LETTER TO MR. RALPH A. DUNGAN FROM JOHN A. MCCONE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01676R003000040014-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 3, 2006
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: March 14, 1962
• Content Type: LETTER

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Mr. Ralph A. Dungan_~
Special Assistant to the President
The Vrhite House
V ashington 23. ll. L.
Dear Mr. Dungan:
Knowing of your interest and experience in?the?field
of youth and student aftairs, I am attaching an analysis by
a member of my staff, whom I
believe you know.
The incidents which occurred during the Attorney
Generai's trip dramatize again the extent of communist
activity in this field, and it may well be that an increaased
and better coordinated counter-oiie:nsiver is needed.
I have also sent a copy of this paper to the Attorney
General for his information.
Sincerely.
John A. McGone
Director
1 ?ztclosure
Signature Recommended:
(Prepared at DD/P request
See DD/P memo attached)
Deputy Director (Plans)
DDP/IO:CMeyer/mc (5 March 62)
C/10 Division
Distribution:
Orig & 1,- Addressee
f - DCI (w/o attach)
2-DD/P
1 -COPS
1-C/IO
1 - C/IO/6
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The comments which follow have been stimulated by President
Kennedy's remarks at his press conference of 21 February on the
attitudes of students and by reflection on this problem and experience
in dealing with it over the past several years.
Responding to a reporter's question about "hostility" shown to
the Attorney General during several stops on his recent visit to the Far
East, the President, avoiding the word "hostility, " said that "this is
one of the most serious and, I think, in many ways stimulating problems
we face--how to tell our story in a way that makes it new and exciting
to young students and also have them examine objectively under the
light of present circumstances the serious failures of the Marxist
system... I think that is our job... "
PROPOSAL:
1. This paper proposes that a special task force on students and
youth be created, operating with a specific Presidential mandate and
centered in the Department of State, to study the problem set forth by
the President.
2. The. task force could be headed by a private citizen well
acquainted with educational and student affairs and should call upon both
governmental and non-governmental organizations for its operatives.
3. Its objectives should be to prepare, by 30 June 1962, a compre-
hensive, well articulated, concrete, carefully targeted program of
coordinated action in the youth and student-, field, calling upon both
governmental and private resources for specific and well delineated
activities.
4. This program should include both long-term and short-term
remedial action designed to correct the distorted picture of the U. S.
held by too large a number of the leaders of student life abroad and to
deflect them from their current drift toward a pro-Communist neutralism
under .the aegis of the instruments of international Communism.
5. It should also establish the frame of reference for an office' of
youth and student affairs in the Department of State to coordinate and,
in some instances, implement the program.
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DISCUSSION:
In addition to the President's remarks, the following considerations
underlie the above proposal:
1. The Attorney General's meetings with Japanese and Indonesian
students, which prompted the reporter's question, constitute a reminder
that in 1960 and 1961 we witnessed the accession to power in many
uncommitted areas of young men who not long ago were leaders or active
members of student and youth movements. Moreover, the prominent
role played by students in decisive or critical political developments in
Turkey, Japan. Cuba, Korea, Venezuela, and the Congo are well known.'
These developments have forcefully underscored both the importance
of youth and student leaders and organizations abroad in relation to U. S.
foreign policy and the intense and continuing Communist threat in this
field. It is evident that here, as in other functional areas, the Communists
aim is to control student and youth organizations and use them as
instruments of social and political agitation for the purpose of undermining
existing governments and developing cadres capable of seizing political
power.
2. There is a consistent, articulated, centrally directed Communist
political operation of worldwide proportions directed at all functional
groups in all countries. The geographic areas which command the
highest priority in this offensive are the underdeveloped areas (Latin
America, Africa, Asia, the Middle. East); the functional area commanding,
the highest priority is youth--students, workers, and peasants. Numeri-
cally small, but strategically strong' Communist parties, with their
witting and unwitting nationalist collaborators, are exploiting the oppor-
tunities which exist among these key target groups; but they are no more
than a part of the international Communist program.
