MEMORANDUM FOR: THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FROM THE PRESIDENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01731R000900080025-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 14, 2003
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: May 23, 1952
• Content Type: MF

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THE WHITE HOUSE
May 23, 1952.
MEMORANDUM FOR: The Secretary of Defense
FROM: The President
The communists have been using the conferences on
the Korean armistice as propaganda sounding boards.
I believe we should consider replying in kind,
especially as we have so much better story to tell.
These are some of the things we might uses
ftswMW at Hus fAQVN01 by ItAf
The conferences on the Korean Armistice
are propaganda sounding boards for the commies,
Charge them with murdering our soldiers
and civilians who are prisoners of war against every
rule of the Geneva Convention. Charge them with
kidnaping children in south Korea just as they are
doing in Berlin and as they did in Greece.
Thousands of German children have been deported
in the last seven years and have never been heard
from. Fifteen thousand Greek children were taken
from their homes and their parents while the
commies occupied northern Greece. Where are these
Korean, German and Greek children? Have they been
murdered? We believe they have.
That has happened to the one million
German prisoners the Soviet holds or have they
also been murdered as the Poles were murdered at
Katyn?
Where are the million Japs who surrendered
to the Russians? Are they murdered or are they in
slave labor camps?
How many South Korean and Allied prisoners
als tbx # have you shot without cause? You claim you hold
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only twelve thousand prisoners. Where are the
other thousands of civilians and soldiers you
carried off from South Korea?
You've broken every agreement you made
at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam. You have no morals,
no honor. Your whole program at this conference
has been based on lies and propaganda.
Read Confucius on morals to them. Read
Buddah's code to them. Read the Declaration of
Independence to them. Read the French declaration
Liberty and Fraternity. Read the Bill of Rights
to them. Read the fifth, sixth, and seventh
chapters of St. Matthew to them. Read St. Johns
prophecy on Anti-Christ and have your own interpreter
do it.
There's enough real truth here to last you a month,
and I'm sure you can think of much more.
The world press should be briefed on every meeting
of the armistice negotiations when there is one.
I would like for you to see if we can get this
started promptly.
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THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
MW 23, 1952.
F MOTtANDUM F E: The President
FROM: Charles S. Murphy
I return herewith your memorandum concerning
the use of the Korean armistice negotiations for propaganda
purposes, and Admiral Dennison's comments thereon.
It appears to me that you should initiate action
along the lines indicated in your memorandum.
For your consideration, I have had it typed up,
with some changes, in the form of a memorandum from you to
the Secretary of Defense.
The changes 1 recommend include only two of
substance. These are:
1. Omission of the statement that an
agreement signed by the communists
wouldn't be worth the paper it was
written on.
This seems to be inconsistent with
the fact that we are trying to get them
to sign an agreement.
2. Omission of the statement that the
enemy must accept our proposal or be
destroyed.
It seems to me that this is going
a little too strong.
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Delivered at "The Church of the Presidents"
St. John's Church
Lafayette Square
Washington, D. C.
By
Reverend Charles W. Lowry, Ph.D.
Rector of All, Saints' Episcopal Church, Chevy Chase, Maryland
and
Author of Communism and Christ
May 18, 1952
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CHRISTIANITY'S ANSWER TO COMMUNISM
"Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for
the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision."
-- Joel 3:14+
"He that is not with me is against me."
-- St. Luke 11:23
Mankind has entered a new valley of the most radical decision. Our
race in its onward march from primitive and brutish beginnings has reached
a great turning point. The unmistakable symptom of this condition is the
world civil war in which we are all at this minute engulfed and from which
escape is shut off. The chief protagonists in this planetary conflict are
Russia and the United States. Both were described with brilliant acumen
by the French observer De Tocqueville in 1835:
"There are, at the present time, two great nations in the
world which seem to tend toward the same end., although they
started from different points: I allude to the Russians and
the Americans..,
"All other nations seem to have nearly reached their
natural limits, and only to be charged with the maintenance of
their power; but these are still in the act of growth... The
Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his
ends, and gives free scope to the unguided exertions and common
sense of the citizens; the Russian centers all the authority of
society in a single arm: the principal instrument of the former
is freedom; the latter servitude. Their starting point is
different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them
seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the
destinies of half the globe."
