LADIES AND GENTLEMEN;

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83-00423R000300010001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 16
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 16, 2013
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 19, 1952
• Content Type: SPEECH

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NAVAL OFFICERS1 WORLD AFFAIRS SEMINAR
aPower Politics in the Far Easta
Dr, George Taylor
Director pf the Far Eastern Depar%mea'..D
University of Washington
19 November 1952
(431-- i 1
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Ladies and Gentlemena
It is a very, very, great pleasure to be with you today. The sub-
ject that you have asked me to talk about this afternoon is the situation in
(the Far East 4s it relates to Geopolitics. I do not know what Geopolitics are.
, I have a vague impression that if you get a bottle of whiskey and a globe and
study both a long time, that you will come out with heart lands here and heart
lands there and you will see the relationship of things to each other much more
, .
Clearly. In my awn simple-minded manner I like to look at a situation in as
complicated a way as I can from the political, economic, and military, angle.
I was not aware of the importance of military factors as much as I should have
been perhaps, until I was on the faculty of the Naval War College under Admiral
Hill as commandant in 1948. Living with people no less in rank than Navy Capt-
ains and Army Colonels, I came to respect not only rank but also the importance
of military factors in world affairs. It is a matter 1 am very serious about,
it is Somethin4 that is very sadly lacking in our general approach to political
s4enoe. 1 think if you could put all the political scientists in this country
through the National War College it would do them no harm whatsoever, It
,
wouldnIt do any harm either to the National War College, because 1 found the
gentlemen to be of such tough fibre that nothing could disturb them.
The major thing that has happened in the Far East, of course, as it
effects the security of the United States in the last five years, has been the
Communist conquest of China. This has changed the whole balance of power in
the Far East and I assure you that if there is one thing that has been of con-
cern to the United States evert since we have come into contact with the Far
taet,:it has been the balance f power. The major effort that the United States
,has made in this part of the world has been to prevent the one thing that has
:now happened and that is an alliance between any of the three big powers, the
iSoviet Union, Japan, or China. It has been our general idea to keep them a-
part and the pivot of our policy has always been Manchuria. In fact at one time
l Secretary Knox actually suggested that we neutralize Manchuria. We have backed
up the Japanese when the Russians were getting too tough and we have actually
backed up the Russians when the Japanese were getting too tough. We have always
tried to keep China in an independant position. Now this is one of those beau-
tiful examples where principle and interest were combined. It is very high prin-
ciple' to maintain the independance of a state. It is also a matter of our na-
tional interest that we did so.
Just for a moment I think you might reflect upon the way in which a
good many American policies have developed, especially in the nineteenth century,
under the threat of British power. It was the general idea of American policy
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makers in the early days of the republic, that the less important the British
were thatthe, safer would be the United States. This would apply particularly
to the 'Par East, We saw the British coming in in 1842 in China where they
signed the treaty of Nanking. The American treaty was signed in 1844, two
years later, We followed them in every step that they made, and of course
you remember the famous occasion in 1859, when Admiral Hope, standing off Taku
Bar when the BritisIrMarines, in one of the earliest amphibious operations in
'
history, got stud( in the mud on their way ashore, gave some assistance using
the famous phrase, "blood is thicker than water". This was one of the very
few occasions upon which there was the slightest cooperation between the two
powers in the nineteenth century, But out of this ambition to see that the
British Empire was limited as much as possible, the United States developed
this policy of maintaining wherever possible the independance of self-govern- _
ing oriental states The movement into Japan in 1853 was very much dictated
by the desire to anticipate the British and the Russians Russian fleets were
sailing around the bottom end of Japan and it was feared that if the United
States did not move in very rapidly either the British or the Russians would
have it and it would be assumed, of course, that the British would take China
If they possibly could. So in order to limit the extent of the British Empire
there developed a theory of supporting an indePendant China, a principle with
whioh we have been connected for many many years,
A balance of power has been maintained with a certain amount of suc-
cess over a very long period. It was no accident that an earlier President
Roosevelt was the arbiter at the Treaty of Portemouth in 1905, and that was
Portsmouth, New Hampshire not anywhere else. As the arbiter of that treaty
between Japan and Russia we threw our weight into the scales to try to see
that the Japanese should not take everything that they wanted, which was, of
coUrse, Most of Manchuria. We kept the Japanese limited to Korea and parts of
Korea,, which they finally took over completely in 1910 and we saw that the Rus-
sianS, having been defeated, should not lose everything in the Eastern part of
Asia, Many times after that and particularly in 1931 when the Japanese moved
into Manchuria we made it clear that we didn't like it a bit and the famous non-
r i
ebognition doctrine of Colonel Stimson was designed to reserve Manchuria for
.
future treatment in the hope that someday, sometime, someplace, the Japanese
could be forced out of Manchuria as they had been forced out of the province
(of Shantung in 1922 after the Washington Treaty. The balance of power is the -
v basic American policy in the Far East
Christianity and commerce have been extremely important factors-, but
as most of you have read your way through all the records of the United States
Navy Department in the nineteenth century, you will recall that if they had had
their way we would have been in Hawaii in 1850 and by the end of the century we
would have been on every piece of real estate that we have had to fight for dur-
ing the late unpleasantness, The real estate that Commodore Perry actually
, purchased on Okinawa might have been quite a profitable investment, if the Navy
(Department had had its way, In the textbooks on the subject you will find very
little reference to the security angle in United States policy in the Pacific,
All the references are to Christianity and to commerce, but I think it was the
security angle wiiich was the real matrix of most of our policies.
