No More Learning

Byrnes, then U. S. Secretary
of State, who, recalling the evolution of the American
Good Neighbor policy from the Monroe Doctrine, had
said:
"We surely cannot and will not deny to other nations
the right to develop such a policy. Far from opposing,
we have sympathized with, for example, the effort of the
Soviet Union to drew into closer and more friendly
association with her Central and Eastern European neigh-
bors. We are fully aware of her special security interests
in those countries and we have recognized those interests
in the arrangements we have made for the occupation
and control of the former enemy states. We can ap-
preciate the determination of the people of the Soviet
Union that never again will they tolerate the pursuit of
policies in those countries deliberately directed against
the Soviet Union's security and way of life. "28 Growing
hostility against the U. S. S. R. on the part of the West has
made the 1945 statements of Acheson and Byrnes even
more relevant in this year of 1952.
In the spring of 1948 the Communist elements in the
Czechoslovakian coalition government, acting after the
resignation of several of the less radical Ministers and
fearing a counter-revolutionary movement against the
Left under American stimulus, took advantage of the
parliamentary situation and set up a new coalition gov-
ernment clearly Communist-dominated. Loud cries of
"Soviet aggression" immediately went up throughout
Western Europe and the United States, although all
Soviet occupation forces had long before left Czechoslo-
vakia. Western anger over the events in Czechoslovakia
was certainly not unconnected with the fact that, as Mr.
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? SOVIET FOREIGH POLICY
Walter Lippmann pointed out, Communist control of
the country effectively sealed off one of the main gateways
for a military attack on the Soviet Union.
Although I have always regretted that the Communist
Party of Czechoslovakia took such drastic action, I have
never been able to view it as an example of Soviet aggres-
sion. Even with Soviet encouragement, the new Czecho-
slovakian Government could not have been successfully
established unless the internal situation and political
relationships favored it. Following the Second World
War, Eastern Europe's Communist Parties, which had in
most cases led the underground struggle against the Nazis,
emerged with great strength and prestige; and they every-
where used their new-won power to political advantage.
Only in Finland, which also has a long frontier with the
Soviet Union, has the Communist Party been too weak
to gain a commanding position in the government. Yet
in that case, where Soviet aggression would be necessary
to bring the Communists into control, there has not been
the slightest sign of a Soviet military move in the post-war
period; and relations between the Finnish and Soviet
Governments have become increasingly amicable.
These observations about the small states bordering
Soviet Russia on the west lead naturally to some conside-
ration of the charge that the Soviets seek eventual world
domination, if not through outright conquest, then by
means of control over foreign Communist Parties. In
my judgment the Soviet Union not only can never achieve
world domination; it also does not include this aim in its
dynamic view of the future. The Marxists do indeed look
forward to world socialism or world communism, but
they have never envisaged it in terms of one country
dominating all other countries. The goal is, rather, a
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? SOVIET ClVlLTLATlOn
Communist form of federalism on an international scale.
The paramount influence of Soviet Russia on its
western neighbors is no more a mystery than the like
influence of the United States on the countries of Latin
America. But when a Communist regime takes over in
a major Power such as China, then influence is likely to
be a two-way process on an equal basis. And if additional
Powers go Communist, the authority of the Soviet Union
will grow less and less. All this, I believe, the leaders of
the Communist Party and of the Federal Government in
the U. S. S. R. recognize as a normal development.
Turning now to what goes on inside Soviet Russia,
it seems to me that if Soviet propaganda, intemperate
and full of invective as it often is, ever called for military
aggression against any nation or nations and urged the
dropping of atom bombs upon them, that would indeed
indicate aggressive designs on the part of the U. S. S. R.
But at no time during the troubled years since World
War II has any responsible leader or commentator in
Soviet military, governmental, economic, journalistic or
cultural affairs made the suggestion that the Soviet army
or air fleet should attack any foreign country. Instead,
in March, 1951, the Supreme Soviet passed a law declar-
ing any kind of war propaganda illegal throughout the
Republic and imposing penalties of up to twenty-five
years in jail for its violation. * The Government itself has
year after year gone on launching peace campaigns, which
the U. S. State Department keeps insisting are altogether
phony.
