability to distinguish between right and wrong, freedom and slavery, had been badly blurred.

From the practical standpoint, most of our serious international difficulties at the present time can be traced back to a deal which gave Stalin the keys to Eastern Europe and East Asia in exchange for paper promises which, as anyone with reasonable knowledge of the Soviet record and Soviet psychology could have anticipated, were broken almost as soon as the ink on the Yalta document was dry.

The principle of self-determination for all peoples, spelled out in the first three clauses of the Atlantic Charter [see Chapter 38, Framing the Atlantic Charter, 1941], was completely scrapped at Yalta, although there were hypocritical professions of respect for Atlantic Charter principles in the pact. The Soviet annexation of eastern Poland, definitely sanctioned, and the Polish annexation of large slices of ethnic German territory, foreshadowed in the agreement, were obviously against the will of the vast majority of the peoples concerned. There was no pretense of an honest plebiscite. These decisions have created millions of destitute, embittered refugees and have drawn frontier lines which are a very probable cause of future conflict.

Both the freedom and the territorial independence of Poland were offered as sacrifices on the altar of appeasement. The treatment of Poland, carved up territorially and made ripe for a foreign dictatorship, its fate determined by outsiders without even the presence of a Polish spokesman, was similar in many ways to the treatment of Czechoslovakia at Munich. . . .

Two features of the Yalta agreement represent endorsement by the United States of the legitimacy of human slavery--scarcely fit news for the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. There was recognition that German labor could be used as a source of "reparations," which could be invoked as justification for the detention at forced labor of large numbers of German war prisoners in the Soviet Union and also in France and Great Britain. And there was a self-assumed obligation by the United States and Great Britain to repatriate all Soviet citizens in their zones of occupation. So long as this was carried out (it has now, fortunately, long been stopped), there were tragic scenes of actual and attempted suicide on the part of Soviet citizens who feared above everything else to return to their homeland of concentration camps.

Finally, the secret clauses of the Yalta agreement, which offered Stalin extensive territorial and economic concessions in the Far East at the expense of China and Japan, were immoral, unnecessary, and unwise. They were immoral because they gave away the rights and interests of an ally, the Nationalist government of China, without consulting or even informing Chiang Kai-shek. They were unnecessary, because Stalin's eagerness to be in at the kill in the Far East was beyond serious doubt or question.

[The Freeman was more sympathetic toward Germans than were most other Americans. Putting Germans under Polish rule and using German slave labor in the Soviet Union for reparations did not seem immoral to many Americans in 1945, especially in view of Hitler's diabolical slaughter of some 6 million Jews. As for returning tens of thousands of anticommunist refugees to Soviet tyranny, many Americans felt that this was not an unreasonable request to grant to their good Soviet ally. Eight years later, perspectives had radically changed with respect to both Germany and the Soviet Union.]

*Admiral Leahy reported in 1950 that at Yalta he had complained to Roosevelt about the vagueness of the agreement regarding a free Poland: "'Mr. President, this is so elastic that the Russians can stretch it all the way from Yalta to Washington without ever technically breaking it.' The President replied, 'I know, Bill--I know it. But it's the best I can do for Poland at this time.'" W. D. Leahy, I Was There (New York: Whittlesey House, 1950), pp. 315-316.

**Polish-Americans did protest vigorously at the time; the unpublished secret agreements came out piecemeal later.

Freeman (New York) 3 (March 9, 1953):403.

Secretary Edward Stettinius Defends Yalta (1949)
Handsome Secretary of State Stettinius--with his prematurely white hair and flashing white teeth--replaced the aged and ailing Secretary Hull late in 1944. Without political influence or diplomatic experience, he was expected to be a kind of errand boy for President Roosevelt, who took him along to Yalta. Stettinius here presents a spirited defense of the controversial agreements. What conditions existing at the time caused the Yalta decisions to appear in a less sinister light than was later cast upon them?

What did the Soviet Union gain in eastern Europe which she did not already have as the result of the smashing victories of the Red Army? Great Britain and the United States secured pledges at Yalta, unfortunately not honored, which did promise free elections and democratic governments.

What, too, with the possible exception of the Kuriles, did the Soviet Union receive at Yalta which she might not have taken without any agreement? If there had been no agreement, the Soviet Union could have swept into North China, and the United States and the Chinese would have been in no real position to prevent it.

It must never be forgotten that, while the Crimea Conference was taking place, President Roosevelt had just been told by his military advisers that the surrender of Japan might not occur until 1947, and some predicted even later. The President was told that without Russia it might cost the United States a million casualties to conquer Japan.

It must be remembered, too, that at the time of the Yalta Conference it was still uncertain whether the atomic bomb could be perfected and that, since the Battle of the Bulge had set us back in Europe, it was uncertain how long it might take for Germany to crack. There had been immense optimism in the autumn of 1944, as Allied troops raced through France, that the war was nearly over. Then came the Battle of the Bulge, which was more than a military reversal. It cast a deep gloom over the confident expectation that the German war would end soon. In Washington, for instance, the procurement agencies of the armed services immediately began placing orders on the basis of a longer war in Europe than had been estimated.

With hindsight, it can be said that the widespread pessimism was unwarranted. The significant fact is not, however, this hindsight but the effect of this thinking on the strategy and agreements made in the Crimea. It was important to bring the Soviet Union into the united sphere of action. Russian co-operation in the Japanese war ran parallel to their co-operation in the world organization and to united action in Europe.

Furthermore, critics of the Far Eastern agreement have tended to overlook the fact that in the agreement the Soviet Union pledged that China was to retain "full sovereignty in Manchuria" and that the Soviet Union would conclude a pact of friendship with the Chinese Nationalist Government.

It is my understanding that the American military leaders felt that the war had to be concluded as soon as possible. There was the fear that heavy casualties in Japan or the possible lack of continuous victories would have an unfortunate effect on the attitude of the American people.

President Roosevelt had great faith in his Army and Navy staffs, and he relied wholeheartedly upon them. Their insistent advice was that the Soviet Union had to be brought into the Far Eastern war soon after Germany's collapse. The President, therefore, in signing the Far Eastern agreement, acted upon the advice of his military advisers. He did not approve the agreement from any desire to appease Stalin and the Soviet Union.

It is apparently the belief of some critics of the Yalta Conference that it would have been better to have made no agreements with the Soviet Union. Yet if we had made no agreements at Yalta, the Russians still would have been in full possession of the territory in Europe that President Roosevelt is alleged to have given them. The failure to agree would have been a serious blow to the morale of the Allied world, already suffering from five years of war; it would have meant the prolongation of the German and Japanese wars; it would have prevented the establishment of the United Nations; and it would probably have led to other consequences incalculable in their tragedy for the world.

[The legend has taken root that an ailing Roosevelt, advised by the sickly Harry Hopkins and the communist-employed Alger Hiss (whose role has been exaggerated), was sold a gold brick by crafty "Uncle Joe" Stalin. The secret intelligence reports concerning Japan's powers of resistance were faulty, but Roosevelt had to rely on the information that was given him. And if he was sick, what of the hale and hearty Churchill, who signed the agreements? Five months after Yalta, President Truman journeyed to Potsdam, where one of his primary purposes was to hold Stalin to his promise to enter the war against Japan. Truman was not sick, and he had further information about Japanese powers of resistance. When the Soviet Union finally entered the war six days before its end, great was the rejoicing in the United States. As for the charge that the United States "lost" China because of the Yalta agreements, the fact is that China was never the United States' to lose. The "salvation" of Nationalist China would probably have involved large numbers of U.S. troops, and public opinion was unwilling to provide them. As for Japan, there was little opposition at the time of Yalta to depriving a savage enemy of the Kurile Islands and handing them over to a resolute ally.]