(
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Today the awful thing has happened. Two of these three powers have
now tied together in a very firm alliance and that is the Moscow-Peiping en-
tente, That alliance is based upon very real power factors in the Far East,
factors which we have long anticipated and long dreaded. The basis of this
alliance is very simple to detect. It is made easier by the fact that the
Chinese and the Russian leaders both speak the same language, both have the
same ideology, both have the same approach towards life, both believe essen-
tially the same basic things. This makes it easier, but it would have been
quite possible without that. In fact, there is very good reason to believe
that Chiang Kai-shek was offerred exactly the same alliance several times. I
was recently on Formosa talking this over with Hank Leiberman of the New York
Times, an old friend of mine, and a few weeks later he told me that he had
seen Chiang Kai-shek and he said, "you know I -ut that question to him, after
I had amused him with a few dirty stories." : said, "why didn't you take the
offer from the Russians?" and he said, "I didn't trust them," Which is per-
fectly sound reasoning. But he didn't deny that he could have had it,
The basis of the alliance is very simple, The Chinese expect to
get the military weapons, the technical assistance, the diplomatic support, and
all the backing that is necessary to recover the military and political pres-
tige and leadership of China in Asia. They enjoyed this for a very long time.
They are a proud and military people. The myth that China is a peaceful coun-
try and a peaceful people is indeed a myth, because of the propaganda of the
civilian ruling class of China. They have a long and distinguished military
history. Only twice in two thousand years have they been conquered, Once by
\
the Mongols and once by the Manchus. They have been half conquered several
times but only twice have they been fully conquered and in both cases they have
eventually gotten rid of the conqueror. They have not absorbed their conquerors
as the other general fallacy goes, They have only absorbed them when they have
thrown them out and let them live as servants. They have produced sode of the
greatest military writers in history and this ambition to recover their mili-
tary and political prestige and weight in Asia is something that appeals to a
very deep instinct in the Chinese people.
From the treaty the Russians get something else,#. hey get an ally
willing and able, they hope, to stir up enough trouble in Asia, to take over
enough territory to deny us, the Western Powers, access to that part of Asia.
They fit into the general strategic plan that they have for the conquest of
Japan because one of the immediate objectives of this alliance is, of course,
\
Japan, Japan is the chief prize as far as the Communists are concerned in the :
pacific and they are moving on to Japan in the same way, on the same general,
i strategic, concept, that they are moving into Europe. Just as the best way for
Vthem to upset the balance of power in Europe, is to cut through the Far East
/ and to disturb the whole economic, political, foundations of the European Powers
/ i and of ourselves in the, Far East, so they are moving on to Japan, first by mov-
ing into Southeast Asia. Because by denying to Japan the access to Southeast
Asia, the rice bowl, the market for Japanese goods, by denying Japan access to
that part of the world, they put upon us and the Japanese together the terrible
problem of providing for the self-sufficiency of that country. A terrible pro- '
blem, indeed, because most of Japan's industry was geared to the control of
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Manchuria and to the China market. It was geared to Chinese coking coal, not
to ours which is transported from our ports on the West Coast here at twenty
dollars a ton with ten dollars for freight. This is too high a price for a
permament basis with the Japanese economy. By moving into southeast Asia then,
they can put Japan into a position where she is even more dependent upon us,
or she has to do the other thing, move into the arms of the Communists at a
very considerable price. The psychological time bomb that the Communists have
prepared in this case, is, of course, of a well known variety. They have
? started already_they started a long time ago, on the line that the Japanese
must not be suZiTs-ervient to the United States and must not serve the end to
American impeirinam and help its economic aggression. This time bomb they ex-
? pect will explode with a considerable amount of force at such time as they can
(put the economic and military squeeze on Japan to such an extent that there is
dissatisfaction both in this country and in Japan. Dissatisfaction in this
country in never being able to get Japan off our backs, and dissatisfaction in
Japan on the basis of pride and nationalism at being always in the economic
pockets of the United States.
This balance of power has changed to such an extent that we have done
several things about it. By taking a quick lpok at the map you can see the
military line that we have drawn. This is the famous military line that played
quite a role in the late Senate discussions. The line runs through Japan, the
Philippines, and now I assume Formosa, although it has never been formally
stated so, and the inner lines through the islands that we fought over during
the war. In other words we have extended our military commitment to the fur-
thest reaches of the Western Pacific. We have a military alliance with Japan,
with the Philippine Islands, with Australia and New Zealand. If any of these
countries are at war we are at war too. This extension of our military com-
mitments is very serious, very new and it is very solid. There goes together
with that a political decision which does not always ove5lap too well with the
military decision. ...--
The political decision is that there shall not be, if we can prevent
it, any further expansion of Communist power in Asia. This decision was born,
actually, at the time of the Korean conflict and has hardened more and more ever
since. We have not, and I happen to think, fortunately, committed ourselves
to any further exact lines and points as to where we would fight if we were
challenged. I say fortunately, because I believe that if we did so it would
extend much too far the area in which a possible enemy could pick a struggle
if he so wished. It is not to our advantage to be pinned down all over the
place and leave to the enemy the initiative in walking over a line here or a
line there and forcing us to decide whether or not we are going to fight.
