WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT CUBA?
Document Type:
Collection:
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP64B00346R000200170031-2
Release Decision:
RIFPUB
Original Classification:
K
Document Page Count:
4
Document Creation Date:
December 15, 2016
Document Release Date:
February 13, 2004
Sequence Number:
31
Case Number:
Publication Date:
July 20, 1961
Content Type:
OPEN
File:
Attachment | Size |
---|---|
CIA-RDP64B00346R000200170031-2.pdf | 706.4 KB |
Body:
Approved For Release 2004/03/11 : CIA-RDP64B00346R000200170031-2
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE 12117
again. Thle'example of Minute Men at Con-
cord was Zot just a figure of speech.
When the Communists rolled into South
Korea in June 1950, almost all reservists
quietly began to get ready. The actual
callup, of course, caught most everyone
with things undone. But there was a gen-
eral acceptance of inevitability of the call.
There was no surprise element left.
We knew a bit more about the enemy,
too, and the necessity for service. One basic
advantage was that we were returning to
something we knew a bit about. Fear of
the unknown was no longer a factor.
Now your citizen soldier is more literate
on world affairs than ever before. He knows
more about a world shrunken in size by air-
craft and missiles. He knows more of his
own country's place in this world and un-
derstands clearly just whom his nation's
enemies are. He, has grown up, discarding
that insular, provincial feeling of long ago.
Personally, he is no more ready to pull up
stakes and go into active duty than he ever
was, and some of those same things he al-
ways intended to do still wait. For various
reasons he has worn the cloth and did it
freely with full understanding. that he is
vulnerable. Only this time he knows more
about why.
He also is unhappy about the state of the
world. He has seen endless talks fail to
settle unrest or stop the enemy from grab-
bing more real estate and massed peoples
who were weak or unprepared. He has seen
the growing critical threat to this Nation
through misuse of men and resources and
knows the last chips are down.
He is far better prepared psychologically
and patriotically for definite action than
either the national administration or Penta-
gon brass rate him. He is a beef eating man
now-not a child on pablum.
Your citizen soldier who has seen war
wants no part of it for adventure's sake
or any other reason except the basic one-
if that's the only way to have a real peace
then let's get on with it-standing erect
and unafraid. That's the way a free man
should live.
PIGGYBACK FREIGHT RATES
Mr. MONRONEY. Mr. President, per-
haps a million letters, and thousands of
editorials have been written on the so-
called piggyback issue that is pending
before the Committee on Commerce.
This, problem has been the subject of
numerous hearings and Congress has
been barraged by a million letters, more
or less, in behalf of the various par-
ticipants in the controversy. The strug-
gle is between the trucklines and the
railroad lines over the question of selec-
tive discriminatory and destructive rate
cutting. It was left, as usual, to the good
old St. Louis Post Dispatch to come forth
with the most concise and most clearcut
explanation of the issue in the problem
with which the Committee on Commerce
now struggles. Because of its clarity and
its interest to Members of Congress, I
ask that the editorial from the St. Louis
Post Dispatch, dated Monday, July 10,
1961, be printed at this point in the
RECORD. I thank my distinguished col-
league, the junior Senator from Florida,
for his courtesy.
There being no objection, the editorial
was ordered to be printed in the RECORD,
as follows:
[From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
July 10, 19611
PIGGYBACK AND THE ICC
In approving the existing rail piggyback
freight rates, the Interstate Commerce Com-
mission puts itself in the extraordinary posi-
tion of sanctioning for the railroads what it
had denounced in strong terms for the truck-
ing industry. Its decision is reported vir-
tually certain to be taken into the courts,
which will no doubt want to examine closely
this contradiction.
The core of the controversy is the piggy-
back carriage of automobiles. What is revo-
lutionary about the rail rates on automobiles
is the fact that they are flat charges in dol-
lars and cents a carload regardless of the
weight or value of the freight being hauled.