From Roosevelt and the Russians: The Yalta Conference by E. R. Stettinius, 1949, pp. 303-306.

George Kennan Proposes Containment (1946)
As the Grand Alliance crumbled in the postwar months, U.S. policymakers groped for ways to understand the Soviet Union and to respond to Soviet provocations. On February 22, 1946, the scholarly chargé d'affaires at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, George F. Kennan, sent his famous "Long Telegram" to the State Department, giving his views of the sources of Soviet conduct. A later version of this message was published anonymously in Foreign Affairs (July 1947). Kennan's ideas proved immensely influential in defining the so-called containment doctrine that dominated U.S. strategic thinking for the next two decades or more of the Cold War. Kennan argued that the Soviet Union regarded itself as encircled by hostile capitalist countries. In Soviet eyes, capitalist governments hoped to avert economic conflict among themselves by seeking war against the socialist world. Kennan denied the accuracy of these Soviet perceptions but insisted that they nonetheless motivated Soviet behavior. He painted the Soviet leaders as insecure, fearful, and cynical: "In the name of Marxism they sacrificed every single ethical value in their methods and tactics. Today they cannot dispense with it. It is fig leaf of their moral and intellectual respectability. Without it they would stand before history, at best, as only the last of that long succession of cruel and wasteful Russian rulers who have relentlessly forced their country on to ever new heights of military power in order to guarantee the external security of their internally weak regimes. That is why Soviet purposes must always be solemnly clothed in trappings of Marxism, why no one should underrate importance of dogma in Soviet affairs." Kennan then went on to analyze the practical implications of this diagnosis and to recommend U.S. countermeasures. How prophetic was he? In his memoirs many years later, Kennan pleaded that he had never meant to suggest the kind of massive U.S. military buildup that the containment doctrine was later used to justify. Was he in fact misunderstood? If so, why?

Part Three: Projection of Soviet Outlook in Practical Policy on Official Level

We have now seen nature and background of Soviet program. What may we expect by way of its practical implementation? . . .

On official plane we must look for following:

(A) Internal policy devoted to increasing in every way strength and prestige of Soviet state's intensive military-industrialization; maximum development of armed forces; great displays to impress outsiders; continued secretiveness about internal matters, designed to conceal weaknesses and to keep opponents in dark.

(B) Wherever it is considered timely and promising, efforts will be made to advance official limits of Soviet power. For the moment, these efforts are restricted to certain neighboring points conceived of here as being of immediate strategic necessity, such as Northern Iran, Turkey, possibly Bornholm. However, other points may at any time come into question, if and as concealed Soviet political power is extended to new areas. Thus a "friendly" Persian Government might be asked to grant Russia a port on Persian Gulf. Should Spain fall under communist control, question of Soviet base at Gibraltar Strait might be activated. But such claims will appear on official level only when unofficial preparation is complete.

(C) Russians will participate officially in international organizations where they see opportunity of extending Soviet power or of inhibiting or diluting power of others. Moscow sees in UNO [United Nations Organization] not the mechanism for a permanent and stable world society founded on mutual interest and aims of all nations, but an arena in which aims just mentioned can be favorably pursued. As long as UNO is considered here to serve this purpose, Soviets will remain with it. But if at any time they come to conclusion that it is serving to embarrass or frustrate their aims for power expansion and if they see better prospects for pursuit of these aims along other lines, they will not hesitate to abandon UNO. This would imply, however, that they felt themselves strong enough to split unity of other nations by their withdrawal, to render UNO ineffective as a threat to their aims or security, and to replace it with an international weapon more effective from their viewpoint. Thus Soviet attitude toward UNO will depend largely on loyalty of other nations to it, and on degree of vigor, decisiveness and cohesion with which these nations defend in UNO the peaceful and hopeful concept of international life, which that organization represents to our way of thinking. I reiterate, Moscow has no abstract devotion to UNO ideals. Its attitude to that organization will remain essentially pragmatic and tactical.

(D) Toward colonial areas and backward or dependent peoples, Soviet policy, even on official plane, will be directed toward weakening of power and influence and contacts of advanced western nations, on theory that in so far as this policy is successful, there will be created a vacuum which will favor communist-Soviet penetration. Soviet pressure for participation in trusteeship arrangements thus represents, in my opinion, a desire to be in a position to complicate and inhibit exertion of western influence at such points rather than to provide major channel for exerting of Soviet power. Latter motive is not lacking, but for this Soviets prefer to rely on other channels than official trusteeship arrangements. Thus we may expect to find Soviets asking for admission everywhere to trusteeship or similar arrangements and using levers thus acquired to weaken western influence among such peoples.

(E) Russians will strive energetically to develop Soviet representation in, and official ties with, countries in which they sense strong possibilities of opposition to western centers of power. This applies to such widely separated points as Germany, Argentina, Middle Eastern countries, etc.

(F) In international economic matters, Soviet policy will really be dominated by pursuit of autarchy for Soviet Union and Soviet-dominated adjacent areas taken together. That, however, will be underlying policy. As far as official line is concerned, position is not yet clear. Soviet Government has shown strange reticence since termination hostilities on subject foreign trade. If large scale long term credits should be forthcoming, I believe Soviet Government may eventually again do lip service, as it did in nineteen-thirties to desirability of building up international economic exchange in general. Otherwise I think it possible Soviet foreign trade may be restricted largely to Soviet's own security sphere, including occupied areas in Germany, and that a cold official shoulder may be turned to principle of general economic collaboration among nations.

(G) With respect to cultural collaboration, lip service will likewise be rendered to desirability of deepening cultural contacts between peoples, but this will not in practice be interpreted in any way which could weaken security position of Soviet peoples. Actual manifestations of Soviet policy in this respect will be restricted to arid channels of closely shepherded official visits and functions, with super-abundance of vodka and speeches and dearth of permanent effects.

(H) Beyond this, Soviet official relations will take what might be called "correct" course with individual foreign governments, with great stress being laid on prestige of Soviet Union and its representatives and with punctilious attention to protocol, as distinct from good manners.

Part Four: Following May Be Said as to What We May Expect by Way of Implementation of Basic Soviet Policies on Unofficial, or Subterranean Plane, i.e., on Plane for which Soviet Government Accepts No Responsibility

(A) To undermine general political and strategic potential of major western powers. Efforts will be made in such countries to disrupt national self-confidence, to hamstring measures of national defense, to increase social and industrial unrest, to stimulate all forms of disunity. All persons with grievances, whether economic or racial, will be urged to seek redress not in mediation and compromise, but in defiant violent struggle for destruction of other elements of society. Here poor will be set against rich, black against white, young against old, newcomers against established residents, etc.

(B) On unofficial plane particularly violent efforts will be made to weaken power and influence of western powers of colonial, backward, or dependent peoples. On this level, no holds will be barred. . . .

(C) Where individual governments stand in path of Soviet purposes pressure will be brought for their removal from office. . . .

(D) In foreign countries Communists will, as a rule, work toward destruction of all forms of personal independence, economic, political or moral. . . .

(E) Everything possible will be done to set major western powers against each other. . . .

(F) In general, all Soviet efforts on unofficial international plane will be negative and destructive in character, designed to tear down sources of strength beyond reach of Soviet control. This is only in line with basic Soviet instinct that there can be no compromise with rival power and that constructive work can start only when communist power is dominant. But behind all this will be applied insistent, unceasing pressure for penetration and command of key positions in administration and especially in police apparatus of foreign countries. The Soviet regime is a police regime par excellence, reared in the dim half world of Tsarist police intrigue, accustomed to think primarily in terms of police power. This should never be lost sight of in gauging Soviet motives.