The balance of power has brought about then, this big military deci-
sion, and it has, of course, put us into the business of trying to bring together
several nations in Asia into some form of political alliance or economic agree-
ment that will ultimately lead up, we hope, to the framing of much more solid
mutual assistance pacts in many more territories when the conditions are right.
We are compelled to do this with all the many disadvantages, It had been
hoped that at the end of the war we would look forward to making China the pi-
(
1 vot of our policy. We had hoped that China would be a free, democratic, united,
and strong country, and that China with a weaker Japan would be the basis of
our policy. This of course, has not been so.
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'oriarr Nov
In 1949 we had to switch rapidly from China to Japan, a fact which
has embarrassed our policy in Japan to some extent. ae have demanded rearma-
ment in Japan, which indeed we have to, whether we like '2c, or not, And we have
had to do this at a t]me when Japanese opinion was not eoatly ready for.,it. We
have to sell an ex-enemy to many people who have aot ;rot ATreotten theeer.
When I was lecturing at the University of Mnilaenot aaee eonths ago, I got
through my talk and the very first question came free a student. He
said to me, "Can you exolain to me how your count re caa poosibly come to terms
with Japan how can you possibly make a peace treaty with that country?" They
had not forgotten the Japanese occupation and when you walk around liani1a, as
many of you probably have recently, and you compare it with Tokyo, you will
observe that the rebuilding of Tokyo has gone ahead much faster than that of
Manila. The Australians, of course, are neurotic on the subject of Japan and
part of the price of our peace treaty with Japan was the military security
oacts with ,stratia and New Zealand.
The disadvantages are considerable. They are not without advantages,
but I eant to stress that this chane in the whole balance of power has been
so sudden, and our adjustment to it so rapid, that you could hardly expect that
we could have done it with grace, andOurtesy and unfailing attention to the
needs of others, On the contrary it had to be done quickly and me have had to
move rapidly into a vacuum that was extremely dangerous from our point of view.
Now, looking at it from our side, what are some of the problems that
we have in organizing the balance of power in our favor and in our direction/
Let us not forget the strength of the Peipine 1.2oscow Alliance. Because this
alliance is on very firm foundationsNI do not think that there is any Titoism
possible, I am not suggesting that he Chinese are going to turn always with
a glow of emial good will towards Moscow and like everything that Moscow wants.
They may eoseibly dislike Moscow intensely but I am saeeeetine that if any
Chinese leader ;eta, any Titoist idea in his head, he will hardly survive the
thought. The Russians are far toopawerful in Manchuria, in fact it is almost
a separate country and there are over 80,000 Russian advisors in China itself.
They have taken vera good care of any possibility of Titoism again and let me
also remind you that it was the Russians who threw Tito out, not Tito who threw
out the Russians and for months after Tito was thrown out, was excommunicated,
he was eetheticelly tre-ing to justify himself in the eyes of the Russian party.
Kell, just to round up this particular point in order to clarify my position on
this, I feel that this alliance is on a sound foundation, that the mutual in-
terest of each party, ,that the Chinese Communist leaders and the Russian Com-
munist leaders believe between them a set of thestS,which we are not likely to
shake very easil:/. They believe that they belong to the nooeressive, the demo-
cratic, part of the world. They believe that they are riding the wave of the
future, and that we are riding the wave down into destraceion, They think that
we shall "provoke" a world war, We shall "provoke" that world War because,
having built up our productive forces to a very high degree, we shall have so
nr,C11. ,aberLil 1 -)ar hands that we shall have to sell It. !::e shall get into
cycles of be .eLf-Ac unemployment and in order to avoid um,mployment at home and
the rivalries and difficulties between capitalist polifer6 ve shall plunge our-
selves into a world conflict and somebody is going to min. They think they
are going to win. Mao Tse-tung believes that he has chosen the winning side
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and he has chosen it, never to turn back. He has stated so in public and he
couldn't possibly get out of it.
We can expect, therefore, from them, the same kind of behavior that
we had from Hitler. I think that they will negotiate just about as much as
Hitler negotiated in the last days. In other words we will have to blast them
out if they are to be removed. This applies to a not inconsiderable group of
men, small compared to the population of China, but a very considerable group
of men.
It is no enerally realized that the Soviet Union plus the Chinese
Communists in Chinas, ained, indoctrinated and brought up, many more Chinese
than welve ever influenced. We have had a lot of Chinese in the United States-
thousands and thousands. They have been in the United Kingdom, they have been
in Japan, but I think its a very fair estimate to say, that if you count the
hundreds and hundreds who have been trained in the Military and political
schools of Moscow from 1919 onwards up to 1949, quite a long time, and .?.i you
count those who were trained and indoctrinated in the Soviet areas of C,Ifela it-
self, they have influenced far more Chinese leaders than we have.