When truck carriers applied for permission
to establish rates on the sane basis, the ICC
said only last year:
"The weight and value of the automobiles
to be transported are ignored. Thus, a lux-
ury-type automobile with greater weight
would be transported at the same rate as an
economy-type automobile with lighter
weight. It is just and reasonable that a
higher-valued automobile with greater
weight should pay a higher rate per hundred
pounds than smaller, lower-valued auto-
mobiles."
If that is indeed "just and reasonable" as
the Commission says-and has been the phi-
losophy of regulated ratemaking through-
out its history-"then how in the name of
justice can the Commission give its blessing
to the same method of ratemaking by the
railroads?" the trucking industry asks. It's
a good question, and one to which the ICC
has yet to give an answer, If there is one.
Under the rail piggyback rates which the
Commission has now approved, these topsy-
turvy conditions prevail: The heaviest and
most expensive cars move at the lowest
charge per hundred pounds, the lightest and
least expensive at the highest charge. It
costs 60 percent more per hundred pounds
to ship an economy car, the Falcon, than it
does to ship a luxury car, the Cadillac,
which weighs twice as much and sells for
more than twice as much. A carload of
lower priced automobiles valued at $20,000
must pay the same freight as a carload of
higher priced cars valued at $80,000.
The railroads are entitled to reap full ad-
vantage of the new equipment and handling
methods they developed in order to win back
the automobile-carrying business they had
previously lost to the trucks and barge lines.
Insofar as this equipment and handling rep-
resent a real saving of transportation costs
the Nation as a whole will benefit from it.
But the ratemaking process for this type of
freight must obviously be equitable and
must conform with principles of a sound
national transportation policy. It will be
interesting to see how well the courts find
the ICC has served those ,principles in its
HAT CAN WE DO AJBOUT CUBA?
Mr. SMATHERS. Mr. President, on
Monday the President administered the
oath of office to two officials, and set the
stage for what could be a bright new era
in inter-American relations.
The officials, Robert Woodward, As-
sistant Secretary of State for Inter-
American Affairs, and De Lesseps
Morrison, U.S. Ambassador to the Or-
ganization of American States, were
charged with a serious responsibility.
For they will serve, in effect, as the
custodians of our Latin American policy.
To them falls the job of mending fences
which are sadly deteriorated. I wish
them outstanding success.
Theirs will be the task of restoring
confidence among out neighbors in the
determination and good will of the
United States.
Theirs will be the task of convincing
Latin America that we cannot and will
not stand by inactive while the hemi-
sphere is burrowed through by a con-
spiracy that would destroy us all.
To achieve any success in a trying and
grueling test they must use every reserve
of intelligence, determination, and dedi-
cation, realistically applied.
For this is not a job for hollow men
and indifferent bureaucrats, but a test
for those who would rise to the challenge
of leadership.
On March 13 of this year, President
Kennedy, speaking to a small group at
the White House, stated:
I propose that the American Republics
begin a vast new 10-year plan for the Amer-
icas, a plan to transform the 1960's into an
historic decade of democratic programs.
Then he asked for a "vast coopera-
tive effort, unparalled in r6agnitude
and nobility of purpose, to satisfy the
basic needs of the American people for
homes, work and land, health and
schools."
With these words, the President of the
United States launched the Alliance for
Progress, a plan of great breadth and
scope, which seeks to free millions of
Latin Americans from the bonds of pov-
erty, disease, squalor, and misery. I en-
dorse the aims of Alianza Para. El Prog-
resso, and regret it has been so long
overdue.
In 10 years in the Senate, I have
spoken some 200 times about Latin
America and its basic needs. Once to
plead-in vain-for "a new approach to
Latin America to eliminate the condi-
tions of poverty and illiteracy in which
the seeds of communism bloom and
flourish."-June 6, 1954.
Another time to decry the fact that
our Latin American relations were being
"brushed off with glib phrases * * *
and noble-sounding cliches."-February
25, 1954.
And still another time to warn that
"Latin America is beset with gigantic
problems which must be met and solved
if the hemisphere is to remain secure"-
January 11, 1955.
But these words and similar warnings
by others went unheeded as the United
States hurried off to tend to crisis upon
crisis in other parts of a troubled world.