Yet the entire atmosphere in the Soviet Union indi-
cates that both the Government and the people are sin-
cere in their desire for world peace; and that they wish
* See also p. 354.
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? SOVIET FOREIGH POLICT
to go ahead with their economic upbuilding and the
transition to full communism without again having their
program wrecked and set back for years by an all-out
war. Repeated and reliable reports from the U. S. S. R.
since 1945 show that the Soviet people are preoccupied
with tremendous projects of construction and that their
minds are not dwelling on military conquest. On Janu-
ary 1, 1951, they launched a Fifth Five-Year Plan de-
signed to continue the great economic gains registered
in the Fourth Five-Year Plan concluded at the end of
1950.
Soviet socialism as a whole, together with the physical
characteristics of the country, definitely makes for the
elimination of the chief economic roots of war-making
and war-mongering in the U. S. S. R. The Soviet Union,
from east to west twice the width of the United States
and stretching all the way from the Baltic Sea to the
Pacific Ocean, possesses within its continental domains
practically all the raw materials necessary for its economy.
It needs no new territories to provide it with natural
resources, although it is glad to supplement its own basic
wealth through doing business with other nations. The
huge size of Soviet Russia, together with its material
riches and accelerating economic development, means
that it has plenty of room for and can readily support its
expanding population. Over-population, which has often
been a spur to military conquest, is not a problem in
the U. S. S. R.
Furthermore, the economic stability of the Soviet
socialist system and the steady rise in the standard of
living make altogether needless and irrelevant the classic
method of military adventure as a way of temporarily
submerging internal crises and sidetracking the revolu-
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
tionary discontent of the population. Likewise, because
the home market is always sufficient to absorb the goods
produced, there is no overwhelming pressure to acquire
foreign markets and spheres of influence for getting rid
of surplus products. As for private individuals and groups
who might profit financially from armaments or some
activity connected with war, they simply do not exist,
since there is public ownership of the main means of pro-
duction and distribution.
As an indication of the Soviet Union's peaceful inten-
tions, there is the fact that since the end of World War
II it has undertaken no concrete military moves anywhere
against any country. On the other hand it carried out
extensive demobilization of its armies during 1945, 1946
and 1947. The continual rumors in the West of threat-
ening Soviet troop movements have never turned out to
have a basis in fact. However, regular army maneuvers
do take place from time to time in the U. S. S. R. , as in
other nations.
If the Soviet Government were really plotting mili-
tary aggression against, for example, Western Europe, it
would presumably have started its assault before the re-
armament of America and the Atlantic Powers had made
such headway and at a time, like the fall of 1950, when
the United States forces were preoccupied in the Far
East. Moreover, the Soviet leaders, if they intended war,
would have preferred to see the American army bogged
down indefinitely in Korea. Instead, Deputy Foreign
Minister Jacob A. Malik, chief Soviet delegate to the
United Nations, initiated the conference for a cease-fire
and peaceful settlement by his special U. N. broadcast of
June 23, 1951.
We must ask, too, whether the Soviets can logically
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? SOVIET FOREIGH POLICY
favor war, which would be fearfully costly to them, to
spread socialism when they are confident that this new
system will in due course sweep the earth anyway. Mr.
George F. Kennan, present American Ambassador to the
U. S. S. R. , after citing one outworn statement by Lenin
on the inevitability of war, tells us: "Current Stalinist
doctrine does not demand war. On the contrary, it also
teaches that eventually capitalism will fall largely of its
own weight, i. e. , as a result of the inner 'contradictions'
which the Communists believe it embodies. They see
the role of communism as one of hastening the collapse
of capitalism and assisting, as a midwife, at the birth of
the socialist order. In theory, they seem inclined to re-
gard this as primarily the task of the native Communists
in each country, and not of the Soviet Red Army.