Beside that I am tempted to give you an amazing prediction written in
1903 by the brilliant if melancholy Henry Adams:
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"My statesmanship is still all in China, where the last
struggle for power is to come. China is bound to go to pieces,
and every year is a long step to the bad. The only country now
on the spot is Russia, and if Russia organizes China as an
economical power the little drama of history will end in the
overthrow of our clumsy Western civilization. We never can com-
pete with Asia... In that event I allow until 1950 to run our
race out."
What is the prospect that faces us? It is not an easy or a pleasant
one. The immediate danger I am not in a position to assess. Our ultimate
peril, and that of free society everywhere is, I believe, much graver than
we have yet realized.
We are up against an adversary that is highly dynamic. I am widely
read in the history of the great religious movements of the world. Yet I
know of nothing in all history to compare with the advance of Marxist
Communism in one hundred years from the garrets of the capitals of Europe
to absolute hegemony over two-fifths of the earth's population and a position
of entrenched strength and constant menace throughout most of the rest of
the world.
Our adversary has many advantages. One is the efficiency and unity
which constitute one aspect at least of absolute and permanent dictatorship.
Another is the ever-rising discontent and inflammation of the passions of
f
the submerged masses of mankind. This condition, incidentally, is a by-
product of the triumphs of science in the field of communications. Another
advantage is the overwhelmingly peasant and illiterate background of
Russia, China, and other countries behind the Iron Curtain. The people in
consequence have nothing by way of civilized experience with which to compare
the oppression and degradation of their present existence. Still another ad-
vantage enjoyed by our adversary is his instinct for propaganda joined to the
most unqualified and the most highly systematized unscrupulousness known to man.
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The doctrine of the Big Lie and of all manner of lies was practised in
Moscow before it was promulgated and flaunted before the world by Adolph
Hitler.
We cannot and will not compete with the Communists in the strategy and
tactics of the Lie. We must become more teachable and adept than we have
as yet in the field of propaganda and psychological warfare.
This past week I made an address in New York and was kept answering
questions till eleven otclock. A keen and attractive American girl asked
me why it is. that our American negotiators at Panmunjom simply sit in dumb
fury at the truce talks while the Communists constantly exploit them as a
rostrum for propaganda. "Why don't we settle down," she asked, "and reply
in kind, reading from the Declaration of Independence, the Sermon on the
Mount, perhaps even from the sayings of Confucius?" This suggestion im-
pressed me very much and I throw it out, hoping that it may reach the high
places in the Pentagon and possibly our Board of Psychological Warfare.
Now I ask, What is the answer to the terrible problem which confronts
us and the world? Is there any answer? Does Christianity have anything to
say to help us?
I believe that there is an answer. We must, of course, realize that
Christianity is an abstraction. Only Christians can answer. But they are
obligated most deeply to accept the present challenge anito give forth a
clear and certain sound. I propose a Four-Point Program as the Christian
and the American answer. If there are questions raised by this joining of
the words "Christian" and "American".. I would adopt in reply the words of
Oliver Cromwell:
"If any whosoever think the interests of Christians and the
nati,an_ m q" l s; / 2iQ 1 osI?iim0 0 -2
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First, we must understand Communism better. We must know what it is.
We must digest its implications. It is ignorance plus thick-headedness that
has landed us in the present simply fantastic situation.
It used to be said whenever Hitler made a move, that after all he had
laid his whole program out in MEIN KAI4PF. This was only partly true. In
MEIN KAMPF Hitler was very favorable to :Britain and the British Empire. He
took also Communism as Jewish in origin and as the bitterest enemy of Germany.
Hitler, in fact, was a great improviser and visionary. He placed emphasis
not on realities but on intuition. Stalin by contrast is caution personi-
fiea, and is a very slow mover. But there has never been any question what-
ever about Stalin's views or the proposals of Communism. The grand blue-
print of total world revolution was laid out at the start and published to
the world. It has never been withdrawn. I can find no evidence for the
apparent belief of the American and British war leaders that Stalin was a
changed character and that the post-war Communist Russia could be expected
to abandon the trend of twenty-five years in favor of a liberal course. This
may seem like flogging a dead horse, but it is not too clear that the
American people have even yet learned their lesson. I repeat, we must know
and digest the facts about Communism.
Now one or two of the most fundamental of these facts.
Communism is a religion. It is an authoritarian total relgious system.
Let me illustrate. The other day in a Parish Hall I saw a Rector write up
on a blackboard as a basis for a choice of subjects by his people the words:
Theology
Ethics
Evangelism
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Communism is a circle drawn round the lot. It is all four of those
things. It is a theology -- that is., an interpretation of the Supreme Real
developed in a systematic form. We call this Dialectical Materialism.