World War II ended on August 14,
1945. On August 15, when our attention
was focused on our own recovery and
the problems arising from Europe's dev-
astation, we put on the shelf the Good
Neighbor" Policy and in so doing opened
the door to communism in Latin Amer-
ica at a time when its millions of people
were engulfed in the, greatest social and
political upheaval in their history.
Approved For Release 2004/03/11 : CIA-RDP64B00346R000200170031-2
Approved For Release 2004/03%11 : CIA-RDP64B00346R000200170031=2
12118 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE
Meantime, the Communists have been
at work steadily and patiently, to under-
mine country after country and the very
structure of the Inter-American system
itself. Lest we forget, it was Niolai
Lenin himself, who said in 1923:
First we will take Eastern Europe, then
the masses of Asia, then we will encircle
the United States, which will be the last
bastion of capitalism. We will not have
to attack. It will fall like an overripe fruit
into our hands.
Thirty-eight years later, in 1961, Har-
old Milks, the Associated Press corre-
spondent in Havana until he was ousted
with all the other American reporters,
said
Communism will have a hold on much,
if not all, of Latin America in 3 years if
the Castro regime remains in power in Cuba.
Dr. Pedro Beltran, Prime Minister of
Peru, one of the ablest and wisest men
in the Western Hemisphere, a man who
has fought, suffered, and been jailed in
defense of freedom, said on March 22,
1961:
Communisni is gaining ground in our own
hemisphere, before our very eyes. If the.
United States does not step forward now
with dynamic leadership to meet the un-
.ceasing conspiracy, on our own shores, of
the Soviet Union and Red China, Latin
America is lost. And if Latin America, with
all' its 200, million 'people is lost, so also is
the United States.
He added:
But would it not be tragic if the United
States won the Congo, secured Berlin, tri-
umphed in Laos, Ghana, and the islands
of Quemoy and Matsu, while in the end a
victorious communist thrust for power took
place in the heart of its own hemisphere?
Let no one be mistaken. Communism's
shock troops have launched their attack
on the entire hemisphere and have won
their first beachhead.
I ask, What do we do?
To my mind the answer is simple We
make a decision to meet threat with
action.
In a speech to the American Society
of Newspaper Editors on April .20, Pres-
ident Kennedy said:
Cuba must not be abandoned to the Com-
munists. And we do, not intend to abandon
it either.
With these words, President Kennedy
pledged the liberation of 6 million Cu-
bans.
On May 2, the State Department,
through an official spokesman, stated
that Cuba is "certainly a member of the
Communist bloc."
This statement explicity recognizes
that there has been Communist inter-
vention in this hemisphere.
The question now arises as to what
provisions the Western Hemisphere has
made to protect itself and to cope with
this type of alien penetration.
During the past century and a third,
a great body of international law has
been assembled by the American nations
to preserve the political and physical in-
tegrity of the hemisphere.
The cornerstone of this body of law is
the?Monroe Doctrine, enunciated in 1823.
This is nothing more or less than an ex-
pression of the principle of self-protec-
tion applied to the United States and the
Western Hemisphere.
In more recent years, as the operative
facility of the inter-American system
was developed, a series of pacts have
been drawn up by the nations of the
hemisphere for their mutual protection.
The integrity of the inter-American
system was pledged by the Rio treaty-
Inter-Arkierican Treaty of Reciprocal
Assistance-in 1947, whose signators
joined together to prevent and repel
threats and acts of aggression against
any of the countries of the Americas.
The hemisphere system was buttressed
in 1948 when 21 nations joined in the
Act of Bogota to charter the Organiza-
tion of American States to achieve peace
for the American states and to promote
their solidarity, to defend their sover-
eignty, their territorial integrity, and
their independence.
In 1954, by the terms of the Caracas
resolution the intervention of commu-
nism in the hemisphere was specifically
prohibited by a crystal-clear resolution
which declared:
The domination or control of the political
institutions of any American state by the
international Communist movement, ex-
tending to this hemisphere the political sys-
tem of an extra-continental power, would
constitute a threat to the sovereignty and
political independence of the American
states, endangering the peace of America,
and would call for a meeting of consultation
to consider the adoption of appropriate
action in accordance with existing treaties.