Part Five

In summary, we have here a political force committed fanatically to the belief that with US there can be no permanent modus vivendi, that it is desirable and necessary that the internal harmony of our society be disrupted, our traditional way of life be destroyed, the international authority of our state be broken, if Soviet power is to be secure. This political force has complete power of disposition over energies of one of world's greatest peoples and resources of world's richest national territory, and is borne along by deep and powerful currents of Russian nationalism. In addition, it has an elaborate and far flung apparatus for exertion of its influence in other countries, an apparatus of amazing flexibility and versatility, managed by people whose experience and skill in underground methods are presumably without parallel in history. Finally, it is seemingly inaccessible to considerations of reality in its basic reactions. For it, the vast fund of objective fact about human society is not, as with us, the measure against which outlook is constantly being tested and re-formed, but a grab bag from which individual items are selected arbitrarily and tendentiously to bolster an outlook already preconceived. This is admittedly not a pleasant picture. Problem of how to cope with this force is undoubtedly greatest task our diplomacy has ever faced and probably greatest it will ever have to face. It should be point of departure from which our political general staff work at present juncture should proceed. It should be approached with same thoroughness and care as solution of major strategic problem in war, and if necessary, with no smaller outlay in planning effort. I cannot attempt to suggest all answers here. But I would like to record my conviction that problem is within our power to solve--and that without recourse to any general military conflict. And in support of this conviction there are certain observations of a more encouraging nature I should like to make:

(One) Soviet power, unlike that of Hitlerite Germany, is neither schematic nor adventuristic. It does not work by fixed plans. It does not take unnecessary risks. Impervious to logic of reason, and it is highly sensitive to logic of force. For this reason it can easily withdraw--and usually does--when strong resistance is encountered at any point. Thus, if the adversary has sufficient force and makes clear his readiness to use it, he rarely has to do so. If situations are properly handled there need be no prestige engaging showdowns.

(Two) Gauged against western world as a whole, Soviets are still by far the weaker force. Thus, their success will really depend on degree of cohesion, firmness and vigor which western world can muster. And this is factor which it is within our power to influence.

(Three) Success of Soviet system, as form of internal power, is not yet finally proven. It has yet to be demonstrated that it can survive supreme test of successive transfer of power from one individual or group to another. Lenin's death was first such transfer, and its effects wracked Soviet state for 15 years after. Stalin's death or retirement will be second. But even this will not be final test. Soviet internal system will now be subjected, by virtue of recent territorial expansions, to series of additional strains which once proved severe tax on Tsardom. We here are convinced that never since termination of civil war have mass of Russian people been emotionally farther removed from doctrines of communist party than they are today. In Russia, party has now become a great and--for the moment--highly successful apparatus of dictatorial administration, but it has ceased to be a source of emotional inspiration. Thus, internal soundness and permanence of movement need not yet be regarded as assured.

(Four) All Soviet propaganda beyond Soviet security sphere is basically negative and destructive. It should therefore be relatively easy to combat it by any intelligent and really constructive program.

For these reasons I think we may approach calmly and with good heart problem of how to deal with Russia. As to how this approach should be made, I only wish to advance, by way of conclusion, following comments:

(One) Our first step must be to apprehend, and recognize for what it is, the nature of the movement with which we are dealing. We must study it with same courage, detachment, objectivity, and same determination not to be emotionally provoked or unseated by it, with which doctor studies unruly and unreasonable individual.

(Two) We must see that our public is educated to realities of Russian situation. I cannot over-emphasize importance of this. Press cannot do this alone. It must be done mainly by government, which is necessarily more experienced and better informed on practical problems involved. In this we need not be deterred by [ugliness] of picture. I am convinced that there would be far less hysterical anti-Sovietism in our country today if realities of this situation were better understood by our people. There is nothing as dangerous or as terrifying as the unknown. It may also be argued that to reveal more information on our difficulties with Russia would reflect unfavorably on Russian American relations. I feel that if there is any real risk here involved, it is one which we should have courage to face, and sooner the better. But I cannot see what we would be risking. Our stake in this country, even coming on heels of tremendous demonstrations of our friendship for Russian people, is remarkably small. We have here no investments to guard, no actual trade to lose, virtually no citizens to protect, few cultural contacts to preserve. Our only stake lies in what we hope rather than what we have; and I am convinced we have better chance of realizing those hopes if our public is enlightened and if our dealings with Russians are placed entirely on realistic and matter of fact basis.

(Three) Much depends on health and vigor of our own society. World communism is like malignant parasite which feeds only on diseased tissue. This is point at which domestic and foreign policies meet. Every courageous and incisive measure to solve internal problems of our own society, to improve self-confidence, discipline, morale and community spirit of our own people, is a diplomatic victory over Moscow worth a thousand diplomatic notes and joint communiqués. If we cannot abandon fatalism and indifference in face of deficiencies of our own society, Moscow will profit--Moscow cannot help profiting by them in its foreign policies.

(Four) We must formulate and put forward for other nations a much more positive and constructive picture of sort of world we would like to see than we have put forward in past. It is not enough to urge people to develop political processes similar to our own. Many foreign peoples, in Europe at least, are tired and frightened by experiences of past, and are less interested in abstract freedom than in security. They are seeking guidance rather than responsibilities. We should be better able than Russians to give them this. And unless we do, Russians certainly will.

(Five) Finally we must have courage and self-confidence to cling to our own methods and conceptions of human society. After all, the greatest danger that can befall us in coping with this problem of Soviet Communism, is that we shall allow ourselves to become like those with whom we are coping.

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, vol. 6 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office), pp. 696-709.

Harry Truman Appeals to Congress (1947)
A crisis developed early in 1947 when the bankrupt British served notice on Washington that they could no longer afford to support the "rightist" government of Greece against Communist guerrillas. If Greece fell, Turkey and all the eastern Mediterranean countries would presumably collapse, like falling dominoes. After hurried consultations in Washington, President Truman boldly went before Congress to ask for $400 million to provide military and economic assistance to Greece and Turkey. This was a great deal of money, he conceded, but a trifling sum compared with the more than a third of a trillion dollars already expended in the recent war to guarantee freedom. On what grounds did he base his appeal? Were there any dangers in this approach?

I am fully aware of the broad implications involved if the United States extends assistance to Greece and Turkey, and I shall discuss these implications with you at this time.

One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the United States is the creation of conditions in which we and other nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion. This was a fundamental issue in the war with Germany and Japan. Our victory was won over countries which sought to impose their will, and their way of life, upon other nations.

To insure the peaceful development of nations, free from coercion, the United States has taken a leading part in establishing the United Nations. The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members. We shall not realize our objectives, however, unless we are willing to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes. [Applause.] This is no more than a frank recognition that totalitarian regimes imposed upon free peoples, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States.

The peoples of a number of countries of the world have recently had totalitarian regimes forced upon them against their will. The Government of the United States has made frequent protests against coercion and intimidation, in violation of the Yalta Agreement, in Poland, Rumania, and Bulgaria. I must also state that in a number of other countries there have been similar developments. . . .

I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.

I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destiny in their own way.

I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid, which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.

The world is not static and the status quo is not sacred. But we cannot allow changes in the status quo in violation of the Charter of the United Nations by such methods as coercion, or by such subterfuge as political infiltration. In helping free and independent nations to maintain their freedom, the United States will be giving effect to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations. . . .

This is a serious course upon which we embark. I would not recommend it except that the alternative is much more serious. [Applause.] . . .

The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms.

If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world--and we shall surely endanger the welfare of our own Nation.

Great responsibilities have been placed upon us by the swift movement of events.

I am confident that the Congress will face these responsibilities squarely. [Applause, the members rising.]

Congressional Record, 80th Cong., 1st sess. (March 12, 1947), p. 1981.