We are up against people who intend to do in the rest of .si.a, ex-
actly what they have done so successfully in China. It took them thiari7a :/ears
in China. I consider this the latest but not necessarily the last phase of
the struggle that we embarked upon as early as 1922 in the case of China.
These are the same men, who seized China, who are now moving into the rest of
1 Asia. I say that I feel that Japan.is the main objective but they have :alai-
tary operations on now in Indoc. ina, in Maliya, and with the Hukbola:ea)'e in.
the Philippine Islands. It is no only their military operations the i; are im-
portant, they are engaged, (and the Chinese in Formosa watched this in L'asci.-
nating horror), they are engaged in roughly the same sort of preparation on
our level. In Japan, I have been in Tokyo Imperial University many ties and
matched the student demonstrations, the Communists getting hold of the st,denbs
again as they did in China, ten or fifteen years ago, raising pho4 issues
about academic freedom, getting the whole situation confused and all the values
torn upside down. Out of this they get leadership, they find out the students
1 who behave the best from their point of View. They get them for loaders and
train them and get them into the fold. They use everything. They do not sell
themselves as Communists. They identify themselves with movements that already
exist. They are exploiting particularly the feeling of the Japanese eaLnst
rearmament.
That feeling is not as unreasoning as you would suppose en you look
into it you will find that the Japanese welcomed our occupation. The Japanese
who welcomed our occupation for the first three or Cour years, welce.e;2 it be-
cause we came as people who liberated him from the old military clique that had
ruled Japan and from the old feudal value system,of Japan. This was an ancient
system of values which to us seem strange and 44rd, that (kfected the - Lion-
ships between the sexes, between master and servant in this very hiera ical so-
ciety, They see in the return of rearmament, in the return of the military,
the return of the old feudal value system. They see the return of the author-
6
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Nor,
?
itative family, the women going back into the position they were before,
They see the clock being turned back rapidly on the social plane and they
don't like it. You may say that their attitude is unreasonable, just as you
may say that the attitude of India is unreasonable. They don't realize the
danger that lies ahead of them but when people have just been liberated from
something it is very difficult to persuade them not to go on fearing its re-
turn_, and that is what ia happening to them, In fact the Communists have been
able to whip up more anti-imperialist enthusiasm from the countries that have
been freed from the imperial powers than they could have possibly have done
when the imperial powers were still there. This is just human nature. We as-
sume that once a country is free like India or Burma that they would be de-
lighted and happy and love us ever afterwards. The, contrary is true. Once
they are able to express their emotions they express them and cherish them.
The job that we have is a complicated one, The job of pulling to-
gether as much as we possibly can, these countries of Asia into some resemblance
of a power structure that mould under pin the efforts that we are able to put
into that part of the world,
How about Japan? We seem to be in the position of men who are push-
ing a rice bawl into one hand and a gun into another. With our military pro-
grams we are pushing a gun into their hands and with our economic program, MSA,
point four, ECA, etc?, we seem to be pushing a rice bawl into the hand of the
, guy that wants to fight. Now the real thing that matters to us, of course, is
what is in the mind of the fellow, rather than what is in his belly or in his
hand. It is which way he will turn the gun, haw he is going to feel about it?
That is the question that is of real importance to us.
It is not an easy matter 'to try to get across in this area of the
world, a system of alliances and the friendship, etc., which will be favorable
to the United States, We have done pretty well in Japan and considering the
potential difficulties in Japan, extraordinarily well. There is no question
as to the anti-communist feeling of the Japanese ruling group. In fact they
were horrified in 1945 when we let all the Communists out of the prisons in
Japan, and rightly horrified. There is no question about that, but on the other
hand they have to live, and the chief problem with Japan is not the question
of military power and economic power, at the moment, It is a question of who
is going to feed Japan.
Our land reforms in Japan have improved the agricultural production
to such an extent that Japan is now where she was ten years ago. In other
words it has taken care of the normal increase in population. If we hadn?t
increased the agricultural production there would have been the normal increase
of population and Japan would have been in dire straits indeed. The problem
with Japan then is really just beginning. I have said enough about the Russian
Communist ambition here to indicate the nature of that problem. It is pretty
much a question of who is going to feed it-if you want to analyze the factor
that is going to have the greatest impact upon the power of Japan in relation
with the power structure as we would like to see it, If we cannot arrange for
Japan to be economically self-sufficient within our own orbit, then we really
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do have a tough problem on our hands and the temptation of the Communist to
exploit the situation and of many Japanese to deal with the continent and
therefore to have to accept many of the Communist's political conditions is
going to be very very great. In fact today Japanese business men are caut-
iously and carefully giving money to all parties including the Communist
party so they are quite sure that they can have a good record in case the
Communist party happens to take over. The danger is not immediate but it is
not very far off.
