March 30, 1949
Dear Mr. Dulles:
Thank you very much indeed for sending me a copy of your speech before the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin Forum. I have taken the liberty of circulating it to other interested officers in the Department.
Sincerely yours,
The Honorable John Foster Dulles 48 Wall Street NewYork 5, New York
S/S:ECGrab:arw
March 24, 1949
My dear Mr. Secretary:
I enclose as of possible interest the statement on the Atlantic Pact that I made last night before the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin Forum.
Sincerely yours,
John Foster Dulles
(Enclosure)
The Honorable Dean G. Acheson, Secretary of State Washington, D.C.
For release: March 23, 1949 9 p.m. (E.S.T.)
EUROPE AND THE ATLANTIC PACT By JOHN FOSTER DULLES
Philadelphia Evening Bulletin Forum
On the world stage, where history is made, the United States and Soviet Russia face each other. The Soviet leaders have won control over about one- third of the human race. The remainder, frightened, look to the United States for help. That places upon us responsibilities that are immense.
Of course, we cannot bolster every thing, everywhere, that communism seeks to overthrow. If we attempted that, we would become over-extended materially and discredited morally. We have to be selective. But also we should not be so selective that we ignore the global nature of the struggle and allow Soviet communism to win great victories by default. There is need for careful planning and nice judgment, and the nation is fortunate that, to fill that need, it has had Secretary Marshall and now Secretary Acheson.
WHY AN ATLANTIC PACT
In any planning the countries of Western Europe must figure largely.
Their free institutions and their intellectual, cultural and religious values contribute so greatly to our happiness that, if they were liquidated, it would be as though part of ourselves were amputated.
The Soviet army already stands upon the Elbe and daily the communists in France and Italy boast that the Red Army will soon be there.
Also peace requires that Western Europe should feel strong enough to solve the problem of Germany. Soviet propaganda now calls for the freeing of Germany from occupation, a reuniting of Germany and a return of government to the Germans. If we persist in opposing such measures, that could lead to a virtual alliance between the Germans and the Russians. But today, if we withdrew the troops that both control the western Germans and interpose a cordon between the East and West, that would frighten and endanger our European Allies. They must quickly become strong enough to feel that without risk to themselves, they can give the Germans a decent and hopeful future within the orbit of Western Europe.
These are reasons for the European Recovery Plan and the proposed Atlantic Pact. Both would reinforce Western Europe during its period of reconstruction by adding strength from the United States.
PARALLEL TO MONROE DOCTRINE
Two years ago, I said that the two wars in Europe into which the United States had been drawn, might not have started had it been known in advance what we would do. I urged that the time had come to make clear our intentions as regards Europe just as, long ago, we had made them clear as regards this hemisphere.
The Monroe Doctrine identified the "peace and happiness" of the United States with the freedom of this hemisphere from despotic encroachment. It has peacefully maintained that freedom for a century and a quarter. I ascribe that success to two basic qualities. One was its clearly defensive quality. Another, was the quality of certainty that inhered in it. If we can get those same basic qualities into the Atlantic Pact it, too, may peacefully bar despotism from the area with which it deals. These qualities do not, however, derive just from words: they are matters of the spirit.
THE DEFENSIVE QUALITY
It will not be easy to stamp the Atlantic Pact with a clearly defensive character. Its area comes close to the Soviet Union and, at one point, makes physical contact with it. Also, the European member nations expect us to develop military strength in Europe, so that they are not dependent upon our mobile force at home. Thus, unless we are very careful, Soviet leaders might jump to the conclusion that the Pact is, in fact, offensive. If so, it might bring on the war which it is designed to prevent.
If that happened it would be poor comfort to know that the Soviet leaders were wrong. Peace is not won merely by being right, or by an inner consciousness of good intentions. It requires foreseeing what in fact will be the probable consequence of what we do. In this connection we must take into account that men in the Kremlin, as Russian leaders, inherit age-old suspicions of the West; as communists, they believe that capitalism seeks their encirclement and as despots, they are told what frightened agents think they want to hear. Also they are tough and they feel powerful. We must consider what, under these circumstances, is likely to happen if they think, even erroneously, that a ring is being drawn ever closer about them which will provide refueling bases to enable our bombers, in the words of our Strategic Air Command, to "deliver an atom bomb at any place that would require an atom bomb."