Article 6 of the Rio treaty recognizes
that there could be aggression without
armed attack as was the case of Castro's
seizure of power in Cuba, and it provides
that-
If the inviolability of the integrity of the
territory of the sovereignty or political in-
dependence of any American state should be
affected by an aggression which is not an
armed attack or by an extra-continental or
intra-continental conflict, or by any other
fact or situation that might endanger the
peace of America, the Organ of Consultation
shall meet immediately in order to agree
on the measures which must be taken in
case of aggression to assist the victim of the
aggression, or, in any case, the measures
which should be taken for the common de-
fense and for the maintenance of the peace
and security of the continent.
Article 8 of the Rio treaty spells out
what sanctions can be imposed against
an aggressor nation in the hemisphere-
Recall of chiefs of diplomatic missions;
breaking of diplomatic relations; breaking
of consular relations; partial or complete
interruption of economic relations or of rail,
sea, air, postal, telegraphic, telephonic, and
radio-telephonic or radio-telegraphic com-
munications; and use of armed force.
The law of the Western Hemisphere,
embodied in these three mentioned
pacts, is ironclad.
The violation of this solemn Rio treaty
by the Castro government, by observa-
tion, by self-confession, by definition, is
clear.
And the enforcing and punitive actions
against Castro are demanded by applica-
tion of the most basic structure of inter-
national law, pacta sunt servanda, ob-
ligations must be kept.
But we are faced with the hard and
yet indigestible fact that even though
July 20
our hemispheric political community, the
OAS, is doubly armed to move against
the intervention of communism and
pledged to take action, no unified action
against the self-proclaimed Red regime
of Fidel Castro has been forthcoming.
In all candor, I do not expect such ac-
tion to take place in time to halt the
spread of Castro communism beyond the
explosion point.
That being so, what can the United
States alone do to protect itself and the
hemispheric system?
This is the course which I recommend :
First. The U.S. Government should
withdraw its recognition of the Castro
regime as an act of honor, for its own
security, and because the Castro dicta-
torship does not comply with the prin-
ciple of properly constituted control of
Cuban territory.
In international law effectiveness as a
requirement of recognition should be
based on the expressed or implied will
of the people, and clearly that require-
ment is not fulfilled if the control is based
on sheer force, subjugation, or terrorism.
The arrest by Castro's police of 250,000
civilians at the time of the ill-fated
Cuban liberation attempt is clear enough
evidence that he rules by terror.
His contemptuous May Day proclama-
tion that he would allow no elections is
a fair standard by which to measure the
popularity of that rule.
On January 3, 1961, the U.S. Govern-
ment formally terminated diplomatic
and consular relations with Castro's gov-
ernment. We should now go one step
further and withdraw recognition, for
there is an important difference between
severance of diplomatic relations and the
withdrawal of recognition. The first is
merely a disapproval of the conduct of a
state or government, while the second
deprives the government acted against
of the usual prerogatives of an interna-
tional personality.
The right to confer recognition of a
nation and to withdraw recognition is,
of course, an act of unilateral nature,
which the United States can exercise
at any time.
To withdraw recognition of Castro's
government would eliminate the danger
of legalizing the Cuban situation by ac-
quiescence, or implied acceptance, give
Latin American nations the opportunity
to repudiate Castro by withdrawing rec-
ognition of his dictatorship, and give
heart to those Cubans who still believe
in freedom and work and fight for it.
Second. The U.S. Government, having
'repudiated Castro's regime, should then
formally recognize a democratic Cuban
Government in exile.
Having done so, we can then offer as-
sistance to the government in exile, if it
seeks, our help, without violating either
our own neutrality laws, or the body of
hemispheric law prohibiting interfer-
ence. Other Latin American nations,
which recognize the exile government
can then deal directly with an organized
anti-Castro force.
During World War II the United
States recognized a number of so-called
exile governments of European countries
overrun by the Nazis and maintained an
ambassador near them in London. The
Approved For Release 2004/03/11 : CIA-RDP64B00346R000200170031-2
1961
exile governments were those of Poland,
Belgiurfi, Netherlands, Norway, Czecho-
slovakia, Yugoslavia, and Greece..