In the Philippines we have a situation which is much more compli-
cated. On the surface it looks very very good. Magsaysay's campaign against
the Philippine Communists, the Hukbolahapus, seems to be going ahead with full
steam and he has certainly captured quite a few of the leaders of the Philip-
pine Communist 'party, but the long range View is not quite so pleasant. In
the first place Nagsaysay's success has depended a great deal upon his very
intelligent approach to the problem. He has offerred a plow for a gun. He
has offerred land to Hukbolahaps who would give up, etc., but he unfortunately
has been unable to deliver the land with the speed which is going to be nec-
essary to make his promises seem to be fulfilled. Up to date he has only been
able to-settle two or three hundred families. There are technical problems
as to the speed with which you can cut down the forests and clear the land in
Mindanao, There are political problems of Filipino senators who cheerfully get
up and describe his relocation efforts as concentration camps. It is the
normal hazard to expect in politicians but there it is. There are political
graft and corruption in the show that are endangering his project quite a bit.
Most people feel that the general long range view is not too good even on that
level.
On the broader level the long range view is probably not so bright
either, because there is not yet any sign that the people who really run the
Philippines are willing to make the necessary changes there that will prevent
the Communists from capturing the peasantry. I am referring to the sort of
changes in the land ownership, etc., that we ourselves have put through in
Japan. They have brought over our experts, they have asked our advise, in
Japan we did remove the peasants from the Communists, but so far they have
shown no real indication of doing anything serious about it. The Communists
you see are working on a very long range pattern.
We have to accept the fight on their terms. They actually got hold
of China fifteen years before they expected it0 We know now the instructions
had gone to villages in north China to settle in for a long range conflict.
But they were there ready when the situation broke.
This raises for us the general question of how to fight it. I think
that we, all of us, agree that the military measures that we have taken are es-
sential and the more the better, that the economic measures we have taken might
or might not be useful and that is what we have to examine.
Let me try to generalize about many of these countries, Japan, the
Philippines, Indonesia, Malaya, etc. The may you fight Communism depends upon
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*ftire voie
how you analyze it. What kind of movement is it? Many people analyze it in
different ways. I have run into a good many people, for example, General
Chen Cheng on Formosa who says, "the problem for you Americans is very simple,
you just don't like Communism and you think of it on an ideological basis,
but down here in Southeast Asia the problem is not that, it is purely a
question of food, and rice is the answer to Communism." I have heard Indians
say the same thing. Give people rice and you will have no Communism. That )
(
to my mind is rubbish, complete rubbish.
Communism has a great deal to do with how much food people have,
but Communist leaders of the Communist. movement do not come from the poor0
have taken a good deal of trouble to analyze where they do come from. In
, America sixty percent of the Communists are lawyers. In the Philippines I sat
, dawn with two Hukbolahaps, two Philippine Communists, (captured of course) and
/ we w nt through the Filippino Politburo together, man by man, woman by woman,
and I asked who they were? They were the sons of the rich, sons of the big
landowners, industrialists, the big politicians, etc. Their education? Some-
times one degree, sometimes two degrees, many of them were lawyers and the
lowest amoung them had been through high school as far as education is con-
cerned. In India who are the Indian leading Communists? They eat well, have
, been well educatecUchave been through one or two colleges. Some of the big
? landowners of the south, friends of the people I was talking with, went through
school together....There was nothing poor about them. Who are the Chinese Com-
munists? Chou Enlai the foreign minister, comes from a very rich and very
sophisticated fanAly. Mao Tse-tung himself comes from a middle peasant family.
i He is literate, 4e was a librarian at the Peiping University. The movement
I was started by two Peiping College professors in 1919, so don't underestimate
college professors. The Communists use peasants and they use workers, but they
are not peasants and they are not workers0 We go about this process of handl- \
ing Communism in the Far East as if it were a movement of the poor, the dis-
\ contented and what have you. The poverty has been there for centuries. The
\ discontent has been there for centuries without Communism. The question is a
matter of leadership and a matter of doctrine. A doctrine that is powerful and
that appeals to people in certain conditions.
The Hukbolahap with whom I talked for three hours, was a lawyer who
was discontented about the state of his country. The impact of America with
its refo i zeal and of Christianity has been to arous5the social-conscious-
ness off
ar astern people but we have not always been able to provide them
with the ens rs to the problems that have come up. This sort of man went in-
to a library one day, picked up a volume of Marx and couldn't put it down
again. Why/ Because Marx and Lenin gave to him what he thought was a scien-
tific answer to the problems as he saw them, the problems of Philippine poverty,
of injustice and all the rest. This provided a scientific answer which was
compelling and convincing, to him at least. So we have a problem on that level,
a problem of destroying that doctrine, of reducing it to just another little
dogma, arid we can do it. It is a difficult job but it can be done. We can des-
troy it in its awn terns because this doctrine is not what it used to be. It
is now an instrument of state power, the state power of the Soviet Union and
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currently of Peiping. They change it when state power requires the change.
They change it whenever they want to. It is not what it was in 1917 before
they got into power. We can do this job and we've got to do it, but you can-
not do it by being ignorant of it.