"There is nothing in Stalinist doctrine which would
make it necessarily the main responsibility of the armed
forces of the Soviet Union themselves to overthrow cap-
italism everywhere by direct military action. This pre-
mise would actually seem illogical and improper, from
the Communist point of view; for it would imply that
capitalism, in the absence of such an attack, would be
basically sound and capable of coping permanently with
its own 'contradictions. ' "29
Finally, we can state that the basic psychology of the
Soviet people, reinforced by education, law, historical
conditioning, philosophy and economic interests, is defi-
nitely anti-war. Unlike the Germans under Hitler, the
Russians do not have a background of aggressive militar-
ism. With World War II successfully concluded, they
have no humiliating defeat to live down, nor are they out
to wreak revenge on anyone. Indeed, in the conflict with
fascism they won the greatest military victory in their
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
history, overwhelmingly defeating their ancient foe,
imperialist Germany. And in the East they evened up
old scores with a treacherous aggressor, imperialist Japan.
From 1941 to 1945 the Soviet Union rolled up a record
of military prowess and glory sufficient to last it indefi-
nitely.
Yet in spite of the remarkable achievements of Soviet
soldiers and generals during the late war, there has been
no sign of unusual military influence in Soviet governing
circles. No Soviet military figure was elevated, for in-
stance, to the position of Foreign Minister, although in
the United States General George C. Marshall, Chief of
Staff during the Second World War, served as Secretary
of State from 1947 to 1949. Nor did the Soviet Govern-
ment send high-ranking military men as envoys to the
United States, although General Walter Bedell Smith
and Admiral Alan G. Kirk were the American ambas-
sadors to the U. S. S. R. during the immediate post-war
years. No Soviet general has become anywhere near as
important in non-military affairs as General Dwight D.
Eisenhower, who was appointed President of Columbia
University in 1948 and ran for President of the United
States on the Republican ticket in 1952.
Marshal Klimenti Voroshilov has been prominent in
Soviet governmental activities for twenty-five years and
has long been a member of the Politburo of the Com-
munist Party. But this represents no change since World
War II. Although Premier Joseph Stalin was Comman-
der-in-Chief in that conflict, he has always been primarily
a civilian figure. Since the war there has been added to
the Politburo one military man -- Colonel Nikolai
Bulganin, who was Vice-Minister of Defense during the
struggle with Nazi Germany. It is clear that on the whole
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? SOVIET FOREIGH POLICY
civilian authority still reigns supreme in the Soviet
Union. As Dorothy Thompson has summarized the
situation in her column, "Soviet generals are very much
in the background. No hint comes out of Russia that
they have anything to do with making political policy.
American generals are all over the place, and patently do
influence political policy. "30
As for Premier Stalin himself, having successfully
seen his country through to the establishment of the first
socialist commonwealth in history and having led the
Soviet people to victory in the Second World War, it
seems likely that he would prefer now to enhance his
reputation as a statesman by helping to ensure an era
of peace for the U. S. S. R. and mankind. Surely he has
no desire to go down in history, like Adolf Hitler, as a
notorious leader of military aggression and as one of the
most infamous war criminals of all time.
Many Americans think that the outbreak of war in
Korea during the summer of 1950 was due to Soviet
aggression. I do not believe that we can accept this inter-
pretation. The situation in Korea was a most complex
one, aggravated by the continuation of the cold war, the
barring of the Chinese People's Republic from the
United Nations and the rottenness of the reactionary
South Korean regime led by the unspeakable Syngman
Rhee. President Rhee had made provocative threats of
military action against Communist-controlled North
Korea and serious incidents had taken place along the
border marked by the 38th parallel. Both North and
South Koreans seemed to be spoiling for a fight; and
competent observers reported it was only a matter of
time before a bitter civil war would break out.
Precisely what occurred on the fateful morning of
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
June 25, 1950, still remains shrouded in obscurity. The
North Koreans claimed that the South Koreans attacked
first; the South Koreans asserted they were blameless, a
view promptly adopted by the United States Govern-
ment and the United Nations. What is absolutely certain
is that on the afternoon of June 25 the U. N. Security
Council, with the Soviet delegate absent, passed a resolu-
tion calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities and
for the withdrawal of the North Korean forces to the
38th parallel.
