Letters

U. S. Foreign Policy

To THE EDITOR:

Prof. John C. Adams' article on U. S. Foreign Policy in the June 1946 issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE was clear and well written. But even if I could overlook his crack about the ignorance of foreign correspondentswhich unfortunately is not entirely unjustified—it still makes bad reading in the shadow of the Palazzo Venezia.

I seldom have read anything that expressed so completely what I think are the principal and most inexcusable faults of our foreign policy.

Professor Adams writes that a foreign policy must be based on a nation's own selfish best interests. Inversely, I take that to mean it should be directed against the interests of any other nation, if the two conflict. Later, discussing the refusal of Congress to continue the draft laws (with the added implication that next time the United States should do the Pearl Harbor), he complains that "it is nothing new for congressmen, in an election year, to place their personal ambitions before national interests."

It is wrong, then, for a congressman to neglect the interests of the nation as a whole, but it is virtuous for the United States to neglect its responsibilities to the world as a whole?

Coming from a professor of European history at my own college, this is a shocking thing. How many more millions of stinking dead, how much more horror and misery must we bring to the world before we learn that the interests of people in Hanover, for instance, are identical with those of people in, for instance, Opicina, a tiny Slovene village near Trieste that was burned to the ground because it resisted the Nazis?

What more do you have to do or say for Americans to understand that when people in Opicina, or Riga, or Duesseldorf, or Naples are hungry, they can make so much trouble that people in Hanover have to do something about it with rifles, and maybe get hurt doing it?

The professor takes as a premise the assumption that the American people want to preserve "capitalism." He says that to do so we must oppose "communism." Everything is black and white in the professor's philosophy. He excludes any possibility of the two living together peacefully. Yet a history professor should know that the capitalism of Alexander Hamilton is quite different from that of Franklin Roosevelt or even Harry Truman. In the same way, there have been big changes in communism as Karl Marx knew it.

In many ways the two ideas have come closer together. Must we stop that process, if there is any hope at all that it will continue?

This kind of preoccupation with communism is dangerous for still another reason besides its portent of disaster. By its very nature it carries with it a blind opposition to all kinds of liberal thinking. It denies categorically the progressive forces in the world, the forces directed to a better life for all peoples, the forces directed against oppressors. It stultifies much that is fine and good in the world. Exhibit:

Franco Spain, writes Professor Adams, is a "fascist-clerical dictatorship which was established with the help of Germany and Italy." But, he continues, we must tolerate fascism in Spain, because it might be replaced by communism. Fine, professor, very astute. So we're an ally of fascism now? We're pretty far-sighted, we Americans. We're so damned far-sighted we can forget about 500,000 of our own dead in a year.

(That's what it cost, professor, 500,000 guys, and that was peanuts compared to what could happen.)

Professor Adams is ready to use economic sanctions and even military threats against "a weak, unfriendly state," but he says of Spain only that we must prevent communism there. In his entire article there was not a single suggestion that in our foreign policy we might remember, too, that we're supposed to be opposed to fascism.

Although he dodges saying it, Professor Adams implies that eventually the United States must fight to save herself from com- munism. It's a certainty we must fight if thinking of the sort delineated in his article is to guide our policy. As one who still has some faith in the capacity of humanity to avoid destruction of itself, I say the fight is already upon us, but the enemy is not communism. It's that kind of thinking.

I challenge Professor Adams' right, or any man's right to advocate or even imply war with Russia. To say that the Russians want

war, now or ever, after what they have experienced is ridiculous. To say that any man below the rank of lieutenant colonel wants war is ridiculous.

One last point. As a student of European history, perhaps Professor Adams can recall what happened over here before when people with selfish interests to defend were worried about communism.

Italy, in the early twenties, was in a bad way, economically, politically and spiritually. She is again today, but worse. There were strikes in the early twenties. The communists were organizing. The leaders of Italy—which was and still is a nation of great luxury in the midst of desperate poverty—were worried that somebody might level things off a little. The biggest threat was communism.

They sought frantically for a means to put it down. The means came, in the form of Benito Mussolini's "squadristi," his blackshirted, club-wielding thugs who specialized in feeding castor oil to leftists. This was more than they expected, but it was anti-communist, and it worked, so they accepted it. They sold out to it and the world learned twenty years later what it had cost.

Italy is ripe today for the same thing. There are elements gathering already to try it, like plotters of a Georgia lynching. A vicious anticommunist press dominates the nation, pouring forth tens of thousands of words daily of hate propaganda. It's working, slowly but unmistakably. Have no fear of Italy moving to the left. The movement is to the right, and blind Anglo-American fear of communism is helping.

The charge must be made that when and if something more than a decomposed corpse rearises from the grave of fascism, the fault, whether intentional or not, will lie, at least in part, with Americans who think like Professor Adams.

Rome, Italy

At the invitation of the editors, ProfessorAdams has submitted the following commentson the stimulating letter from Mr. Mecklin:

Attention is invited to the following points in connection with Mr. Mecklin's letter:

1. It seems to me that the primary and evident duty of our foreign policy is to protect the fundamental interests of our country. While sovereign states exist, and even if they did not, it seems equally evident that the political and economic interests of people in Hanover may be opposed to the interests of people in Opicina, not to speak of Naples and Duesseldorf.

2. The argument of my article flowed from the proposition, stated expressly as a premise, "that we do intend to retain our present economic system." The incompatibility of capitalism and communism, unceasingly proclaimed from the Russian side, was stated to be contingent upon both systems remaining in their present forms.

3. With reference to replacing the Franco government in Spain, I wrote: "Before this can be done safely it will be necessary to know the political color and durability of the succession government Our fundamental interest will not allow us to welcome a succession government favorable to communism." Given the initial premise of my article, the conclusion appears to be logical.

4. When Mr. Mecklin says: "I challenge Professor Adams' right, or any man's right, to .... even imply war With Russia," he seems to mean either than he contests my right of free speech or that he favors obscuring horrible possibilities with 3 fog of feeling. But when he continues: "To say that the Russians want war, now or ever .... is ridiculous. To say than any man below the rank of lieutenant-colonel wants war is ridiculous," his words become a mixture of semantic blanks, vague generalizations, and prophecy, to which a reasoned answer is impossible.

5. In conclusion, as one trained to respect the components of the old formula for presenting a point of view: unity, coherence and emphasis, may I suggest that the first two qualities are perhaps more important than the third, and that the third is not always achieved by a colloquial and emotional style?

JOHN CLINTON ADAMS Assistant Professor of Modern European History; Major, Sig-Res.

Continuing Education

To THE EDITOR:

I have just finished reading the June issue of the MAGAZINE. With the completion of Volume 38 it occurs to me that the articles in the series, "So Little Time," have been among the most interesting and worth while of any published in the thirty years since I graduated. Undoubtedly they help maintain the preeminent position of the MAGAZINE in the field of alumni publications. In my opinion they are even more important because they provide part of that continuing process of post-graduate education which everyone of us should pursue. I hope that upon completion of the series we may expect to have other features of similar interest and breadth from members of the faculty and qualified alumni.

European Theater

Colonel, GSC

Editor's Note: It is the intention of the editors to continue the "So Little Time" seriesand to supplement this from time to timewith other articles which will maintain andstrengthen the educational link between theCollege and its alumni.