Many of our troubles can be explained by their ignorance. Today
the foreign service offices are asked to read"Stalings Short History of the
Communist Partyl"one of the basic books, which should have been studied years
ago. Lenin should have been studied also0 We should be extremely well informs
on this level for it is no use going around the Far East today trying to make
any contact with the people who are making policies or with the academic world
which produces the people who are,going to make policies unless you know your
way around Marx and Lenin and Stalin. You just can't do it. You wouldn't
know what they were talking about, you wouldn't even recognize the key words,
key sentences, the key ideas and you would be completely helpless against a
sophomore from a half-baked univeristy in Manila uniwyou do know your way
around the problem. Not all of us have to hold our with these people, but;
for those of us who do its a very good idea to know your way around Communist '
doctrine. We have this problem at home as well as abroad but it is one that
has to be faced up to. It doesn't cost very much but it has to be met.
Then there is the problem of leadership. I am emphasizing this a
little because it is not usually emphasized. I am in favor, if you wish, of
point four programs and of economic assistance but only on the condition that
they make sense within the general frame work of what we are doing.
I The Communists have no objection whatsoever of United States dollars
building harbors in Bangkok, new communications, railroads, of improving the
economic life of the Filippino peasant or buildingbeautiful concrete roads,
(when they probably would rather have more dirt roads) on condition that they,
the Communists, can influence the minds of the people around there. They have
. no objections whatsoever because it gives them a target, a beautiful target,
that sayspthese Americans are doing this because they have to get rid of all
' the junk that they produce at home, it is a new form of imperialise. Sc long
\as they can control the minds of the people and take these things over, why
\should they object. There is no objection at all. So your point four program
i could actually make the job of the Communists just that much easier. It could
smooth the way and prepare it for him. It will be much easier, unless, it is
. tied up with a sensible political approach and a little more effort on the
level of trying to influence the leadership of this part of the world.
publishing houses, capturing the writersAthe fiction writers, the pamphleteers,
(f degree where they could get their ideas over in short snappy slogans and get
China, thirty years to change the whole intellectual atmosphere of China to a
action when they wanted it in 1948 and 49. Thirty years of moving into the
It cannot be done quickly. It took the Communists thirty years in
by moving into the universities, getting/hold of the students influencing the
i students and through the students the professors, etc., by moving into the whole
\ intellectual world of China in thirty years they changed the whole intellectual
\ climate of that country. They are trying to do the same thing in Japan now and
%
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in the Philippines. It will take us just as long if not longer to change it
back, to get across an idea of the things that we stand for.
Now if you happen to belong to the school of thought which says that
we don't need any allies anywhere, I am wasting my breath. If you prefer that
all battles in the world should be fought by no one but Americans, then I am
also wasting my breath. But if you think that it is a good idea to have some
friends, that we may possibly need some friends to maintain a balance of power
out in the Far East) then we have a problem on our hands0 We have all the
weapons for solving that problem, and those weapons in the final analysis are
moral weapons. Now I know there are people who disagree with this violently.
They say that the only thing that persuades people is hardware and the more
you throw at them the better. We've made a lot of hardware lately and we have
made large Atomic bombs but what about the guy that cheerfully takes the sec-
ret away and gives it to somebody else? Perhaps not enough attention has been
paid to him.
There are going to be traitors in every country but there are an
awful lot of scientists who are not yet persuaded as to the need for security
in these matters, and if you are pouring arms and ammunitions, building bases
everywhere, whattabaut the attitude of the local population? How many more
troops will you need to protect your bases if the attitude is not friendly?
This isn't a last analysigreven Napoleon said, the moral factors determined
victory." I don't know wi*ther Napoleon said the moral factors were final when
he was winning or when he was losing, I have forgotten. But he certainly said
in one stage of his career that the moral factors are the final decisive
factors. I probably realize that when you are at one end of a sixteen inch
gun, the moral factors aren't very important. When you are at the other end
it is quite important. If the guy at the business end of it says) "I am an
honorable man and will only fire when my conscious dictates it and in accord
with the highest principles)" the guy at the other end dbesn't necessarily be-
lieve him. In other words the whole reputation of the country, the way it has
generally behaved, the things it has said and stood for, but particularly what
it has done in relation to these things--these are the things that ultimately
determine whether people fight with you or against you.
From that point of view I think we have all the weapons. We couldn't
have more, we don't need any more, because the big thing that has happened and
has not yet been thoroughly noticed in the Far East today, is that we know much
more about the Communist movement than we have ever knoWn before. Secondly,
the nature of the Communist movement has changed and has changed very consider-
ably. It is now recognized for what it is, as a power, an aggressive, imperial-
istic, power structure) and our job to that extent is made just that much easier.
At the same time after the Yalta business 14 have recovered an enor-
mous amount of moral standing. All of you may not agree with this. I was told
by most people in the Far East that the one big thing that has really raised
us right back to where the American record has always been has been the stand
on the prisoner of war issue in Korea--the refusal to allow men to be shipped
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back to captivity and death if they choose not to go. This is something we
learned after the last war, but we are being watched with very shrewd eyes all
through Asia on this issue. Will we stand or will we not? They will tell you
this on Formosa. I talked with Chiang Kai-shek for sometime, and his attitude
is this, he said, "well Mr. Taylor, you've not been unfriendly to China, I
will be very frank. When the Russians choose another leader in another coun-
try, they support him and they support him to the end. and when you choose one
you let him down. Perhaps you can learn a few lesson i from the Russians." The
last part he said in Chinese and the interpretor didn't translate it, he just
blushed but I happened to get through his accent and understand what he said.