3. That this is a problem of continuin and widespread concern is
attested to by, among other things, the fact that the North Atlantic Council
has created an Ad Hoc Study Group on the Communist offensive in the
youth field, which held its first (secret) meeting October 2-5, 1961, at
NATO headquarters in Paris. To this meeting the Dcpartment of State
sent three representatives and submitted over fifty pages of closely
written, documented material describing and evaluating the Communist
offensive against youth in the non-Communist world, particularly in the
underdeveloped areas. (NATO Confidential Documents AC/20l (B)-D/6, 7,
and 11) These documents outline the apparatus of the Communist
offensive; the structure and functioning of the Communist international
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youth fronts (World Federation of Democratic Youth--W'DY; and
International Union of Students--IUS); the activities of other Communist
institutions; and the role of exchanges and scholarships, ad hoc fronts
like the Stockholm Peace Appeal, institutions like Peoples' Friendship
University and other such educational facilities in the Bloc, regional
groups, and special events like the World Youth Festivals. Activities
directed at youth have been accorded a high priority by the Communists
since the days of Lenin; a recent exhortation to the party militants
(World Marxist Review, May, 1961) puts it this way:
"The Communist Parties devote close attention to the students
who are playing a growing role in the emancipation struggle
of the working people, particularly in the underdeveloped
countries... They draw attention, too, to the favorable condi-
tions which now exist for work among the students... Daily
experience brings the students to the realization that they
can find their place in society only when an end has been put
to the capitalist system, which dooms them to difficulties
in search of work and leads to the stagnation of science and
culture. "
4. This exctenssive, dynamic, and relatively effective Communist'
offensive, however, takes place in the circumstances of history and is
essentially opportunistic, rather than inexorably determined. There are
certain characteristics, for instance, of student life and of youth and
student organizations which have almost universal geographic releva-ace--
idealism, immaturity, recklessness, intellectual curiosity, rebellion,
generosity. The Communists have, partly by our default, taken advantage
of the particular forms these characteristics take in the underdeveloped
areas and exploited them for their advantage and against us. Students
are impulsive, militant, political activists with the capacity as an organ-
ized group to intimidate the government in these areas, to influence
policies, and to be manipulated by capable and unscrupulous adult
politicians. They are also nationalistic, uninhibited by traditional or
conventional pressures, frequently irresponsible (having perhaps little
to lose), rash, ignorant, and susceptible. Where the system of higher
education is centralized, as it is in moot countries other than the U. S..
students can be a powerful lobby, since, in addition to the qualities
listed above, they frequently have a stronger than usual sense of class
(or professional) responsibility and solidarity. The inadequacy of
facilities for higher education in many of these areas adds to their
bitterness and frustration or drives them to the metropolitan universities
in the, former mother countries where they come under Communist
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influence, or to the Sino-Soviet Bloc universities.
5. Moreover, the student problem cannot be viewed in isolation;
it is linked with many underlying economic, social, and political
problems on which Communism feeds--illiteracy, poverty, sickneca,
economic chaos and dependence, authoritarian and opportunistic political
systems and leaders, injustices of all kinds. The amalgam of these
critical problems, the impatient inexperience of the students, and
Communist manipulation constitutes a very serious threat to democratic
growth in the underdeveloped areas. Even in the moat diverse situations
it is becoming almost a truism to point out that it is not student demon-
strations which cause difficult national situations; rather it is difficult
national situations which give rise to student demonstrations. In Turkey
in 1960, for example, the students demonstrated, without significant
Communist participation, against what they considered an intolerably
despotic and corrukt government; in Japan in the same year the students'
deep antipathy toward war, bitter memories of atomic destruction, and
resentment against the government were converted by a sizable, well-
organized, and fanatic Communist minority into riots against law and
order. From these divergent circumstances came similar action. What
all this means is that remedial programP :will have to take effect not
only in the realm of education and student life, but in broader economic,
social, and political fields as well.
6. The predominant attitude toward the issue of Communism among
students in underdeveloped areas is that it is an extraneous issue injected
mainly by the U. S.' to enlist the have-not countries in an anti-Communist
crusade which is irrelevant to them and which protects the status quo of
the wealthy and selfish U. S. at the expense of their own progress., The
student elite in the underdeveloped areas believes itself firmly devoted
to peace; the easy Communist propaganda solutions for problems of
peace and disarmament are more appealing than the guarded, complex,
and often unconvincing Western plans. When the vigor of the Communist
peace campaign is combined with the revolutionary zeal foz change
manifested by underdeveloped-area students, and the U. S.. because of
its alliances, its emphasis on gradual and evolutionary change, and its
devotion to certain principles which must be understood in a very complex
frame of reference, appears to oppose both peace and change, the beat
that can be hoped for is an attitude of neutrality on the part of the student
leadership in underdeveloped countries. This neutrality will not usually
be weighted in our favor.
7. Although the incidents which gave rice to the President's remarks
occurred in the Far East, it is in Latin America that the situation we are
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describing is most threatening. Students generally weld a disproportionate
influence over national policies there, partly because governments are
Mreluctant to use -their available force against student violence and partly
because the universities and their physical plants generally retain a
unique traditional sanctity from governmental control and police jurisdiction.
Although the majority of the national student federations in the twenty
Latin American countries are not under outright Communist control,
practically all of the major ones are heavily penetrated and influenced by
well-organized Communist minorities often consisting of the most dynamic
and promising young Communist leaders. Communist success with the
student class is largely attributable to the strong Latin American student
sympathies for radical ideologies and reform panaceas; a pronounced.
traditional tendency of students to engage in national politics; and the
extreme chauvinistic feelings generally prevalent among Latin American
students--feelings which are readily played upon to promote anti-U.S.
sentiments.
even without this stimulus an alarming number of Latin American
students regard the U. S. with suspicion and distrust. Our preponderant
power serves as an object of resentment and jealousy; our policy of non-
intervention and our military assistance programs are often viewed as
support for the status quo and preference for dictators and oligarchies;
the U. S. is a convenient whipping boy, which ultra-nationalist demagogues,
including student leaders, use to distract attention from their own short-
commings and from injustices whose roots lie within the structure and
policies of their own country or class. The past use of U. S. military
force in the area, indirect "intervention" in more recent tines (Guatemala,
Cuba), U. S. support for Latin American dictators (Duvalier, Stroessner,
Trujillo) and aid to Latin American military forces, and the role, actual
or alleged, of U. S. business in conflicts between U. S. and Latin American
economic interests, are accentuated by the sharply different cultural
backgrounds. and a still very difficult communication problem.
