Evening star., 1949-07-07
Necessity's Child

Is so clear ana competing IN IeTIHS OF IIle
hard logic of these times that there Is
nothing surprising about the fact that
only ten or twelve Senators are expected
to vote against its ratification. Actually,
If there is any surprise involved at all, 1t
has to do with the question of how these
relatively few men have come to believe
that it is wrong, or unwise, or dangerous
for the free Western World to defend
itself against the self-evident threat OF
direct and indirect Soviet aggression.
Certainly, If necessity is the mother of
invention, it is also the mother of the At
lantic Pact. There was a time during
the Second World War when every one
hoped that all nations would cooperate
in establishing decent peace. Not long
after the total surrender of the Axis, how
ever, the Soviet Union made clear that it
was interested in something else. 1t was
interested in capitalizing on chaos and the
vacuums of power in order to spread Its
dominance over as large an area of the
globe as possible, against any land too
weak to resist
AS far as Europe is concerned, that pol
icy has already reduced nearly a dozen
once independent countries to vassal
police states bound tightly to Moscow in
the dark world of terror and suppression
behind the Iron Curtain. The policy,
moreover, has been so obviously aimed at
subjugating and sovietizing the remaining
free lands that those lands, or at least
some of them, probably would be in the
Kremlin's pocket today had nothing been
done to save them. In short, had there
been no counteraction, our free Western
civilization would have been flirting with
suicide by inviting the Red totalitarians
to come in and take over.
The counteraction has been made up
of a number of key measures fitting into
a single paternity our aid to Greece
and Turkey; (2) formation of the So
called Western Union by Britain, France,
Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxem-
bourg; 90 the Marshall Plan for Euro
pean Recovery; and "a negotiation of the
North Atlantic Treaty. The treaty con-
stitutes the most important step of all,
pledging the" United States and eleven
like-minded nations to consider an at
tack upon one as an attack upon all and
to consult and act together in mutual de-
fenSe against such an attack, whether
actual or threatened. In effect, it is an
alliance aimed at uniting 350,00O, 900 peo-
pie whose industrial and other resources,
if properly integrated, would heavily out
weigh those of the Soviet world in any
test of power.
What the pact represents, in. other
words, is an effort by the free West to
oh ho ho1 Of in
culated to prevent war by deterring fur.
ther Russian aggression. When the Sem
ate ratides it-as expected-the United
States will be making a profoundly sig
nificant revision in its traditional peace
time foreign policy. which heretofore has
limited such alliances to the western
Hemisphere. But the revision will be in
keeping with the realities of our day. The
world has changed tremendously. 1t Is
small now. The oceans are not the pro-
tective barriers they once were. In the
age of the atom and supersonic fight, our
own freedom and safety depend largely on
the freedom and safety of our friends
abroad. If they fall, then our own Nation
will be gravely imperiled.
That is the basic logic behind the At
lantic Pact and the related steps that
have been taken by the West. Soviet
policy and the nature of the modern world
have made them necessary and proper
regard for safety and self-preservation de-
mandS that we press forward with them
as vigorously as possible. Thus, as pointed
out the other day by General Walter
Bedeu Smith, our former Ambassador to
Moscow, it is true enough that they have
already checked the Red tide in Europe,
but the cold war is contest of indefinite
DURATION and that tide will start rolling
again If we rest on our oars. We must
not slow down or hesitate in any respect.
Among other things for example, we
should lose no time in backing the pact
with limited ornaments aid
For the truth is, as Senator Connally
has just declared, that the Russians will
exploit any show of Western weakness,
whereas continued frmness will make
them think long and hard before en-
barking on new adventures. Overwhelm-
ing ratification of the Atlantic Treaty will
not incite them; it will sober them. Ell
fectively applied along with the other
measures being jointly undertaken by the
free world, the pact can do much to pro-
mote peace Despite the handful of op-
posing Senators. it is not wrong, not un-
wise, not dangerous. What it really is is
one of the great imperatives of our time.
Had something like it existed in 1889,
Hitler-the brown-shirt Stalin-might
never have marched.