LETTER TO (SANITIZED) FROM ALLEN W. DULLES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01676R003500030014-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 11, 2008
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: May 14, 1961
• Content Type: LETTER

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ER 61-383Z/a
14
much for ?end* g me
the artici I have
read it with interest and subscribe to your
own analysis of it.
It was very pleasant to see you in
tog
precently, I hope we can get
r again soon.
Best regal.
Sincerely,
Allen W. DoUes
Director
O/DCI/W, Elder:kpm(5/12/61)
Distribution:
Orig - Addr see
1 - DCI
1 - ER6(w/basic)
1 - C / WH
STAT
STAT
STAT
1_ I
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-. . ~ .. e~rsfsY
C ?TAT
STAT
April 24, 1961
Mr. Allen W. Dulles,
2430 E Street,
Washington, D. C.
Dear Allen,
We were all very hannv to hac.o k -A ..,-
your company at the
As promised
about which
pleasure of
I am sending you the front page of the
STAT
STAT
of 6th April with an article b STAT
1 spoke to you.
It seems to me to be a very constructive effort to
persuade people that they should look at American actions in
a constructive manner and not try to find fault all the time.
Hoping that we may have the pleasure of seeing you
again before too long, I am
Yours singly,
tjb /akc
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STAT
STAT
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US IS BLAMED FOR EVERYTHING
The comedy is being played out in best communist style: the
Soviet Union sets up an airlift to push the invasion of Laos full
force; in the meantime Khrushchev vanishes deep in Siberia in order
personally to study the burning farm problems of a country in which
communism long ago solved all problems ... Could anything constitute
better confirmation of the facts which a few of us in the West have
been pointing out for years? We were told that Khrushchev had the
burning desire to establish good relations with the new President of
the United States. He was allegedly really vitally interested in
that. But not too much; he was not sufficiently interested in this
to miss an opportunity for grabbing another piece of valuable real
estate from the free world.
Once again we have seen the usual offensive against world public
opinion. First, we were reminded of all the "mistakes" the Americans
made. Supposedly, the Americans had been supporting a pro-American
government in Laos. What utter folly -- to support one's own friends!
Now, if the Americans had not supported the pro-American party in
Laos, then the Russians of course would not have set up their airlift,
which they are using to support the communist attack on Laos. It's
as simple as all that -- or so one would have us believe.
But the way the people, who are arguing in this fashion, seek
to prove the correctness of theirassertions -- that is another
problem. Again and again, the Soviet Union has demonstrated that
it is not the least bit interested in whether a government has the
support of the United States of America or not -- so long as the USSR
wants to topple that particular government. It takes all the wishful
thinking, that blinds the leftist circles and a good portion of the
rightist circles in Europe and in America, to believe that Soviet
aggression is merely a reply to the "provocations" of the "unwise"
or'aggressive" Americans. The West should know by now that aggres-
sion is the very essence of Soviet policy.
Behind the West's widespread misconceptions about Laos, we find
the basic error of looking upon the East-West conflict as nothing but
a power struggle, with its customary balance of power, spheres of in-
fluence, etc. This false concept starts from the premise that we have
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equivalent fidenticalJ powers facing each other here. Power is
balance; pressure generates counterpressure. As a matter of fact,
the issue here is not a struggle for countries and regions, but the
domination of public opinion. Control over real estate is impor-
tant only in the sense that the physical occupation of countries
enables communism to seize control of public opinion.
Aggression is therefore indissolubly linked with communism --
regardless of whether or not the United States supports the victims
of aggression. In cases where the United States favors a government
the Soviets want to eliminate, Moscow or Peiping uses this fact in
order to justify and embellish aggression. In other cases they
simply invent some other pretext. The case of Prague is quite
characteristic here. When Moscow decided to eliminate the Benes--
Masaryk government and to have the country henceforth run by its
stooge, the Czech Communist Party, Zorin was entrusted with the
execution of this maneuver and Czechoslovakia was swallowed up.
Was there any talk anywhere at that time to the effect that this
was done because America was supporting Benes?
It is a crying shame that a good half of the people in the West
are determined to stick to the illusion that one can come to an
understanding with Moscow. That is why these people demand that
nothing be done that might in any way rub the Soviet Union the wrong
way; hence, the frantic search for signs indicating Moscow's willing-
ness to come to an agreement with the West; hence, the untiring
search for explanations and excuses for brutal diplomatic methods,
such as they were used for instance in the attacks on Hammarskjoeld,
or for aggressions, such as the one in Laos.
This inclination is to be found constantly among a large and
influential portion of public opinion in the West. It would be
foolish to ignore the danger inherent in this attitude. For it
prepares the West for seeing the new developments, which are bound
to come, in a distortion mirror. Only if we know that the Soviet
Union in reality is not and never was interested in arriving at an
understanding with the West in order to "bring about a relaxation,"
only then can we see the individual crises -- which kept erupting
and will continue to erupt in Laos, the Congo, Korea, and else-
where -- as episodes in a continuing war which is being kept up by
the continuing aggression of the Soviet Union. Only then will we
be able to meet that situation properly. But if we stick to the
illusion that the Soviet Union really feels the need for an under-
standing with the West and for relaxation of tensions, then we
will necessarily be tempted to see these crises -- in Laos, the Congo,
and Korea and all the others -- as unfortunate incidents which might
just possibly be our own fault. That will shake our own position and
weaken our own unity, for there will of course be people who will
keep harping on the "mistakes of the Americans."
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No one will want to say that the Americans never made any
mistakes; but there is no need to keep talking about such "mis-
takes" as it is the case today. As recently as yesterday, the
United States of America was an isolationist nation. It was
pulled out of the suit of armor of distrust toward the rest of
the world -- an armor built for it by George Washington -- only
by the combined efforts of the rest of the world, and the main
job here was done by the Europeans and the Chinese. It took
two world wars of unheard-of proportions to get the United States
finally to a point where it would don the mantle of free-world
leader. American thinking, American weapons, and American money
are now everpresent throughout the world. Can such vasts tasks
be accomplished without the Americans here and there, now and
then, overstepping the limits of caution by a few inches or some-
times even falling a few inches short of expectations as to their
boldness? American mistakes are the counterpart of American
action and simply must be accepted as part of the bargain. At
a moment in history whenrfie should be rallying all our forces to
counter the Soviet offensive, we should have something better to
do than to split our ranks and weaken our forces through untimely
and most probably also unjustified selfcriticism.
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