In some instances-Poland is an ex-
ample-the exile government was made
up of individual leaders drawn from 'a
number of sources, since most of the
Polish Government ministers were cap-
tured by the Nazis and Reds.
During World War I a Czechoslovak
National Council was formed for the
purpose of waging a war of independence
for Czechslovakia, then a part of Aus-
tria-Hungary.
On September 3, 1918, the United
States recognized this Czechoslovak Na-
tional Council as a de facto government.
During the same war the Poles formed
a Polish National Committee for the
purpose of attaining an independent
Poland. On November 1, 1918, the Polish
Army was recognized by the United
States under the supreme political au-
thority of the Polish National Committee.
Presently there are official Lithuanian,
Latvian and Estonian legations in the
United States, since our Government has
not recognized the incorporation of these
nations into the U.S.S.R.
The 100,000 or more Cuban refugees
who have fled Castro's rule of terror
and the patriots still within Cuba con-
stitute a body of dedicated freemen
from whom Cuba's government in exile
could be formed.
No event in history has more endan-
gered the structure of our hemispheric
society noes the security of the individual
member states than the capture of Cuba
by a band of Communist interventionists.
If the integrity of the hemisphere
means anything to us, and from history
we see that our foreign policy has been
built upon international,.,recognition of
Western hemispheric freedom and unity,
then we cannot continue to recognize
an interventionist Red dictatorship.
The cardinal principle of our hemi-
spheric policy must be this, restoration
of hemispheric integrity through the
destruction of Communist intervention.
Again let me draw the parallel be-
tween Cuba under Castro and Red China
under Mao Tze-tung. To us, Red China
is an outlaw government. Why should
we recognize Castro as being any more
representative of his people's true wishes
for self -dettermination than Mao? They
are brothers in subversion, allies in arms.
For it was Castro who put the use the
cynical dictum of Mao Tze-tung that
"political power grows out of the barrel
of a gun."
It was Che Guevara, Castro's chief
lieutenant, who took Mao's primer on
guerrilla warfare, translated it into
Spanish, and distributed it by the hun-
dreds of thousands of copies all over
Latin America, as the opening attack in
the battle to promote Red-style revolu-
tion across the continent.
It was Mao Tze-tung to whom Castro
appealed on April 27 for support against
"U.S. aggression."
For us to continue our recognition of
Castro indefinitely will be to give a sem-
blance of legality, as a fait accompli, to
the myth that Cuba today is a properly
constituted state.
It would be fitting for the United
States to withdraw its recognition of the
Approved For Release 2004/03/11 : CIA-RDP64B00346R000200170031-2
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE
Castro dictatorship on July 26, the date
on which Castro, the bogus champion of
social reform, will offer his enslaved
people more false promises of a bright
new world and give them in reality only
new links for their chains.
Let the United States take the propa-
ganda offensive.
Let the free people act first, rather
than react to some rigged stunt, staged
by Castro stooges.
Let us, oil July 26, say to the people
of Cuba, "We do not recognize your en-
slavers; we recognize those who will
liberate you."
Let us, on July 26, say to the people
of Latin America, "We renounce this
Cuban tyranny; come join us in the
fight for freedom."
Let us, on July 26, say to the whole
world, "We renounce Fidel Castro. He
is not a chief of state. He is a Car-
ibbean buccaneer."
Third. The imposition of rigid sanc-
tions against Castro's Cuba by the Or-
ganization of American States, as au-
thorized under article 8 of the Rio
Treaty.
Sanctions should be imposed to the
maximum extent agreed upon by a ma-
jority of the members of the OAS.
Fourth. We must seek concerted ac-
tion by at least some of the American
States to enforce the provisions of the
treaties which bind all of us against
communism.
Postwar Russia won a sobering series
of victories in Europe, the capture of
the Baltic nations, the takeover of Fin-
land, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East
Germany, the subversion and domina-
tion of Hungary, Bulgaria, and Ru-
mania.