Communism is ethics. It is a doctrine and motivation of conduct. All
conduct must serve one end -- promoting the class struggle, fomenting social
strife, working for world revolution and world dictatorship of the prole-
tariat under the iron discipline of the Communist Party.
Communism is Evangelism. It has only one aim as far as people are con-
cerned -- to make Communists: and remove those who resist conversion. It
is the most powerful organized missionary movement in the world today. In
China we see most clearly at the present time the evangelistical aspect of
Communism. There the enterprise of mind-washing is going on a vast scale.
The techniques of confession and repentance are employed as a way of deepen-
ing and consolidating conversion.
Then, Communism is a Social Gospel. It proclaims a good time coming --
a perfectly Communist or classless society as the climax of history and the
end of evolution. It is to achieve this that the present order of things
must be utterly smashed. Actually this part of Communism is pure illusion
if not fraud. There is no reason to expect under Communism any withering
away of the state or any diminution of dictatorship whatever. Rather
tyranny begets tyranny, violence violence, repression repression. But faith
in this dream of a perfect world: appropriated by Karl Marx from the Kingdom
of God in the New Testament, is what has given Communism much of its appeal
and power.
Communism today is revealed beyond any manner of doubt not as progress
but as a movement of brutal and black reaction. It threatens to reverse the
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main current of world history and to carry mankind back behind the Christian
Era and behind even the Caesarism of the late Roman Empire. It represents a
throwback under modern industrial conditions, and with the use of the most
advanced and devilish psychological techniques, to the slave empires of the
Egyptian Pharaohs and the Babylonians. It is revealed as a false religion --
the religion prophesied by the great Russians, Dostoievsky and Tolstoy, who
with humanism and socialism both in mind predicted that Christianity, the
religion of the God-man, would be supplanted by a new demonic religion of
the man-god. The Christian symbol for this kind of religion, which in the
New Testament is presented as a kind of prophecy, is Antichrist. In the
performance of Communism up to this time and in its even more menacing
threat for the future, we have the most terrible manifestation to-date of
the spirit of Antichrist.
Second, Realism. We must match the impressive realism of the Communist
Society with an equally powerful and better balanced realism of our own.
This is a matter of urgent importance. Many Americans are confused on the
relation between realism and idealism. Many Christians suffer from con-
fusion and inner uncertainty in relation to this problem.
A few weeks ago I got into conversation with a merchant who turned out
to be also an active member of one of the largest Protestant Churches in
America. Our conversation turned to politics and to the issue of foreign
policy. He expressed disagreement with my thought that the question of our
foreign policy is momentous in the extreme. He said that he felt all we
needed was the Sermon on the Mount -- that he believed that would take care
of all our problems.
This kind of confusion is not only ludicrous; it is dangerous. We
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must be v4ry clear that Christianity, though it does put before us as the
ideal love in all our relations, is not what is known as Pacifism. I defy
anybody to extract from the total teachings of Jesus Christ a doctrine of
absolute Pacifism. Consider these words written in the Gospel for one of
the Sundays in Lent -- I find myself returning to them again and again to get
the feel of their tremendous realism:
"And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons
cast them out?... But if I with the finger of God cast out devils,
no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you. When a strong man
armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace; but when a
stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh
from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils."
We face in Soviet Communism the toughest and most systematically calcu-
lated realism of which history has any record. Beginning with the rejection
of idealism, all spirituality, all that is not hard, cold fact, Communism
has developed realism in thought and action into a science and an art. This
extends even to the idea of perfect control on the part of party members of
such feelings as resentment and the desire to have revenge for injury or in-
sult. Here we have a strange parallelism with the Sermon on the Mo=t and
the Christian idea of forgiveness only the Russians advocate and demand
this not from the motive of love but from the sense of necessity of being
objective, and therefore accurate, in all practical judgments.
To me this realism of the Communists is extremely interesting and is a
tremendous challenge. We must match it with a realism just as strong on the
side of the physical and material, but our realism must be less one-sided,
more inclusive, and therefore finally, more powerful. From this it follows
that there is one absolute, immediate necessity -- the containment of
Communism. This containment can be achieved not by military measures alone,
but by a proper coordination of military, political, diplomatic, economic,
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and psychological factors and considerations. I put great weight on realism
and resolution in applying the doctrine of containment, for this part of the
answer we must give is like the situation in a forest fire. The fire must
be halted and turned back or the whole woods will be destroyed.