This is not limited to Chiang Kai-shek, it is all over Asia. India particularly
and in all other parts of Asia we are thought of as people who let somebody
dawn. Now, there is another side to the story, I'm not discussing that. What
I am doing is reporting impression8. The fact that we have stood firm over this
prisoner of war issue, and I hope to God continue to stand firm, has done more
- to 'recover our moral prestige in Asia than any other single thing, and it took
quite a bit after Yalta and some of the other mistakes.
If this analysis of the Communist movement is true, and I cannot ac-
cept any other, then our task is on that level. If you turn to me and say it
is just a matter of food, I will say to you, you might as well fold up your
tent now and dissappear. Have we got enough resources to put a rice bowl in
the hand of every potential Communist in the world? Of course not, on the con-
trary the situation is getting worse than that. Our economists, us that
Our awn standard of living and the Canadian standard of livingUft...going up at
the rate of two percent a year. The Standard of living of the Asiatic countries,
assuming all the help that we can give, all the point four, ECA, MSA, every-
thing that we can give is going down two percent a year, and the contrast be-
tween our standard of living and theirs is going to get worse and worse from
their point of view. So iT-Your analysis of Communism is just a matter of food
then we are licked, we're through. Obviously it is not, and if it is what I
say it is then you will have to fight it on that level.
For example, if you have a point four program, if you are improving
the agricultural situation in a certain area you must do it with native leaders
if possible, not Americans, but native leaders who see the thing in its demo-
cratic implications. Now this sounds very vague. Let me make it concrete. In
the Philippines a Hukbolahap comes up to a peasant and says, "this is a very
fine tractor you have here." The peasant says, "yes, this is an American trac-
tor, it comes through the local ECA", and the Communist says, "yes, you know why
1 you got it don't you?" He says that they over-produced these tractors and they
have to get rid of them in order to maintain their capitalistic economy and they
rammed them down the throat of your government which has to pay for them out of
the pesos they take from you." Your average American cannot answer that at all,
he just gets mad and thinks the fellow is a pretty law form of life and has no
convincing answer. If the Filippino, not the peasant but the educated Filippino
in the same village, has P correct view of democracy and the way it operates and
of capitalist democracy, if he has an alternative explanation for all of this,
which is a little closer to the truth, then there is a chance that some benefits
out of this tractor and the things that go with it might come to the democratic
,,
ause.
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1011111,
So long as the explanation does not go with it, and I do not mean
posters, or selling America like holidays in the sun, we are losing the im-
pact of our generosity. If you have your point four program with a training
program that has brought your native adatinistrators etc., into the general
awim of things as we see it, then your tractor is worth ten tractors. If you
don't you are merely making the job so much easier for the Hukbolahaps.
So the power situation as I see it in the Far East today is one
that rests pretty much on the struggle for what people think. Weeve got plenty
of hardware out there, we can send a lot more. We've still got economic re-
sourses which we can use if necesaary. The issue is going to be settled on
the question of what people think. This is not a matter of sloganized democ-
racy, of just picking up nice things out of the Bill of Rights and just throw-
ing them at the Russians--that doesn't hurt anybody. It is not a matter of
selling America. What is the use of the Voice of America telling all the peo-
ple there that you are well fed, well dressed, have good. transpOrtation, and
are well taken care of? So what? It just makes them mad. What is the use
of broadcasting about the riches and resources and the superior technology of
the United States, the high standards of living, the beautiful elms that shade
our lovely streets and then tell people they cant come. It makes them jeal-
ous, angry and annoyed. That is the advertising manes approach to the problem.
Its a waste of money. Worse than a waste of money, it means that we might
have to shoot more people in the end.
The problem is a very different one. We have all the moral values
to handle it. We have the record, we havenet been to Sunday school I know,
but by and large, compared to most people, we do have a decent record. The
most bitter Chinese on Formosa said "we. do know you don't want other peoples
territory, we do know that you don't want to run us, and that you have the
most homesick army in the world." They all want to go home. They donut like
to stay around, in other peoples countries. We are doing things to some extent
on this level but not the may its got to be done.
I am hoping therefore, that the whole energies of this country will
be put into the effort of attacking Communism where it really matters. On
leadership, by building up the counter leadership of a democratic sort in these
countries and on doctrine, by studying, constantly hammering away at it in col-
leges, and schools, here and abroad, writing about it, books, pamphlets, novels
biographies, etc., in such n. way as to make a difference.'