Finally the Western European democ-
racies were stirred to defensive action
and the North Atlantic Treaty Organi-
zation-NATO-was framed in 1949
with strong U.S. support. The defense
of Europe and the freedom of Berlin
rest on NATO's shield.
In 1959, eight Asian and European
nations and the United States formed
the Southeast Asia Treaty Organiza-
tion-SEATO-to unite against the
Red's assaults in the Pacific. Today
SEATO's armed forces are the free
world's strongest bulwark in Asia.
Already eight Latin American States
have broken diplomatic relations with
Castro.
I propose that we seek cooperation
with these republics and any others who
would join us, in issuing a manifesto of
Cuban liberation, declaring that we in-
tend to honor our treaty obligations by
extirpating communism from the West-
ern Hemisphere.
I propose that we take the lead in
forming the signers of this manifesto
into a NATO-type security force-an
Inter-American Treaty Organization-
to carry out our pledges for mutual pro-
tection.
If we are ready to fight communism
in Europe and Asia with billions of dol-
lars and millions of men, should we be
less willing to repel a Red invasion
which threatens us at our very door-
step?
Castro has said that America is
"doomed to lose" in Latin America to
1211Q
the Communists because you Ameri-
cans fight with dollars and we fight in
the field of ideas."
Let us prove him wrong.
Let us help those who seek our help
in gaining a better life, while preserving
their freedom and human dignity.
Fifth. There is another course open
to us. I hope we do not have to resort
to it, but I think we should be courage-
ous enough to admit that it exists, and
to consider, most seriously, its exercise
if the Communist onslaught forces our
hand.
I propose that if all other measures
fail, the United States, acting unilateral-
ly, for its own self-protection, liberate
Cuba and destroy the armed bastion of
communism in the Western Hemisphere.
It is a dangerous fallacy, I belkcve, to
assume that only by seeking to wipe out
illiteracy and poverty in Latin Amer-
ica, rectify tax abuses and speed land re-
form-all admittedly fertile breeding
grounds for communism-we will be able
to stave off communism. That takes
time-3 years, 5 years, probably 15 or
20 years.
The hour is too late for that. Castro
has won in Cuba and his agents have
made dangerous inroads in half a dozen
Latin American countries. To attempt
to defeat them immediately with long-
range social and political reform pro-
grams, no matter how effective these
programs are, will not work. The short
fuse on the powder keg has already been
lighted and is burning fast. We do not
have time' to empty the keg grain by
grain.
The President recognized the danger
that a specious interpretation of the pol-
icy of nonintervention might bring about
when he stated on April 20:
Should it ever appear that the inter-Amer-
ican doctrine of noninterference merely con-
ceals or excuses a policy of nonaction; if
the nations of this hemisphere should fail to
meet their commitments against outside
Communist penetration, then I want it
clearly understood that this Government will
not hesitate in meeting its primary obliga-
tions, which are to the security of our own
Nation.
Let me quote from a letter written by
a distinguished Cuban professor-in-exile,
Herminio Portell Vila, on the much-con-
fused subject of nonintervention.,,
Dr. Portell-Vila can speak with some
authority. He was one of seven Latin
American delegates who drafted the
famed Non-Intervention Pact of Monte-
video in 1933. In a letter to the Wash-
ington Evening Star, he puts it very
clearly:
The nonintervention pact has been vio-
lated by the Communist International. We
(who drafted the pact) never wanted to put
a stop to the military and diplomatic inter-
vention of the United States in Latin Amer-
ica, as practiced up to 1933 (only) to open
the way for the intervention of the Soviet
Union in Latin America that we have today.
The case of Cuba is quite clear. There we
have the intervention of Red China, openly
flouting the principle of nonintervention.