It seems probable to me that the North Koreans were
guilty of the initial aggression; but even if they were not,
they committed a colossal political blunder and an un-
pardonable act of international immorality in continuing
their march southward in defiance of the United Nations
cease-fire order. This surely constituted deliberate ag-
gression.
The Soviet and Communist apologists for the
North Koreans have repeatedly argued that the Com-
munists of the East were afraid that South Korea would
become a threatening American military bridgehead on
the continent of Asia. In my opinion, however, neither
this nor any other excuse could justify the North Korean
Government in going through with its invasion of South
Korea. In so doing it not only brought the entire world
to the brink of war, but unleashed a chain of events
which led to the devastation of all Korea and worked out
disastrously for the North Koreans themselves.
Yet admitting all this, I still claim that the aggres-
sion was that of North Korea and not of Soviet Russia;
and that foreign intervention on behalf of the North
Koreans in the fall of 1950 came from Communist China,
which felt menaced by the U. S. -U. N. advance toward
the Manchurian border, and not from Communist Rus-
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? SOVIET FOREIGH POLICY
sia. It is regrettable that the Soviet Union did not use
its influence at the outset to dissuade the North Koreans
from their mad venture. But, again, its failure to do
so was not the same as Soviet aggression or intervention.
Finally, as I have already pointed out, the Russians were
instrumental in getting under way the long-drawn-out
conference for a cease-fire in Korea.
While the Soviet Government, since World War II,
has at times acted in an arbitrary, brusque and obdurate
manner in the conduct of its foreign relations, it has all
along made clear its willingness to make reasonable com-
promises on behalf of world amity. Despite this attitude,
however, the Truman Administration has constantly
kept the American people stirred up over the supposed
imminence of Soviet aggression.
In the spring of 1948 Administration rumor-mongers
spread through the halls of Congress the sensational state-
ment: "We will be at war with Russia in thirty days. "
About the same time U. S. intelligence agents in Europe
sent back word that the Soviet Union was preparing to
launch an armed attack on Western Germany. It later
turned out, as explained in an official report of the Com-
mission for Reorganization of the Executive Branch of
the Government, of which ex-President Herbert Hoover
was Chairman, that these agents were "mistaken. " The
character of other far-fetched stories concerning Soviet
military moves is well brought out in a 1951 dispatch in
The Chicago Daily News from its European correspond-
ent: "A wave of resentment swept Paris as the result of
what newspapers hint is a deliberate attempt by the
American Government to alarm the public on Soviet
troop concentrations. "
It is no wonder that the conservative Wall Street
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
Journal declared in April, 1951: "Unfortunately, the
tactic of the manufactured crisis has been used so often
that neither the Congress nor the people know what they
can believe. "31 In August, 1951, the same newspaper said:
"Grim warnings from the Pentagon are largely propa-
ganda. Global war danger is increasing, according to
Marshall and Pace. What they really fear is a let-down
in the arms program, as fighting subsides in Korea. And
they want to be sure Congress will appropriate the full
61 billion dollars they're asking for defense in the current
fiscal year. Hence the scare talk. Actually, military ad-
visors and diplomats have no evidence of new Russian
moves. A build-up in Soviet satellites got headlines re-
cently, but it's old stuff. Intelligence sources say the dan-
ger of war hasn't changed, for better or worse. "32
The myth of Soviet aggression, then, while it hardly
serves the cause of peace, does help push through the
largest peacetime armaments program in the history of
the world. And it discourages any genuine steps to end
the cold war and reach a peaceful agreement with the
Soviet Government on the basis of mutual advantage.
Thus the false proposition that Soviet Russia aims at,
works for and intends military aggression has had the
most disastrous effects on the formulation of an intelli-
gent foreign policy by the United States and other West-
ern countries. In international affairs, as in other spheres
of human relations, disregard of the truth is not sound
strategy.
