Evening star., 1948-10-02
America Seen Played
For. Sucker in Many
Par|eys With Russia
precipitoting Of Crisis
After Crisis Called Safe
Come for Red Leaders
By Frank r. Kent

Come for Red Leaders
By Frank r. Kent
Looking over the years since the
United Nations was born in San
Francisco, it seems impossible to-
escape the conclusion that the Rus
sian leaders have made complete
monkeys of us. This is not said in
criticism either Of our State De-
partment or of our President but
merely to present plainly the big
basic fact behind all the confer
ring, negotiating, friction and crises
since 1945.
The plain truth is that we have
been played for suckers from the
start. And it has been an easy game
for the Soviets to play. Because, in
our dealings with them we have
been frank, open and sincere.
Never have they been any of those
things with us.
This is not a case of Sanctimoni-
ously ascribing all the virtues to
oneself and obstinately conceding
none to the other side. The evi-
dence Overwhelmingly sustains the
statement. Neither our people nor
our representatives started out feel
ing that way. We started out be-
lleving there was good faith and
good will on the part of the Rus
slams as well as on our part; that
it was only a question of being
patient, reasonable and understand
ing in order to get together for the
health of the world. There are ex-
tremely few naive enough to believe
that now. On the contrary, the con-
viction has been forced that the
Russian objectives are wholly diff
ferent from ours.
Took Long to Realize.
Agreements and cooperation lead
toward the goals for which we
strive but they lead directly away
from the Russian goals. 1t took
longer for us to realize this than
1t should. though had we grasped
the reality earlier it is not likely
our course would have been very
different.
Even now, though the illusions of
being able to get the Soviets to
cooperate and agree have been
lost, we continue to negotiate, con-
fer and hope, despite the fact that
three years of negotiations and a
dozen or more conferences have
shown the futility of doing so. 1t
is no use trying to negotiate with a
nation whose fixed policy is not to
agree nor confer with one who won't
cooperate. The present critical
state of affairs at the United Ma
tions meeting in Paris but confirms
the belief most of our informed
representatives have had for a long
time.
In the fact of our experience, it
seems stupid to continue hopefully
to confer 1t makes the rest of the
world look silly to permit this one
nation to block the road to peace
and reconstruction. But it especially
makes us look silly because, while
Soviet strategy continues to nullify
negotiations, the Soviet effort to
sabotage the American system is
constantly pressed. Their multiply
ing spies permeate our Government
Their agents take over our labor
unions in order to promote economic |
paralysis. Their plans for altering
our way of life continue to be |
pushed. A more mortifying position
for the United States can hardly be /
imagined.
That Russia wants war is an idea !
no longer entertained by those in
best position to know the facts.
Chaos, not resort to arms, is held
the Soviet goal. For chaos is the
surest way to destroy throughout
the world the system of free enter
prise which they label capitalism
and aim to supplant with Commu-
nism. There is no other reasonable
explanation of Soviet policy than
this. No other theory fits into their
long record of United Nations
vetoes and conference refusals to
cooperate except that the Soviet
leaders believe they can achieve
chaos without resort to war. This
is the only theory that makes logi-
cal their opposition to the Marshall
plan, their extreme recalcltrancy
in Berlin, their refusal to cooper
ate on the atomic-energy issue, their
general policy in Paris.
Safe Plan for Soviet.
Considering their goal, it is a i
safe plan. Because, without risk,
they can precipitate crisis after
crisis that bring us to the very
brink of war. Fully aware that
neither ourselves nor the British
will initiate war-that, in fact, we
will go the extreme limit to avoid
war-the Soviet leaders can safely
pursue their provocative policies to
the point where one more inch
would make war inevitable-with-
out going that inch. The longer
they can delay European recovery,
postpone international cooperation
and weaken the American economy
by compelling us to pour out bill
lions for defense as we'll as for aid
to PROSTATE nations, the greater
the chance of the chaos for which
they aim.
The great question is how long we
can permit this obvious game to be
played? The Russians will not de-
clare a shooting war and we cannot
fight unless they start it. But, some
thing has to be done. The United
Nations cannot function but it is |
not a dying body. There is no serl-
Gus suggestion of killing it to start
all over again. But there is an
earnest debate on means of by
passing the veto and forming asso-
Citations under Article 81 to break
the Soviet blockade on action and
put an end to an intolerable stu