The World Through Soviet Eyes (1946)
As the Cold War came to an end in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Russian and American scholars for the first time gained open access to Soviet archives. Among the documents that came to the light in 1990 was the following telegram sent to the Soviet foreign ministry in Moscow by Soviet Ambassador to the United States Nikolai Novikov on September 27, 1946. It is in many ways a companion piece to George Kennan's famous "Long Telegram" from Moscow in February of the same year, reprinted in part earlier in this section. Like Kennan, who tried to explain the sources of Soviet conduct to his superiors in Washington, Novikov attempted to identify the taproots of U.S. foreign policy and the outlines of U.S. international strategy. In what ways does his analysis confirm Kennan's appraisal of the ways in which the Soviets viewed the rest of the world? In what ways does Novikov's portrait of American policy constitute a mirror image of Kennan's rendering of Soviet policy? How accurate are Novikov's assessments?

The foreign policy of the United States, which reflects the imperialist tendencies of American monopolistic capital, is characterized in the postwar period by a striving for world supremacy. This is the real meaning of the many statements by President Truman and other representatives of American ruling circles: that the United States has the right to lead the world. All the forces of American diplomacy--the army, the air force, the navy, industry, and science--are enlisted in the service of this foreign policy. For this purpose broad plans for expansion have been developed and are being implemented through diplomacy and the establishment of a system of naval and air bases stretching far beyond the boundaries of the United States, through the arms race, and through the creation of ever newer types of weapons. . . .

The two main aggressive powers, fascist Germany and militarist Japan, which were at the same time the main competitors of the United States in both the economic and foreign policy fields, were thoroughly defeated. The third great power, Great Britain, which had taken heavy blows during the war, now faces enormous economic and political difficulties. The political foundations of the British Empire were appreciably shaken, and crises arose, for example, in India, Palestine, and Egypt.

Europe has come out of the war with a completely dislocated economy, and the economic devastation that occurred in the course of the war cannot be overcome in a short time. All of the countries of Europe and Asia are experiencing a colossal need for consumer goods, industrial and transportation equipment, etc. Such a situation provides American monopolistic capital with prospects for enormous shipments of goods and the importation of capital into these countries--a circumstance that would permit it to infiltrate their national economies.

Such a development would mean a serious strengthening of the economic position of the United States in the whole world and would be a stage on the road to world domination by the United States. . . .

The foreign policy of the United States is not determined at present by the circles in the Democratic party that (as was the case during Roosevelt's lifetime) strive to strengthen the cooperation of the three great powers that constituted the basis of the anti-Hitler coalition during the war. The ascendance to power of President Truman, a politically unstable person but with certain conservative tendencies, and the subsequent appointment of [James] Byrnes as Secretary of State meant a strengthening of the influence on U.S. foreign policy of the most reactionary circles of the Democratic party. The constantly increasing reactionary nature of the foreign policy course of the United States, which consequently approached the policy advocated by the Republican party, laid the groundwork for close cooperation in this field between the far right wing of the Democratic party and the Republican party. This cooperation of the two parties, which took shape in both houses of Congress in the form of an unofficial bloc of reactionary Southern Democrats and the old guard of the Republicans headed by [Senator Arthur] Vandenberg and [Senator Robert] Taft, was especially clearly manifested in the essentially identical foreign policy statements issued by figures of both parties. In Congress and at international conferences, where as a rule leading Republicans are represented in the delegations of the United States, the Republicans actively support the foreign policy of the government. This is the source of what is called, even in official statements, "bi-partisan" foreign policy.

At the same time, there has been a decline in the influence on foreign policy of those who follow Roosevelt's course for cooperation among peace-loving countries. Such persons in the government, in Congress, and in the leadership of the democratic party are being pushed farther and farther into the background. The contradictions in the field of foreign policy existing between the followers of [Henry] Wallace and [Claude] Pepper, on the one hand, and the adherents of the reactionary "bi-partisan" policy, on the other, were manifested with great clarity recently in the speech by Wallace that led to his resignation from the post of Secretary of Commerce. Wallace's resignation means the victory of the reactionary course that Byrnes is conducting in cooperation with Vandenberg and Taft.

Obvious indications of the U.S. effort to establish world dominance are also to be found in the increase in military potential in peacetime and in the establishment of a large number of naval and air bases both in the United States and beyond its borders.

In the summer of 1946, for the first time in the history of the country, Congress passed a law on the establishment of a peacetime army, not on a volunteer basis but on the basis of universal military service. The size of the army, which is supposed to amount to about one million persons as of July 1, 1947, was also increased significantly. The size of the navy at the conclusion of the war decreased quite insignificantly in comparison with wartime. At the present time, the American navy occupies first place in the world, leaving England's navy far behind, to say nothing of those of other countries.

Expenditures on the army and navy have risen colossally, amounting to 13 billion dollars according to the budget for 1946-47 (about 40 percent of the total budget of 36 billion dollars). This is more than ten times greater than corresponding expenditures in the budget for 1938, which did not amount to even one billion dollars.

Along with maintaining a large army, navy, and air force, the budget provides that these enormous amounts also will be spent on establishing a very extensive system of naval and air bases in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. According to existing official plans, in the course of the next few years 228 bases, points of support, and radio stations are to be constructed in the Atlantic Ocean and 258 in the Pacific. A large number of these bases and points of support are located outside the boundaries of the United States. In the Atlantic Ocean bases exist or are under construction in the following foreign island territories: Newfoundland, Iceland, Cuba, Trinidad, Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Azores, and many others; in the Pacific Ocean: former Japanese mandated territories--the Marianas, Caroline and Marshall Islands, Bonin, Ryukyu, Philippines, and the Galapagos Islands (they belong to Ecuador).

The establishment of American bases on islands that are often 10,000 to 12,000 kilometers from the territory of the United States and are on the other side of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans clearly indicates the offensive nature of the strategic concepts of the commands of the U.S. army and navy. This interpretation is also confirmed by the fact that the American navy is intensively studying the naval approaches to the boundaries of Europe. For this purpose, American naval vessels in the course of 1946 visited the ports of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Turkey, and Greece. In addition, the American navy is constantly operating in the Mediterranean Sea.

All of these facts show clearly that a decisive role in the realization of plans for world dominance by the United States is played by its armed forces. . . .

The "hard-line" policy with regard to the USSR announced by Byrnes after the rapprochement of the reactionary Democrats with the Republicans is at present the main obstacle on the road to cooperation of the Great Powers. It consists mainly of the fact that in the postwar period the United States no longer follows a policy of strengthening cooperation among the Big Three (or Four) but rather has striven to undermine the unity of these countries. The objective has been to impose the will of other countries on the Soviet Union. This is precisely the tenor of the policy of certain countries, which is being carried out with the blessing of the United States, to undermine or completely abolish the principle of the veto in the Security Council of the United Nations. This would give the United States opportunities to form among the Great Powers narrow groupings and blocs directed primarily against the Soviet Union, and thus to split the United Nations. Rejection of the veto by the Great Powers would transform the United Nations into an Anglo-Saxon domain in which the United States would play the leading role.

The present policy of the American government with regard to the USSR is also directed at limiting or dislodging the influence of the Soviet Union from neighboring countries. In implementing this policy in former enemy or Allied countries adjacent to the USSR, the United States attempts, at various international conferences or directly in these countries themselves, to support reactionary forces with the purpose of creating obstacles to the process of democratization of these countries. In so doing, it also attempts to secure positions for the penetration of American capital into their economies. Such a policy is intended to weaken and overthrow the democratic governments in power there, which are friendly toward the USSR, and replace them in the future with new governments that would obediently carry out a policy dictated from the United States. In this policy, the United States receives full support from English diplomacy. . . .