Of course, whatever the real purpose of the Pact, Soviet leadership will publicly denounce it as aggressive. I am not suggesting that we should be deterred by that. Our proper concern is not what Soviet leaders say, but what they really think. If the Atlantic Pact is to promote peace, the member states ought to conduct themselves, by word and deed, so that those in the Kremlin will see that the Pact is an honest attempt to integrate and invigorate a free society within its natural limits and not a scheme for accumulating whistle stops to Moscow. Let us rule out ambiguous acts and loose words that could make the Pact a cause of war.
THE QUALITY OF CERTAINTY
The task of creating certainty falls primarily upon the American people themselves. In these matters, certainty is not achieved by words, even by treaty words. Treaties of alliance, of themselves, avail little. One exhibit is the 1942 treaty between the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union promising 20 years of alliance and postwar cooperation. History is littered with the tattered fragments of broken treaties. Unless treaties clearly reflect a national will, ambitious despots are apt to "take a chance" on them. Hitler took a chance with treaty after treaty, but finally in England then in the United States a national will formed and moved in to stop him. We cannot expect Soviet leaders to be deterred merely by bold words in a treaty.
If the Atlantic Pact lives in peace it will be because in its heart there beats the conviction of the American people that their peace and happiness are really bound up with that of the other free societies of the West. If we do not have that conviction, if the Pact merely legislates indecision, then it would be better not to have the Pact at all.
ATTACK REQUIRES ACTION
I read the Pact as implying a resolute conviction. By its provisions an armed attack upon a member state in Europe is considered an attack against the United States. If there is an attack upon the United States all the world knows that something happens and happens fast. The President, as our Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief, has the duty to see to that. Our founders deliberately limited Congress to declaring war, "leaving to the Executive," as Madison's diary reports, "the power to repel sudden attacks."
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, our armed forces did not hold their fire until Congress had deliberated and made a Declaration of War. That attack meant war, with all that that implies. American forces went immediately into action. When, after the attack, Congress met, it did not meet to declare war, but to declare that there already was a war.
I conclude that if a treaty stipulates that an armed attack within a defined area is to be considered as an attack upon the United States, then such an attack, if it occurs, calls for action forthwith to repel that attack. Obviously such action should be reasonably related to the place and character of the attack and no war program could be carried through without Congressional concurrence.
NEED FOR POPULAR CONVICTION
It is, however, profitless to spend much time parsing the language of the Pact or attempting to resolve Constitutional questions. In fateful matters, involving war and peace, a future President can be expected to act, and the Congress can be expected to act, according to the convictions of the American people as to their own security and happiness.
Here again we can learn from the Monroe Doctrine. Webster recorded that its proclamation "met with the entire concurrence and hearty approbation of the country. One general glow of exultation * * * pervaded all bosoms."
Webster's words, even if reduced from poetry to prose, could not be pronounced today in relation to the Atlantic Pact.
Among our people there is much confusion and some suspicion. Some look upon the Pact as little more than an empty gesture. Others fear that the Pact will be operated by the military to make war inevitable. Others believe that the Pact will begin a fragmentizing of the United Nations that will destroy it. Others feel that the Pact will be looked upon as drawing a line that cannot be crossed with impunity, leaving it to be inferred that action on the other side of that line is a matter of relative indifference to us. That, they feel, would increase the danger to such countries as Greece, Turkey, Iran and China and decrease the willingness of their people and governments to resist that danger. Others are suspicious on the theory that many months of secret negotiations must have involved more than now meets the eye.
I am confident that all reasonable fears and doubts can be allayed, and good progress in that is made. It is important to do that allaying. I do not ignore the value of prompt, decisive action, but action to be really decisive requires not only a Senate vote, but a Senate vote that reflects the clear conviction of the people. Governments which took nearly a year to come to an understanding among themselves can give their peoples some fraction of that time to catch up.
LIVING SPIRIT FROM THE PEOPLE
That is needed not merely to give the Pact the certainty it needs, but to give it the spirit that only the people can supply. Diplomacy is a necessary prelude to public consideration. But in great affairs that process seldom provides the last, best word. The Moscow, Yalta and Dumbarton Oaks negotiations provide good technical proposals for world organizations. But they were more formalistic than creative. It was the American people who thereafter brought into the United Nations the living concern for justice, law and human rights and the "Town meeting" quality that are keeping the United Nations alive through these hard times. So, those in government who propose this momentous step, which indeed risks war in the hope of gaining peace, should, and I think they do, look upon the American people not as a body to be regimented behind the Pact, but as those who can infuse into the Pact the spirit needed to make it a living instrument for righteousness and peace.