3. Incitements to War against the U. S. S. R.
It is natural for Soviet Russia, having been the victim
of ruinous aggression during the First and Second World
Wars, to wonder whether its enemies are going to make
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? SOVIET FOREIGH POLICY
a third attempt to put an end to the first socialist com-
monwealth. The Soviet Government and the Soviet
people cannot fail to note, in addition to concrete military
steps endangering their country, the constant, provocative
and well-publicized war talk against the U. S. S. R. , ema-
nating particularly from the United States. The journal-
istic peak of incitements to war against Soviet Russia
occurred, in my opinion, with Collier's special edition
of October 27, 1951, entitled: "Russia's Defeat and Occu-
pation 1952-1960, Preview of the War We Do Not Want. "
The editors of Collier's devoted this entire issue, includ-
ing profuse and lurid illustrations, to a melodramatic ac-
count of a Third World War. They printed and sold
hundreds of thousands of extra copies.
In a foreword Collier's stated: "Our over-all concep-
tion of this issue was confirmed in study and consultation
with top political, military and economic thinkers -- in-
cluding high-level Washington officials and foreign-affairs
experts, both here and abroad. "33 This gave the issue
a quasi-official standing which was certain to be noted
in diplomatic circles throughout the globe. A United
States Senator, Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, was one
of the twenty-one prominent individuals who wrote a
special article for the edition. Others who in like man-
ner contributed to this remarkable enterprise were Han-
son W. Baldwin of The New York Times; Stuart Chase,
economist; Allan Nevins, Professor of History at Colum-
bia University; Walter Reuther, president of the United
Automobile Workers of America; Robert Sherwood,
dramatist; and Walter Winchell, newspaper columnist
and radio commentator.
According to the Collier's fantasy, the Soviet Govern-
ment initiated the Third World War in May, 1952, by
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATION
sending to Belgrade two secret agents to assassinate Mar-
shal Tito (the attempt failed); and then ordering the
Albanian, Bulgarian, Hungarian and Romanian armies,
backed by fifteen Soviet divisions, to attack Yugoslavia.
As one read through the various articles by big-name
writers, all suddenly become "experts" on the U. S. S. R. ,
the issue took on more and more the aspect of a stream-
lined psychological scheme for justifying war against
Soviet Russia. And there can be no question that it pro-
vided a carefully worked out blueprint for the conquest
of the Soviets. Even the bitterly anti-Soviet New Leader
stated: "While Collier's editorially disclaims the theory
of preventive war, its special number can be construed,
not inaccurately, as a plea for preventive war. "34
The cover of this edition had a map showing U. N.
and U. S. forces in occupation of Moscow, the whole of
the Ukraine and all the so-called satellites. And the con-
tents tried to allay the American people's natural appre-
hension over a war with Russia by picturing the defeat
of the Communist bloc as "inevitable. " In Collier's
simple victory program, the American-led coalition
knocked out the Russians in three years and a half, with
Communist China conveniently deserting the Soviet
Union after a little more than a year of conflict and with
the Soviet people opportunely rising in revolt against
Stalin at the right moment. According to the piece by
Marguerite Higgins of the New York Herald Tribune,
the U. S. S. R. lost 32,000,000 dead during this war.
Russians who saw the Collier's preview of World War
III must have been simply appalled. We can sense their
reaction by imagining our own feelings if a prominent
Soviet magazine were to give over a whole issue to de-
scribing Soviet Russia's conquest of the United States,
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? SOVIET FOREIGH POUCT
occupation of its key regions and the sovietization of its
economy. In fact, a French magazine, L'Observateur,
satirized Collier's idea by precisely reversing it, printing
a cover with a Russian soldier standing guard over
America and the Red flag flying over the city of Washing-
ton. The effect of the Collier's coup was far-reaching in
Western Europe. Asserted Alexander Werth in The
Nation: "Collier's has managed not only to make the
United States odious in the eyes of millions of Europeans
-- as years of Communist propaganda have not done --
but also to make it rather ridiculous. "35
Soviet journalism's considered reply to the Collier's
war issue constituted a dramatic contrast. It took the
form of a special series in the January 1, 1952, number
of New Times, a weekly Moscow magazine published in
Russian, English, French, German, Polish, Spanish and
Swedish editions. This series, with several contributions
from prominent foreign authors, was written as of Decem-
ber, 1955, on the assumption that three years previously
the United Nations had put through a Five-Power Peace
Pact, the world-wide banning of the atom bomb and a
considerable reduction in conventional armaments. The
articles described the splendid economic and psycholog-
ical effects of these agreements throughout Europe and
America, and stressed the widespread use of atomic
energy for constructive economic purposes.