The numerous and extremely hostile statements by American government, political, and military figures with regard to the Soviet Union and its foreign policy are very characteristic of the current relationship between the ruling circles of the United States and the USSR. These statements are echoed in an even more unrestrained tone by the overwhelming majority of the American press organs. Talk about a "third war," meaning a war against the Soviet Union, and even a direct call for this war--with the threat of using the atomic bomb--such is the content of the statements on relations with the Soviet Union by reactionaries at public meetings and in the press. At the present time, preaching war against the Soviet Union is not a monopoly of the far-right, yellow American press represented by the newspaper associations of Hearst and McCormick. This anti-Soviet campaign also has been joined by the "reputable" and "respectable" organs of the conservative press, such as the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune. Indicative in this respect are the numerous articles by Walter Lippmann in which he almost undisguisedly calls on the United States to launch a strike against the Soviet Union in the most vulnerable areas of the south and southeast of the USSR.

The basic goal of this anti-Soviet campaign of American "public opinion" is to exert political pressure on the Soviet Union and compel it to make concessions. Another, no less important goal of the campaign is the attempt to create an atmosphere of war psychosis among the masses, who are weary of war, thus making it easier for the U.S. government to carry out measures for the maintenance of high military potential. It was in this very atmosphere that the law on universal military service in peacetime was passed by Congress, that the huge military budget was adopted, and that plans are being worked out for the construction of an extensive system of naval and air bases.

Of course, all of these measures for maintaining a high military potential are not goals in themselves. They are only intended to prepare the conditions for winning world supremacy in a new war, the date for which, to be sure, cannot be determined now by anyone, but which is contemplated by the most bellicose circles of American imperialism.

Careful note should be taken of the fact that the preparation by the United States for a future war is being conducted with the prospect of war against the Soviet Union, which in the eyes of American imperialists is the main obstacle in the path of the United States to world domination. This is indicated by facts such as the tactical training of the American army for war with the Soviet Union as the future opponent, the siting of American strategic bases in regions from which it is possible to launch strikes on Soviet territory, intensified training and strengthening of Arctic regions as close approaches to the USSR, and attempts to prepare Germany and Japan to use those countries in a war against the USSR.

Nikolai Novikov, "U.S. Foreign Policy in the Post War Period," September 27, 1946. Archives of the Soviet Foreign Ministry: AVPSSSR, f.06, op.8, p. 45, d.759. Reprinted from United States Institute of Peace, Origins of the Cold War (Washington, D.C., 1991), pp. 3-16.

Secretary George Marshall Speaks at Harvard (1947)
By June 1947 it was painfully evident that the Truman Doctrine was merely a child on an adult's errand. The hunger and economic prostration produced by the war were providing an alarming hotbed for the propagation of communism in Europe, especially in Italy and France. A communist takeover of all Western Europe appeared to be a distinct (and depressing) possibility. At this critical juncture the secretary of state, General George C. Marshall, speaking at the Harvard University commencement exercises, made the following breathtaking proposal. To what extent is it both selfish and unselfish? What is its relation to the Truman Doctrine?

The truth of the matter is that Europe's requirements for the next three or four years of foreign food and other essential products--principally from America--are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help or face economic, social, and political deterioration of a very grave character. . . .

Aside from the demoralizing effect on the world at large and the possibilities of disturbances arising as a result of the desperation of the people concerned, the consequences to the economy of the United States should be apparent to all. It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.

Such assistance, I am convinced, must not be on a piecemeal basis as various crises develop. Any assistance that this Government may render in the future should provide a cure rather than a mere palliative. Any government that is willing to assist in the task of recovery will find full cooperation, I am sure, on the part of the United States Government. Any government which maneuvers to block the recovery of other countries cannot expect help from us. Furthermore, governments, political parties, or groups which seek to perpetuate human misery in order to profit therefrom politically or otherwise will encounter the opposition of the United States.

It is already evident that, before the United States Government can proceed much further in its efforts to alleviate the situation and help start the European world on its way to recovery, there must be some agreement among the countries of Europe as to the requirements of the situation and the part those countries themselves will take in order to give proper effect to whatever action might be undertaken by this Government.

It would be neither fitting nor efficacious for this Government to undertake to draw up unilaterally a program designed to place Europe on its feet economically. This is the business of the Europeans. The initiative, I think, must come from Europe. The role of this country should consist of friendly aid in the drafting of a European program and of later support of such a program so far as it may be practical for us to do so. The program should be a joint one, agreed to by a number, if not all, European nations.

Department of State Bulletin 16 (June 15, 1947; speech of June 5, 1947): 1159-1160.

Senator Arthur Vandenberg Is Favorable (1947, 1948)
Tax-burdened Americans, having spent billions in World War II, were reluctant to pour more treasure down the "European rat hole." Eloquent Senator Vandenberg of Michigan (see Chapter 38, Senator Arthur Vandenberg Fights Repeal, 1939), a recent convert from isolationism to internationalism, was one of the foremost champions in Congress of the Marshall Plan. In the following excerpts from letters to his constituents, what are his arguments for the Marshall Plan? In what ways does he see the plan as serving the self-interest of the United States?

I have no illusions about this so-called "Marshall Plan." . . . Furthermore, I certainly do not take it for granted that American public opinion is ready for any such burdens as would be involved unless and until it is far more effectively demonstrated to the American people that this (1) is within the latitudes of their own available resources and (2) serves their own intelligent self-interest.

. . . I am entirely willing to admit that America herself cannot prosper in a broken world. But it is equally true that if America ever sags, the world's hopes for peace will sag with her. Meanwhile, however, there are some very realistic problems which we must face--including the basic fact that even our friends in Western Europe will soon be totally devoid of dollar exchange and therefore unable to buy commodities from us which are indispensable to their own self-rehabilitation. I must confess that this poses a tough conundrum in international economics entirely aside from considerations of "charity" or "communism." . . .

So we have no alternative but to do the best we can, in the absence of certified knowledge, and to balance one "calculated risk" against another. . . .

You are entirely right that an "international WPA"* can't save Europe from communism or anything else. Is somebody proposing one? I hadn't heard about it. The so-called "Marshall Plan" is the exact opposite, if it runs true to form--and it's our business to see that it does. It is a program geared to self-help. It requires beneficiary countries to proceed specifically to do the things for themselves which will put them on their own feet (and off ours) by 1951--and our aid is progressively contingent upon concurrent results.

. . . I respectfully submit that we do "know enough" to know what will happen if it, or something like it, doesn't work. We know that independent governments, whatever their character otherwise, will disappear from Western Europe; that aggressive communism will be spurred throughout the world; and that our concept of free men, free government, and a relatively free international economy will come up against accumulated hazards which can put our own, precious "American way of life" in the greatest, kindred hazard since Pearl Harbor. . . .

Let's be equally frank in our "calculations" as to what happens if the iron curtain reaches the Atlantic; if peace and justice are at the mercy of expanding, hostile totalitarian aggression, and if the greatest creditor and capitalist nation on earth should find itself substantially isolated in a communist world where the competition would force us into complete regimentation of ourselves beyond anything we have ever experienced.

This question of "what the Bill will cost" is a very interesting one. Unfortunately, the critics of the Bill have nothing to say about what the failure to pass the Bill will cost. You can get some direct and specific idea on this latter point by reading the testimony before our Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Secretary of Defense Forrestal and Secretary of the Army Royal, who both assert that without legislation of this character they would find it necessary immediately to ask for heavily increased appropriations for military defense. Why? Because it is infinitely cheaper to defend ourselves by economic means.

In other words, in the final analysis, peace is cheaper than war. War has no bargains. Peace does. There is no guarantee that this European Recovery Plan will "work." But certainly there is an even chance that it can succeed. In my opinion, we cannot afford not to take that chance.

*Works Progress Administration--a New Deal agency designed to provide employment on public works.

From The Private Papers of Senator Vandenburg by Arthur H. Vandenburg, Jr., 1952, pp. 381-383, 386-387.