There is one last point to illustrate. My Hukbolahap friend said
that he had turned against the Philippine Communists. I am very interested in
this. I know how long it takes and how difficult it is for people to turn a-
way from Communism. So I said, "are there any books that helped?" He said,
"yes, I, read some books from the USIS p,brary in Manila." I said, "what did
you read?" He said, "I read, KravchtasVies, I Chose Freedom", but it is fairy-
tales. I thought that was a pretty bad beginning, so I said, "what about that
book, 1The God That Failed you You remember the book about six ex-communists
writing their experiences?" He said it was a wonderful book. I asked him what
was wonderful about it. He said, "the Silone story." I asked him what was
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wonderful about the Silone tory, which I remembered very well of course. "Well it
verbalized for me the doubts I already had in my own mind and had been afraid to admit
to myself". Here was a Catholic country, Italy, and an Italian intellectual. It was
the same sort of problems as in the Philippines, also a Catholic country. So then I
pulled out of my bag of books a book which I thought would really be new to him, a book
by Stern, a German American writing to a French Marxist, called "American Capitalism
a Classless Society," and he met the Marxist argument all the way through. I thought
it would be particularly valuable0 I said, "Look at it, it is a very good book indeed."
He had already read it and thought it very good. There are advantages in being in jail,
you at least get time for reading.
What was the record of the Japanese, not the Japanese American but the
Japanese who has been educated in America and has gone back to Japan?
I i .
: . . The record of the Japanese American of course is a very damn good one, espec-
ially in the Italian campaign, etc. The record of the Japanese who was educated here and
went back to Japan is not so good. The reasons are several. In the first place they were
thoroughly indoctrinated before coming over and Matsuoka, for example who went to the
University of Oregon, is a typical example and he just hated our guts, but he came that
way, he expected to go back that way. If he hadnut gone back that way he would have lost
his job. I talked with Japanese in Japan before the war and I asked them about the
returned student from England or America? The fellow I was talking with said, "well look
at me", he was one of them and he was not in a very important position. Back home they
had very little influence and it had becomes so especially since 1932 when the army took
over up until the war. The man who had been trained in America, or the United Kingdom,
' or western Europe had a very rough time, and if he had become an apologist in any sense
for these countries, he would have cut off his career. It was just as simple as that.
So they didnut have too much influence? After the war the thing cane out, it wasnut
wasted you see. These are the fellows who once given the opportunity to turn against
the military, turned against them with some fierceness.
,
. On the first part of your question, what is being done now to make contact
with potential Asiatic leaders, etc.?
What we are doing now is following what you might call a bilateral approach.
The Department of State and Agriculture, but mainly State, invites people from various
countries and brings them here, purely bilateral. That is very good and should be done.
But I donut think we always bring the right people. For example, the problem in China
1:before the war was with the military
ry not with the professors. We should have brought
(over hundreds and hundreds of Chinese military and not sent them either to West point or
Annapolis for most of their time. They should have been sent to places where they could
see our whole society in operation. Those were the boys who fouled the thing up after the
war and they had no may of getting on with the Chinese intellectuals and the Communists
came over and. neutralized the intellectuals, you see. They may bring over the wrong
people but the idea s all right. It is much more important to mix up the peoples of Asia.
They are isolated?. je know much more about Asia than any Asiatic. At the University of
Calcutta, I said, "'how many Indian professors can read Chinese?" They said possibly three.
le
Three hundred and fifty million people and po ? y only three Indian professors. Now
there are more Indians who speak Chinese, bu a _the academic profession. For every
Indian Who has been to China there are hundr4asousantlp of Americans, for every book
thy ,ave on China we have libraries, for every course they have in their universities, we
haiie rriculum.
A
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41W
'tare
The Filippino is completely ignorant of any other part of Asia. They have no
professors of Chinese history, politics, or Japanese, etc., in their universities. We
have more in my institute here than they have in the Philippines. Japan is the best
Pinformed", course, the Japanese have been around a bit, but they haven't been around
::
n the las ten years so they are getting out of date. So we have to mix these people
up, because in isolation they are duck soup for the Communists. They can get them to
believe anything. They have ideas about America that are p)posterous it makes you
(
weep.
So this aspect of the program should be stepped up, not just for giving these
people a good time in the United States but getting all these people together to do meaningful
jobs together. We assume this with Europe. There are all sorts of levels upon which we have
contact with "Europeans labor unions, professional societies, academic societies, science, etc.
I lectured at the war college in Formosa several times and after one of my lectures
the general said, "what would you think of our using a Chinese division in Korea and rotating
it so that the whole army will get experience?" I said, "I think it would be a wonderful
idea if you want to make sure that the truce talks will come to an immediate end," which was
his idea of course. I couldn't blameqhini from his point of view. I personally never thought
they would come to anything anyway so.couldn't pick much a quarrel with him, ey apparently
had complete confidence that if their men were used in Korea they wouldat4 themselves
honorably and well. I went down. with Admiral Radford 's group to see the bi: shoot in Formosa
when he was there, and I know he was impressed.land to a layman like myself, it was quite im-
pressive too. The officers didn't sip tea whilie the men were clambering up the hills. They
went up with them, and General Chase has accomplished apparently quite a lot there. Chaing
Kai-shek said, "if I can get upon any part of the main land and hold it for six months the
we are on our way. If I ever get thrown off it is no use going back again for a very long
time. It is my problem to select a place where I am sure I can get the cooperation of the
people."
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