As the foreword of this "Report from the Future"
stated, the 1952 agreements have "not solved all the
problems facing the masses in many countries. Never-
theless, the elimination of the immediate threat of war
has had a great influence and has relieved international
tension. . . . The cold war is over, normal economic rela-
tions have been restored between West and East, the
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? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
burden of armaments, which weighed so heavily on the
peoples, has been substantially diminished. "
During the very same week of Collier's sensational
issue, The Saturday Evening Post published an article
by a retired British general, J. F. C. Fuller, calling for
the immediate adoption by the Western Powers of a plan
completely and permanently to dismember the U. S. S. R.
"This means," General Fuller said, "that the Soviet Em-
pire must be dealt with as was the Turkish -- that is,
split up into its component parts, each part becoming
an independent country. "36 In this mad scheme the
General would have the Western Powers cooperate with
an organization known as the Anti-Bolshevik Block of
Nations, the A. B. N. The New Leader describes this
organization of reactionary emigres as a "fascist band of
separatist sects. "37
Such open incitements against the Soviet Union have
been going on for years; they predated the post-war ten-
sions between the United States and Soviet Russia and
were widespread long before the Second World War
ended. They had, in truth, already reached a danger
point shortly after the great Soviet victory at Stalingrad
in February, 1943, when the diehard anti-Soviet elements
in America and Europe became horrified at Soviet social-
ism's immense strength and commenced to refurbish the
thesis that Russia was the real enemy. At that time the
notion of a war with the Soviets was so much discussed
that Maurice Hindus, in his Mother Russia published
in the spring of 1943, felt obliged to include a whole
chapter called, "Will We Have To Fight Russia? " Mr.
Hindus, a well-known writer on the U. S. S. R. , answered
in the negative.
In September of 1944, almost a year before the final
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? SOVIET FOREIGH POLICY
triumph over the Axis Powers, William C. Bullitt, em-
bittered ex-Ambassador to Soviet Russia, played up the
idea of a Third World War in an article in Life entitled
"The World from Rome. " According to Mr. Bullitt,
Western civilization was being threatened "by hordes of
invaders from the East. " Talking about what he claimed
was the prevailing viewpoint of the Italians, he wrote:
"A sad joke going the rounds in Rome gives the spirit
of their hope: What is an optimist? A man who believes
that the Third World War will begin in about fifteen
years between the Soviet Union and Western Europe,
backed by Great Britain and the U. S. What is a pessimist?
A man who believes that Western Europe, Great Britain
and the U. S. will not dare to fight. "38
In 1945, subsequent to President Roosevelt's death
and the surrender of the Nazis, the American Govern-
ment became so concerned over the rising tide of war talk
against the U. S. S. R. that it took specific action. Thus
on May 26, 1945, over a nation-wide broadcast sponsored
officially by the U. S. State Department, Archibald Mac-
Leish, then Assistant Secretary of State, lashed out at the
suggestions of an inevitable Armageddon between the
United States and Soviet Russia: "There is no necessary
reason in the logic of geography, or in the logic of eco-
nomics, or in the logic of national objectives, why the
U. S. A. and the Soviet Union ever should find themselves
in conflict with each other, let alone in the kind of con-
flict reckless and irresponsible men have begun now to
suggest. "39
In 1947 Paul H. Griffith, National Commander of the
American Legion and later Assistant Secretary of Defense,
urged President Truman to order an atomic bomb drop-
ped "some place over there" in order to demonstrate
341
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:30 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015020686591 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? SOVIET CIVILIZATIOH
American support of "the people of the world who
wanted to remain free. " Mr. Griffith himself revealed
this fact in a radio interview at Washington, D. C, on
June 6, 1950. Reported The New York Times, "Presum-
ably Mr. Griffith meant that a bomb be dropped on the
Soviet Union, but this could not be confirmed. .