Moscow's Misrepresentations (c. 1947)
The Marshall Plan certainly would not have received congressional approval if the American people had not been convinced that their security depended on preventing Western Europe from falling under the sway of Soviet communism. Humanitarian instincts, gratitude to former allies, the creation of prosperous customers for surplus goods--all these points were argued, but security was unquestionably paramount. U.S. critics of the Marshall Plan charged that the poor people of the United States needed help, and that Washington should not subsidize socialism (in Britain and elsewhere). The following description of the Marshall Plan was prepared by Soviet propagandists for a children's magazine. How accurate is it?

The American papers immediately raised a great noise about this [Marshall] plan. In different terms, they emphasized "the magnanimity" of America which had decided to help war-stricken Europe.

However, actually, this cunning plan pursued entirely different aims. The American capitalists want to use the help of the Marshall Plan to overwhelm Europe and bring it into subjection to themselves. The government of the Soviet Union at once recognized the real meaning of the Marshall Plan, and definitely refused to take part in setting it up. So also did the governments of the other democratic lands--Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Hungary, and also Finland.* But sixteen European states adopted the Marshall Plan against the wishes of their peoples.

Let us see now how the U.S.A. is preparing to carry out the Marshall Plan, and what it promises the European countries which have fallen for the American bait.

Representatives of these sixteen European states met together and calculated that they had to receive from the U.S.A. 29 billion dollars to restore their economies. The Americans answered that this sum was too high, and asked for its reduction to 20-22 billion dollars.

The Americans, moreover, attached the following condition: they themselves will dictate to each European country what branch of economy it must develop and what it must curtail. For example, they say to Britain: "You Britishers, build fewer ships for yourselves; you will buy ships from us in America." They propose to the French a reduction in the production of automobiles--American factories can make automobiles for France.

It goes without saying that this was very useful for American capitalists. In America everybody is fearfully awaiting "the economic crisis," i.e., the time when many factories and industries suddenly close and millions of people are left without work. At that time it will be difficult for the manufacturers to get rid of their output. A man out of work has nothing with which to buy them. So the American capitalists are greatly concerned how to sell profitably their output in Europe. Further, the European countries inevitably will become dependent on America: once they make a few machines, tools, and automobiles, it means that willy-nilly they must defer to the Americans.

According to the Marshall Plan, the American capitalists want to restore all the great factories of Western Germany. In other countries they are hastening to close many factories, while in Germany, on the contrary, they are opening them up. Their purpose there, too, is quite understandable: clearly, the U.S.A. considers Western Germany as its colony. By controlling the big industries there which can also make armaments, it will be easy for the Americans to frighten the European countries dependent on them.

The American capitalists counted on using the Marshall Plan to stir up trouble between the peoples of the democratic countries and the Soviet Union. The Americans proposed to these countries as follows: "We will give you dollars if only you will abandon your friendship with the Soviet Union. But if you don't, we won't give you anything." But the peoples of these countries did not fall for the American capitalists' trick. They answered the Americans: "We will not exchange our freedom and independence for dollars." . . .

But this isn't all. The American capitalists have still another dastardly aim. After using the Marshall Plan to reduce the European countries, they want to unite them in a military alliance for a future war against the democratic states.

The Marshall Plan is highly profitable to the United States. For the European countries it brings only poverty. Any land which wants to receive "aid" by means of this plan will be entirely dependent on America. Its economy will not be assisted: on the contrary, it will fall into greater ruin because the country will have to close many of its industries and plants, and hundreds of thousands of people will be out of work. That is why both in America itself and in all other lands progressive people are opposing the Marshall Plan with all their strength.

*Soviet pressures on these satellite countries kept them from accepting the Marshall Plan.

Excerpt from My Three Years in Moscow by Walter Bedell Smith, pp. 198-200. 

Secretary Dean Acheson Drops Jiang Jieshi (1949)
Jiang Jieshi's (Chiang Kai-shek) Nationalist China was creaking at the joints when its eight-year war with Japan ended in 1945. Washington continued to provide Jiang with arms to fight the Chinese communists, but many of these supplies were corruptly sold or abjectly surrendered. President Truman finally dispatched the highly respected General George Marshall in a fruitless attempt to persuade the Nationalists to form a coalition government with the communists. After Washington had cut back the flow of arms to Nationalist China, the corruption-riddled regime collapsed; Jiang fled with the remnants of his army to the offshore island of Formosa (Taiwan). Secretary of State Acheson, whose keen intellect and toplofty manner irritated members of Congress, defended the administration in the following official letter. What part seems least candid? What was Acheson's ability as a prophet? Should the historic policy have been reversed? Would U.S. public opinion have tolerated such a reversal?

A realistic appraisal of conditions in China, past and present, leads to the conclusion that the only alternative open to the United States was full-scale intervention in behalf of a Government which had lost the confidence of its own troops and its own people. Such intervention would have required the expenditure of even greater sums than have been fruitlessly spent thus far, the command of Nationalist armies by American officers, and the probable participation of American armed forces--land, sea, and air--in the resulting war.

Intervention of such a scope and magnitude would have been resented by the mass of the Chinese people, would have diametrically reversed our historic policy, and would have been condemned by the American people. . . .

The unfortunate but inescapable fact is that the ominous result of the civil war in China was beyond the control of the government of the United States. Nothing that this country did or could have done within the reasonable limits of its capabilities could have changed that result; nothing that was left undone by this country has contributed to it. It was the product of internal Chinese forces, forces which this country tried to influence but could not. A decision was arrived at within China, if only a decision by default.

And now it is abundantly clear that we must face the situation as it exists in fact. We will not help the Chinese or ourselves by basing our policy on wishful thinking. We continue to believe that, however tragic may be the immediate future of China, and however ruthlessly a major portion of this great people may be exploited by a [Communist] party in the interest of foreign imperialism, ultimately the profound civilization and the democratic individualism of China will reassert themselves, and she will throw off the foreign yoke. I consider that we should encourage all developments in China which now and in the future work toward this end.

United States Relations with China, with Special Reference to the Period 1944-1949 (1949), pp. xv-xvi.

Senator Joseph McCarthy Blasts "Traitors" (1952)
The loss of a half-billion or so Chinese to the communists was a staggering blow to U.S. policy. Scapegoats had to be found. The violently anticommunist Republican senator Joseph R. McCarthy leaped into the fray, flinging accusations wildly and indiscriminately. In his view, Secretary Acheson and General Marshall, themselves allegedly "soft" on communism and advised by communist "traitors" in the State Department, had deliberately and treasonably allowed China to go down the drain. Senator McCarthy asked himself the following questions--and answered them--in a book published in 1952. Which of his charges seem the most convincing? the most overdrawn? Did he prove that more arms for China would have averted the communist takeover?

Do you think Acheson realized he was following the Communist Party line in Asia?

Either he knew what he was doing or he was incompetent beyond words. As late as November, 1945, William Z. Foster, head of the Communist Party of the United States, notified the world that China was the prime target of the Soviet Union. He said: "On the international scale, the key task . . . is to stop American intervention in China. . . . The war in China is the key of all problems on the international front."

Less than a month after this Communist proclamation, Marshall embarked upon the "Marshall Mission to China." The testimony before the Russell Committee was that this mission was an Acheson-Marshall-Vincent* project. Before Marshall went to China the Communists occupied a very small portion of China. Their Army numbered less than 300,000 badly equipped troops. When Marshall returned from China to be rewarded by Truman with an appointment as Secretary of State, the Communist-controlled area had greatly increased and the Communist Army had grown from 300,000 badly equipped troops to an Army of over 2,000,000 relatively well-equipped soldiers.

What about the State Department's excuse that we withdrew aid from Chiang Kai-shek [Jiang Jieshi] because his government was corrupt?