He went on to say:
Furthermore, all the sanctimonious respect
for the fnonintervention pact] fails to
take into consideration that inter-Ameri-
can treaties against intervention did not
stop at Montevideo in 1933 but were yeas-
Approved For Release 2004/03/11 : CIA-RDP64B00346R000200170031-2
12120
Approved
For Release 2004/03/11 : CIA-RDP64B00346R000200170031-2
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE ;,,July 20
serted in Lima, in Havana, in Panama, in
Washington, in Rio de Janeiro, in Bogota,
in Caracas, and in Santiago de Chile as
recently as 1959, all the time stating that the
republics of the two Americas were against
intervention by the totalitarians of the
right and the totalitarians of the left and
should oppose it. Those who did not oppose
.Communist intervention in Hungary, Indo-
china, Greece, Tibet, and so forth, by the
Soviet Union and by Red China now pre-
sent themselves as the champions of non-
intervention when there is Soviet and
Chinese intervention in Cuba.
We know little of the Latin American
mentality if we believe a supposedly
sacrosanct policy of nonintervention
means 200 million people want us tosit
idly by while the Communists carry out
Castro's promise "to convert the cordi-
llera of the Andes into the Sierra Maestra
of the hemisphere."
President Mario Echandia, of Costa
Rica, an outstanding democrat, has
called for replacing the principle of non-
intervention with "collective and disin-
terested action by the OAS."
A few - days ago, eight leading news
editors from Bolivia visited me in my
office. - They volunteered the opinion,
and it was unanimous-that the United
States should take the initiative in driv-
ing Castro, communism from the hemi-
sphere. -
They recognized that Castro's first
targets in his plot to subvert and com-
munize the nations of the Americas
would not be the powerful United States,
but the troubled and beset nations of
the hemisphere.
They pointed out that the vocal, highly
disciplined Communist minority in Bo-
livia grows stronger every day, thanks
to the continuing success of its leader,
Castro.
They know that only the United States
sari serve as the rallying force for those
Latin nations who wish to defend them-
selves and their hemisphere from com-
munism.
We cannot base our Latin American
policy, nor any other phase of our for-
eign policy, on popularity polls. We
must base it upon principles of common
interest, mutual -beliefs, self-protec-
tion-courageously executed.
Eric Sevareid, the distinguished radio
newsman and columnist, who, I believe,
described himself several years ago as a
liberaa, wrote recently:
They (the Communists) must love the
liberals with social-worker mentalities who
do not grasp that illiteracy, low wages, con-
centrated landownership, and so on are not
social problems but integral parts of a
system of life and therefore enormously re-
sistant to quick change by anything less than
the "totalitalian disciplines" the same
liberals abhor. They must love the liberals
who- assume that because a Marshall plan
worked in modern Europe, a similar plan can
work among those regimes of Latin Amer-
ica where statistics are a wild - guess, where
trained economists hardly exist, where eco-
nomic planning is finger painting, where, as
between countries, there is very little back-
ground of communications, normal trade or
even intellectual interest in one another.
The gamesmen in the Kremlin must smile
in their sleep as they realize how deeply in-
grained is the American illusion that a ton of
wheat can offset a ton of Communist artil-
lery shells, that a squad of Peace Corpsmen
is a match fora squad of guerrilla fighters.
`Frightened people in a score of desperate
countries want to be on the winning side,
have to start winning soon. We are going
to lose in several more places before we do.
We may as well face the fact that we will also
lose in places we cannot afford to lose, until
and unless we are willing to fight, no matter
the reproving editorials in the Manchester
Guardian, no matter what the temporary
backlash of world opinion may be.
The relations between nations are not the
same as those between individuals. We can
afford to lose everything except respect for
our strength and determination. Lose that,
and Khrushchev won't bother to sit down
and talk again even to say "No."
Mr. President, what are the conse-
quences if we fail to act?
What would be the results to the
United States if 200 million people living
in 20 nations which stretch across a
continent twice as large as ours were
swept into the Soviet sphere?
What would happen if Latin America's
$4 billion-a,-year trade with the United
States, vital to our economy, were di-
verted to the lockstep Soviet economy?
What would happen if the flow of 35
strategic materials from Latin Amer-
ica-copper, quartz, manganese and the
like-were diverted from U.S. factories
and were channeled into Iron Curtain
production lines?
What would happen if a deadly net-
work of Red-dominated missile bases
and air bases were to mushroom across
Latin America? -
The answers are obvious, frightening,
and chilling.
