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Is It Immoral to Strike~Fir.st II Attack Is lmwL~f!JL 

A Strong Case Is Made That the United States Is Not Morally Bound to Wait ;2.J.4-~w ~i.> 

For a Blow That Might Cripple It Beyond Reprisal and Mean Practical Annihilation 

By Edmund A. Walsh, S. J. 

Vice President, Georgetown University 

Regent, School of foreign Service 

The President's proclamation of 

December 16, declaring a state of national 

emergency, marked the end of what is 

probably the most amazing and confused 

chapter in the history of American foreign 

policy. The official description Jlnd recognition of the objectives of world communism by the presidential decree put 

the issue, at long last, exactly where it 

belongs. The final confrontation has 

been reached between the two great centers of world power whose basic and 

irreconcilable character was frankly 

described by Soviet authorities many years 

ago. They never had a moment's doubt 

as to the inevitable clash that must ensue. 

Lenin knew it and warned his followers: 

"We live ••• not only ~n a state but 

a system of states, and the existence of 

the Soviet Republic side by side with the 

imperialist states (i.e., non-Communist 

states) for a long time is unthinkable. 

In the end either one or the other wm 

conquer. Ana until that end comes, a 

series of the most terrible collisions between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois states is inevitable." 

After citing this fundamenatl Soviet 

doctrine, Stalin once added thP lacon\c 

remark: "Clear, otie would think." 

Vishinsky's Wor:ds Are Hollow 

In 1927 he likewlse declared to a 

conclusive, moreover, by the new and 

inescapable fact of total warfare. 

The degeneration in international conduct since 1939 and the evil of total war 

have produced profound public consequences. There is no longer a battle front 

in the conventional sense; there is no 

longer a defined and limited zone of combat occupied by military forces, by men 

who are expected to run the risks of 

soldiers, leaving a rear territory inhabited 

by civilians not subject to the same hazards under the old concept of warfare. 

Today the total population is involved; 

the needs of technological developments 

embrace so much organization for armament and for supply that the battle front 

has moved into every city, town and 

village. There is no rear; there is no 

escape; and there is no shield of legal 

status. What is of immediate concern, 

then, is definition and clarification of the 

issue raised by President Truman's reference to necessjty and the welfare of the 

United States, followed by his authorization to proceed wtih production of the 

hydrogen bomb. 

Direct assault launched against us by 

an enemy who is known to have the 

·atomic pomb-and no power would now 

attack the United States without it--

raises one type of qu~stion not too difficult 

tci ·answer:·-we shoUld have If:> 'lter1iative but to retaliate in kind. A second 

question is more compelling and it is with 

this that we are here concerned: Would 

of attack. Primitive man was justified 

in exercising his right to strike a preventive blow when he saw a bare fist 

descending on him at arm's length, or a · stone lifted against him. In the course 

,of time he saw an ax uplifted, a dagger 

'drawn, then a sword thrust at him, then 

a spear leveled, then an arrow fitted to 

a bowstring. The danger, though moving 

back in space, was still immediate and 

certain in time. With the invention of 

gunpowder, the assailant moved farther 

and farther away; but no basic change 

was introdu(:ed in the elements of certainty and immediacy of attack. Then, 

long-1·ange artillery, though discharging 

explosives from emplacements even out 

of sight and miles away, could menace 

life and limb with equal certainty and 

immediacy. 

Distance Means Little 

Now comes the age of air power, with 

military aviation carrying flaming death 

from bases located 3,000, 5,000 miles away. 

Aircraft carriers far out at sea, flying 

bombs, guided missiles, jet bombs and 

atomic explosives can now be a certain 

and immediate menace from evergrowing distances in this era of globalminded-warfare. Who shall maintain 

that the substantive and inherent ·right 

Qf self-defense is canceled out by an· 

accidental circμmstance or by the ingenuity of an aggressor in a chemical 

laboratory? 

The Japanese air force which bombed