Chiang Kai-shek had been engaged in conflict and warfare since 1927--first with the Communists, then with Japan, then simultaneously with the Communists and Japan, and after Japan's defeat, again with the Communists. During that time, all the disruption of war beset Chiang's Government. Under the circumstances it would be a miracle if there were no corruption or incompetence in his government.

But if corruption and incompetence are grounds for turning an administration over to the Communists, then Earl Browder should be President of the United States, Harry Bridges should be Secretary of Labor, and Alger Hiss** should be Secretary of Defense.

What about Acheson's claim that we gave Chiang Kai-shek every help which he could utilize, including $2 billion worth of aid since the end of World War II?

That is untrue. Acheson made this claim in a letter to Senator Pat McCarran on March 14, 1949, in arguing against any further aid to anti-Communist China, which according to Acheson "would almost surely be catastrophic."

Of the phony $2 billion figure, $335,800,000 was for repatriating Japanese soldiers in China and transporting Chinese Nationalist armed forces to accept the surrender of the Japanese. Even President Truman declared that those expenditures should properly have been charged to World War II. . . .

Is it true that Marshall, under State Department instructions, signed an order cutting off not only arms to our friends in China, but also all ammunition so that the arms they had would be useless?

Yes. The embargo on all arms and ammunition to China began in 1946 and continued into 1947.

Those were crucial years, and China's plight was so bad that even the New York Times reported on June 22, 1947, that the guns of the anti-Communists were so worn and burned out that "bullets fell through them to the ground."

The Communists, on the other hand, were kept well supplied by the Russians. Admiral Cooke has so testified before the McCarran Committee. . . .

Do you claim that General Marshall, who has long worked with Acheson, was knowingly working for the Communist cause in China?

As I stated in my book, The Story of General George Marshall--America's Retreat from Victory, I cannot delve into the mind of Marshall. I can only present the facts to the American people. Whether Marshall knowingly betrayed China or whether he honestly thought that he was helping China, the results are equally disastrous for America. . . .

Since the fall of China has Acheson ever admitted that his China policy was a failure?

No. There is no indication that Acheson considers the loss of China to Communism a "failure." Instead, he hailed it as "a new day which has dawned in Asia."

[The United States supplied Jiang's Nationalists with vastly more arms than the Soviet Union sent to the Chinese communists, although departing Soviet troops did abandon large quantities of Japanese munitions to the communists. The Americans also abandoned comparable supplies of their own to the Nationalists. The tale about bullets falling out of worn-out guns came from an unnamed Chinese correspondent's report (New York Times, June 22, 1947, p. 38) that "some machine gun barrels were so burned that bullets fell through them to the ground." Machine guns can be so badly worn as to fire inaccurately, but the bullets are firmly lodged in the cartridges, and the cartridges are either clipped or belted together.

General Barr, a U.S. military observer, reported to the Department of the Army on November 16, 1948:

"I am convinced that the military situation has deteriorated to the point where only the active participation of United States troops could effect a remedy. . . . Military material and economic aid in my opinion is less important to the salvation of China than other factors. No battle has been lost since my arrival due to lack of ammunition or equipment. Their military debacles in my opinion can all be attributed to the world's worst leadership and many other morale-destroying factors that lead to a complete loss of will to fight. The complete ineptness of high military leaders and the widespread corruption and dishonesty throughout the Armed Forces could, in some measure, have been controlled and directed had the above authority and facilities been available. Chinese leaders completely lack the moral courage to issue and enforce an unpopular decision." (United States Relations with China, with Special Reference to the Period 1944-1949 [1949], p. 358.)]

*John C. Vincent was a foreign service officer allegedly "soft" on communism.

**Alger Hiss was a former State Department official convicted in 1950 of perjury in connection with passing secrets on to the Soviets. Harry Bridges was a Pacific Coast labor leader accused of Communist party affiliation. Earl Browder was twice a candidate for the presidency on the Communist party ticket.

Quoted from Senator Joseph McCarthy, McCarthyism: The Fight for America (New York: Devin-Adair Company, 1952), pp. 37-40.

Senator Tom Connally Writes Off Korea (1950)
Secretary Acheson compounded his China felony, in McCarthyite eyes, by making a memorable speech to the National Press Club of Washington early in 1950. He outlined the United States' "defensive perimeter" in the Far East but conspicuously omitted from it the Republic of South Korea and Jiang's last-hope Formosa. He stated that the areas thus excluded would have to depend on themselves for defense and on "the commitments of the entire civilized world under the Charter of the United Nations." Some three months later Senator Connally, chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, gave the following interview. Critics of the Truman administration later charged that the Acheson and Connally statements were open invitations to the Soviet-backed North Korean communists to invade South Korea, as they did in June 1950. Was this inference fair?

Question. Do you think the suggestion that we abandon South Korea is going to be seriously considered?

Answer. I am afraid it is going to be seriously considered because I'm afraid it's going to happen, whether we want it to or not. I'm for Korea. We're trying to help her--we're appropriating money now to help her. But South Korea is cut right across by this line--north of it are the Communists, with access to the mainland--and Russia is over there on the mainland. So that whenever she takes a notion, she can just overrun Korea, just like she probably will overrun Formosa when she gets ready to do it. I hope not, of course.

Question. But isn't Korea an essential part of the defense strategy?

Answer. No. Of course, any position like that is of some strategic importance. But I don't think it is very greatly important. It has been testified before us that Japan, Okinawa, and the Philippines make the chain of defense which is absolutely necessary. And, of course, any additional territory along in that area would be that much more, but it's not absolutely essential.

U.S. News and World Report 28 (May 5, 1950): 30. 

Truman Accepts the Korean Challenge (1950)
President Truman was forced to make a series of agonizing decisions: the Truman Doctrine (1947), the Marshall Plan (1947), the Berlin airlift (1948), the North Atlantic Pact (1949), the Korean intervention (1950). Speaking later (1959) at Columbia University, he was asked, "Mr. President, what was the most complicated, the one single, most difficult decision you had to make?" Unhesitatingly he replied: "Korea. The reason for that was the fact that the policies of our allies and the members of the United Nations were at stake at the same time as ours." Here in his Memoirs he explains more fully the reasons for intervening with armed forces to support the South Korean republic, a special ward of the United Nations. Remembering that the League of Nations had collapsed in the 1930s because it failed to act resolutely, assess the validity of Truman's view that his intervention in Korea averted World War III.

On Saturday, June 24, 1950, I was in Independence, Missouri, to spend the weekend with my family and to attend to some personal family business.

It was a little after ten in the evening, and we were sitting in the library of our home on North Delaware Street when the telephone rang. It was the Secretary of State calling from his home in Maryland.

"Mr. President," said Dean Acheson, "I have very serious news. The North Koreans have invaded South Korea."

My first reaction was that I must get back to the capital, and I told Acheson so. . . .

The plane left the Kansas City Municipal Airport at two o'clock, and it took just a little over three hours to make the trip to Washington. I had time to think aboard the plane. In my generation, this was not the first occasion when the strong had attacked the weak. I recalled some earlier instances: [Japan in] Manchuria, [Italy in] Ethiopia, [Germany in] Austria. I remembered how each time that the democracies failed to act it had encouraged the aggressors to keep going ahead.

Communism was acting in Korea just as Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese had acted ten, fifteen, and twenty years earlier. I felt certain that if South Korea was allowed to fall, Communist leaders would be emboldened to override nations closer to our own shores. If the Communists were permitted to force their way into the Republic of Korea without opposition from the free world, no small nation would have the courage to resist threats and aggression by stronger Communist neighbors. If this was allowed to go unchallenged it would mean a third world war, just as similar incidents had brought on the second world war. It was also clear to me that the foundations and the principles of the United Nations were at stake unless this unprovoked attack on Korea could be stopped.

Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Years of Trial and Hope (1956), vol. 2, pp. 331-333. 