8. Primarily in Latin America, tooD the Cor: muniat program is
making greater headway among secondary, and oven primary school
students. This is assisted strongly and effectively by the school-teachers,
who have long been a target for Communist infiltration and indoctrination.
That it is not a phenomenon confined entirely to Latin America, however,
is attested to by the recent history of the highly volatile and influential
Japan Teachers' Union.
9. Not all foreign students study in their own countries: nearly
55, 000 are studying this year in the U. S.. of whom over 30, 000 are from
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areao. 1.hvo v uc?~: appea1~a1o . c b3 2 a ~ . 4 b 1y C b 5 :"~'. w `o ~o g. p Jp 000
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technical tra g, were pounced ?oT A u.iL c6 . AML of thcce, vc yfng
reason a, are worthy of cAoco- titter Ica and mope a ;tion than they Yave
received P c 'etofowe:
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havo 3 Cv1t :o c cono. d.` raI;ic C w4s ; : "J 4 w kd %'U ~ ~ u o t d ap!`.Qc^.,1o by
nth the St^ to Dep av eant and ~wm ~~t a ( 'gwn ataone :zr, pub-11c s pp t fov
a pro-,ram of hospitality and acolctanco. The a lam of ouch activity should be to improve foreign student aV,!tudco tow =d nh U. S. by Iap'or-Ing the
handling ts C3
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7LSom the ssu.'..ctantlve mcrrfto Of ts, CaDerp "Lo c ::Z a ddG+tI:cw pa.ar ';" ?"da
gain to be wade. '
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t$mtdp neI av overly .J4zccc ve ne ?_ogr- Y aS' %s' l.cU L uni ct, `k'? e
objectstie le to maize tLe effect arc szw ct O4 U. S. foreign policy on the
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Military coa .ict, the Corr. auMlat ra~cc' ~ .~yis~ and thrust in thr*ca f-znct;onal
fields. T! -,o opec.ial character a .--d cc-:. l o:?ity of activities in the ycu
t-i
and student field require close coorcZr:: ,:t^i.cn and particular care. ~r coact,
our ezporience with youth and student organizations shows that perso l:s
gain access to and influence over top lc dorchip only when they have so e
concrete gain to offer C: t loa ereship; pa rvonality and "positive thinksin `=
brave little to do with it.
r-.,-wblicy cur" goal is not to coe iet pcace;_Z iy any more than tt:?c CJ ~ >~
it is to frustrate and destroy totally saved porm nently, but Vi; cut
consoza it with --ia o . ard vjit_la our natic a.i interest; and to r -- d .c
the effc.ct of cc=-,y titivc Corirstauist cfforto in t1hose fields. ','a 3 i
ccerce cf t o Cold War. "It'.!o;-h vie rood -not state it so blu'-:47y
v.,a ld, but c:i.::ti..-cla.".'Iy Ce n%,, y Ins dep:?3n?2-,-at =,.d dcvelopin 1:81: tr _.: a
to assist theta w ci to politic? , and economic elites to pursue pol .: ~
a"'id the yo u cii~Ac c lees of every country,
11. The Cornmuniot offc.?aeive in t:-- yc ith and student field hao not
none eithe unnoticed or unch4111an.ged by either governmental and r , :-
ovc ~ t l groups, The wo l;l of I rmt a .tio l youth and etudcnt
or f .: t;dions is one of the melt con .c tad and heavily burdened vrl
o ga i:s>~t:o a 9 iii?iai!U; aeicn froLn to roco ;-airable Communist frc tz'!
_~ v ~a a city of tfixeoi noa-Con . ict groups cannot afford for
p ili,tical reaso-as, to be miiit:t. 'ly anti-Communist, although t ho. ir ?=- --L anx3,
3 well conceived, Judi cia; Iy i. ylc and carefully coord,. t~
are e c ti 2y anti -Cor uniwt in a co- etitive sense. In the :.S. itzclf
there is a plethora of o~ ^:~so ticnsa ~td_ programs of and for forei? 1
ota^.g~dc:ate and youth-service }w,or aaizat c -,, rycli-lz.oua gro?{ups,~y k6.`py nc~.' I-
purpe:3e ca^ ..xai ~ .tiona like the UZ-;DT ..% +L fad the Y .C, institutes
a*.~:.. 11B, a7id pro rami , +evcrnme nt have been conducting
p o rw> ns in the atuczcnt field for many y