Secretary of Defense McNamara tes-
tified before the Senate Armed Services
Committee, qn April 4, that there is the
danger of missile attack on the United
States from possible Soviet Union satel-
lite missile bases in this hemisphere.
Can we not imagine how this possi-
bility and danger to the United States
would be enormously multiplied if the
Soviets controlled, not one, but all the
nations in the Americas?
The Secretary of Defense told the Sen-
ate Foreign Relations Committee, on
Jude 14:
We have definite evidence that the Cuban
Government of.Fidel Castro is endeavoring to
infiltrate the rest of Latin America.
General Lemnitzer, Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the same Sen-
ate committee that the "large shipment
of arms to Cuba from Soviet and Red
China bloc countries could have only one
purpose: To serve as a base for the ex-
port of revolution to South America."
And, according to an Associated Press
story published in the Washington Post
of July 13, "official U.S. sources" have
admitted that at least 26 Mig fighter
craft from the Soviet Union are now part
of Fidel Castro's lethal arsenal.
There are, sadly, some among us, in
high places as national advisers, opinion
molders, and shapers of policy who
have an abhorrence for taking the de-
cisive steps that must be taken. They
feel that resorting even to the idea of
force is to abandon reason and logic.
They have enshrined the concept that
everything can be talked out-can be ne-
gotiated. They are befogged by the idea
that all people, even the Communists,
must listen to reason and must act in a
reasonable manner. -
It was this philosophy, this timidity,
weakness, and indecision on the part of
shaped our tragic policy regarding Cas-
tro and brought us the hum4:iation
which is Cuba today.
The nonactionists belong to the cult
of the status quo. Their motto is: Do
nothing against the enemy today, for
tomorrow he may go away. At every
point in the world where world com-
munism challenges us, they say, "This
is neither the time nor the place for
action."
To them Cuba is on the periphery of
the United States, and therefore we
should make no immediate plans to help
in its liberation.
How can Cuba be on the periphery of
the United States when it takes only 6
minutes to travel by jet from Cuba to
Florida? How can Cuba be on the pe-
riphery of the United States when Cuba
stands, only 90 miles from our shore,
with a knife at our back?
Mr. President, the cult of the status
quo is wrong. It would be nearly fatal
to the cause of freedom if America-at
the threshold of the gravest crisis in its
history-were to be influenced by advis-
ers and public figures who still have not
learned the bitter lessons which the
Communists taught the world in Poland,
Hungary, the Iron Curtain countries,
Laos, and Cuba.
Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer recently told
a congressional committee:
We- have been on the losing end for too
long a time. We cannot afford to give up
1 more yard to communism-anywhere.
I applaud this statement and endorse
it.
To show strength against Communist
threats in Latin America, as well as in
every other part of the world where our
national honor, prestige, and our mili-
tary position are endangered, is our best
defense against the outbreak of a great
war. We-can achieve the peace we strive
for, only through strength, determina-
tion, and courage to act when action is
demanded.
Our danger is not a lack of strength,
for we have the greatest striking force
in history. Our danger is that our pur-
poses may become confused and our
goals become blurred, to be beguiled by
the siren's plea to "wait just a bit
longer-rest here awhile, before setting
out on the journey."
But we cannot wait any longer. Our
duty is before us. The path stands out
clear. It is rocky and thornfilled. But
our forebears crossed over it before us,
and reached the glorious summit. We
can do no less.
AUTHORIZATION TO SIGN EN-
ROLLED BILL AUTHORIZING AP-
PROPRIATIONS FOR NATIONAL
AERONAUTICS AND SPACE AD-
MINISTRATION -
Mr. SMATHERS. Mr. President, I
ask - unanimous consent that the Vice
President or the President pro tempore
be authorized to sign, during the ad-
journment following today's session, the
enrolled bill, H.R. 6874, authorizing ap-
propriations for the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there
objection? Without objection, it is so
but not necessarily the moral side; and we such nonactionist advisers which ordered.
Approved For Release 2004/03/11 : CIA-RDP64B0d346R000200170031-2