NSC-68 Offers a Blueprint for the Cold War (1950)
Jolted by the communist success in China and the Soviet development of an atomic bomb, President Truman in early 1950 ordered a far-reaching reassessment of U.S. Cold War policies. The result was a lengthy secret document, declassified only a quarter of a century later, known as National Security Council Memorandum Number 68 (NSC-68). The memorandum assessed the balance of Soviet and U.S. power in the world and made sweeping recommendations for a vigorous U.S. military buildup. It laid out, in effect, a blueprint for U.S. foreign policy for the next two decades. It advised against negotiating with the Soviet Union until the United States had time "to build up strength," although it conceded that some discussions with the Soviets were probably necessary "to gain public support for the [buildup] and to minimize the immediate risks of war." NSC-68 also advocated the development of hydrogen bombs and the expansion of conventional military forces, and it frankly acknowledged that substantial tax increases would be necessary to finance this effort. On what premises about the state of the world and the character of the Soviet Union does NSC-68 build its argument? Are those premises justifiable? What policy choices does the memorandum present? Why does it choose the particular policies it recommends? What does it see as the United States' strengths and liabilities in the confrontation with the Soviet Union? What obstacles to developing those strengths does it identify?

I. Background of the Present Crisis

Within the past thirty-five years the world has experienced two global wars of tremendous violence. It has witnessed two revolutions--the Russian and the Chinese--of extreme scope and intensity. It has also seen the collapse of five empires--the Ottoman, the Austro-Hungarian, German, Italian and Japanese--and the drastic decline of two major imperial systems, the British and the French. During the span of one generation, the international distribution of power has been fundamentally altered. For several centuries it had proved impossible for any one nation to gain such preponderant strength that a coalition of other nations could not in time face it with greater strength. The international scene was marked by recurring periods of violence and war, but a system of sovereign and independent states was maintained, over which no state was able to achieve hegemony.

Two complex sets of factors have now basically altered this historical distribution of power. First, the defeat of Germany and Japan and the decline of the British and French Empires have interacted with the development of the United States and the Soviet Union in such a way that power has increasingly gravitated to these two centers. Second, the Soviet Union, unlike previous aspirants to hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own, and seeks to impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world. Conflict has, therefore, become endemic and is waged, on the part of the Soviet Union, by violent or non-violent methods in accordance with the dictates of expediency. With the development of increasingly terrifying weapons of mass destruction, every individual faces the ever-present possibility of annihilation should the conflict enter the phase of total war. . . .

The issues that face us are momentous, involving the fulfillment or destruction not only of this Republic but of civilization itself. They are issues which will not await our deliberations. With conscience and resolution this Government and the people it represents must now make new and fateful decisions. . . .

Four possible courses of action by the United States in the present situation can be distinguished. They are:

a. Continuation of current policies, with current and currently projected programs for carrying out these policies;

b. Isolation;

c. War; and

d. A more rapid building up of the political, economic, and military strength of the free world than provided under a, with the purpose of reaching, if possible, a tolerable state of order among nations without war and of preparing to defend ourselves in the event that the free world is attacked. . . .

On the basis of current programs, the United States has a large potential military capability but an actual capability which, though improving, is declining relative to the U.S.S.R., particularly in light of its probable fission bomb capability and possible thermonuclear bomb capability. The same holds true for the free world as a whole relative to the Soviet world as a whole. If war breaks out in 1950 or in the next few years, the United States and its allies, apart from a powerful atomic blow, will be compelled to conduct delaying actions, while building up their strength for a general offensive. A frank evaluation of the requirements, to defend the United States and its vital interests and to support a vigorous initiative in the cold war, on the one hand, and of present capabilities, on the other, indicates that there is a sharp and growing disparity between them. . . .

There are some who advocate a deliberate decision to isolate ourselves. Superficially, this has some attractiveness as a course of action, for it appears to bring our commitments and capabilities into harmony by reducing the former and by concentrating our present, or perhaps even reduced, military expenditures on the defense of the United States.

This argument overlooks the relativity of capabilities. With the United States in an isolated position, we would have to face the probability that the Soviet Union would quickly dominate most of Eurasia, probably without meeting armed resistance. It would thus acquire a potential far superior to our own, and would promptly proceed to develop this potential with the purpose of eliminating our power, which would, even in isolation, remain as a challenge to it and as an obstacle to the imposition of its kind of order in the world. There is no way to make ourselves inoffensive to the Kremlin except by complete submission to its will. Therefore isolation would in the end condemn us to capitulate or to fight alone and on the defensive, with drastically limited offensive and retaliatory capabilities in comparison with the Soviet Union. (These are the only possibilities, unless we are prepared to risk the future on the hazard that the Soviet Empire, because of over-extension or other reasons, will spontaneously destroy itself from within.)

The argument also overlooks the imponderable, but nevertheless drastic, effects on our belief in ourselves and in our way of life of a deliberate decision to isolate ourselves. As the Soviet Union came to dominate free countries, it is clear that many Americans would feel a deep sense of responsibility and guilt for having abandoned their former friends and allies. As the Soviet Union mobilized the resources of Eurasia, increased its relative military capabilities, and heightened its threat to our security, some would be tempted to accept "peace" on its terms, while many would seek to defend the United States by creating a regimented system which would permit the assignment of a tremendous part of our resources to defense. Under such a state of affairs our national morale would be corrupted and the integrity and vitality of our system subverted. . . .

Some Americans favor a deliberate decision to go to war against the Soviet Union in the near future. It goes without saying that the idea of "preventive" war--in the sense of a military attack not provoked by a military attack upon us or our allies--is generally unacceptable to Americans. . . .

The ability of the United States to launch effective offensive operations is now limited to attack with atomic weapons. A powerful blow could be delivered upon the Soviet Union, but it is estimated that these operations alone would not force or induce the Kremlin to capitulate and that the Kremlin would still be able to use the forces under its control to dominate most or all of Eurasia. This would probably mean a long and difficult struggle during which the free institutions of Western Europe and many freedom-loving people would be destroyed and the regenerative capacity of Western Europe dealt a crippling blow.

Apart from this, however, a surprise attack upon the Soviet Union, despite the provocative ness of recent Soviet behavior, would be repugnant to many Americans. Although the American people would probably rally in support of the war effort, the shock of responsibility for a surprise attack would be morally corrosive. Many would doubt that it was a "just war" and that all reasonable possibilities for a peaceful settlement had been explored in good faith. Many more, proportionately, would hold such views in other countries, particularly in Western Europe and particularly after Soviet occupation, if only because the Soviet Union would liquidate articulate opponents. It would, therefore, be difficult after such a war to create a satisfactory international order among nations. Victory in such a war would have brought us little if at all closer to victory in the fundamental ideological conflict. . . .

A program for rapidly building up strength and improving political and economic conditions will place heavy demands on our courage and intelligence; it will be costly; it will be dangerous. But half-measures will be more costly and more dangerous, for they will be inadequate to prevent and may actually invite war. Budgetary considerations will need to be subordinated to the stark fact that our very independence as a nation may be at stake. . . .

The United States is currently devoting about 22 percent of its gross national product ($255 billion in 1949) to military expenditures (6 percent), foreign assistance (2 percent), and investment (14 percent), little of which is in war-supporting industries. . . .

From the point of view of the economy as a whole, the program might not result in a real decrease in the standard of living, for the economic effects of the program might be to increase the gross national product by more than the amount being absorbed for additional military and foreign assistance purposes. One of the most significant lessons of our World War II experience was that the American economy, when it operates at a level approaching full efficiency, can provide enormous resources for purposes other than civilian consumption while simultaneously providing a high standard of living. After allowing for price changes, personal consumption expenditures rose by about one-fifth between 1939 and 1944, even though the economy had in t