Third, the revitalization of democracy. We all agree that this is a
crying and fundamental need. We are in a war for freedom against tyranny and
we are not enthusiastic about our cause! We are in a religious war and we do
not believe strongly in our religion! Wars are won by a successful offensive
and we continue to be very much on the defensive!
Why is this? And what can Christianity and Christians do about it?
The key to this problem lies in the origin and nature of democracy.
Democracy in its modern form is not, first, a political method or form of
government. It is a faith and a spirit. It arose as the child of a Christian
mother. It was animated by faith in God and in man as the child of God. It
expected great things of the future because of this faith. It called forth
willing sacrifice because men believed so in God and man that they were
certain democracy was the wave of the future.
Christianity must prophetically recall our democracy to its real sources
of truth and power. It must at the same time sun=on this nation to meet
v courageously and sacrificially its rendezvous with historic destiny. Our
country has the greatest opportunity ever given a single nation. To it is
entrusted the peace of the world and the future of free men everywhere. On
it depends a new, open, progressive future or a closed, regimented, frozen,
monolithic universal empire. It was Emerson who a century ago spoke of
"great, intelligent, sensual, avaricious America". So much has flowed under
the bridge since then. In many ways we have given a good account of our-
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selves. We have suddenly come of age. We have quickly Waked up to find our-
selves the most powerful nation in the world. Yet we remain much the same
in basic qualities. We are still "great, intelligent, sensual, avaricious
America". Can we become "great, intelligent, courageous, unselfish America" --
able and ready with mature purpose to shoulder the burden of a thrilling and
glorious cause?
This is the question we all must face. Industry and business must face
it. Labor must face it. Leaders in government and politics, in the armed
forces, in the professions must face. it. We see the vision, We believe in
God and in ourselves, we embrace with manly joy the hour of opportunity, we
win a new world -- or we meanly lose and cravenly betray the last great hope
of earth.
Fourth, a spiritual counter-offensive. Much we have said implies this.
It is the final step and it alone can win fully and creatively the present
planetary civil war. The foremost immediate task of the Churches and of
all Christians, of all believers in truth and freedom, all lovers of man, is
to rally to a great spiritual crusade. The purpose of this crusade is to
carry the war into the enemy's country -- it is to take the offensive against
inhumanity, tyranny, brutality, soulless materialism, the evil and cynical
dream of smashing all existing institutions and traditions in order to estab-
lish for the greatest good of all a cosmic concentration camp.
This does not mean -- it must not mean -- hatred for the Russian or the
Chinese people; or even for that matter for their misguided, demon-possessed
leaders. We are being punished now for our hatred of the German people and
our flirtation with evil visions such as Vansittartism and the Morgenthau
Plan. But we must identify for what it is a much deadlier menace than
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Hitlerism and we must resist it absolutely with spiritual weapons. They are
even more important than the carnal armaments of war.
What are the weapons which Christians and others must use in the great
spiritual counter-offensive that must surely come? They are faith in God
and man; a new birth of the conviction verified in actual existence that love
is the essence of God's life and man's; a realization that brotherhood be-
longs with freedom and equality as a watchword of permanent, Christ-inspired
revolution. This last emphasis, brotherhood based on a real experience of
universal love, is the special contribution of Christianity and is, I believe,
our one real hope for a new world.
Finally, there is the weapon of intuitive certainty that a new and better
world is coming, that the great Revolutions of the late eighteenth century
were not mistaken, that freedom, law, happiness, and abundance for all
peoples lie ahead and will yet be realized.
This is the wave of the future. This is the goal of the turn we must
take at this present junction of historic forces, thus avoiding the bend that
would carry mankind in retrogression back to the edge of the dawn of history.
"Whoever is not with us is against us. People who are in-
dependent of history are imaginary. Even if we grant that at some
period in the past they did exist, they certainly do not exist now
and cannot. They would be useless. Everybody, down to the most
unimportant man, is drawn into the vortex of reality tangled as it
has never been before."
These words, echoing at the start the sentence of Jesus taken as our text,
were uttered by Lenin -- the Messiah of Communism. With very little change we
can adopt them as the challenge to us as Christians, as Americans, as free
men of this tremendous hour.
"Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for
the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision."
"He that is not with me is against me."
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