Evening star., 1949-07-22
A Pact for Peace

The Senates resounding ratification of
an event of the greatest historical i'm
portance. Rejecting the fears and hopes
of free men everywhere, it serves notice
| on the whole world that the United States,
| in concert with eleven like minded nations.
| is committed to use all its actual and po-
tential might if necessary, in mutual
| effort to punish and repel an attack from
any quarter on any member of the pact.
In effect, in terms of present-day realities,
| what it means is that we are now solemnly
| joined with our friends in Europe in a
| defensive alliance designed to promote
peace by deterring the Soviet Union from
further aggression against the West.
| 1t cannot be emphasized too strongly
| that this commitment-in many ways more
| important and more historic than the proc
| lamation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1928
represents a far-reaching new departure
in our traditional peacetime foreign policy
Heretofore, except during wars, we have
limited such compacts to the Western
Hemisphere. But now, in manner that
reduces our past isolationism to mere
ghost haunting the fringes Of American
public opinion, we have projected our
power clear across the Atlantic to merge
it with the power of our allies in great
cooperative undertaking to hang to-
gether lest we all hang separately In
short depending on the gravity of the
attack, we have told Russia in advance that
If it strikes westward again, it will be
asking for war at once not merely with its
immediate European victims but with us
as well.
We have not done this in an impulsive,
an emotional, sentimental or an altruiStic
spirit On the contrary growing out Of
the Vandenberg resolution enacted by the
Senate a year ago last June, theN Atlantic
Pact has been negotiated, signed and now
ratified only after long months of careful
study and debate in the light of the hard
realities of these unhappy times. One of
those realities is the simple but profoundly
important fact that the size of the world
has grown small in the age Of the atom
and supersonic flight. Another is that in
such a world, with the oceans on either
side of us ceasing to be the protective
barriers they once were, our own freedom
and security depend in large measure on
the freedom and security of our friends
abroad.
Above all, there is this third reality:
That ever since the end of the Second
World War the Soviet Union, by word and
deed, has repeatedly sabotaged the United
Nations effort to build good and enduring
peace It has played the role of a rapaciouS
lone wolf. On a ne-by -one basis. it has
subverted and virtually absorbed nearly
dozen once-independent lands, and it has
left no room for doubt that it covets the
whole of Europe. And If it had the whole
of Europe, of course, it probably would soon
have Britain, in which case the United
States-alone, friendless, sandwiched be-
tween hostile Europe and hostile Asia
ultimately would find itself facing the
gravest menace in it's history.
In such circumstances, the Senate's rati-
fcation of the Atlantic Pact, besides being
vastly encouraging and helpful to Western
Europe, may be viewed as an act OF en-
lightened American self-interest. Senator
Taft and his twelve ay-saying col
leagues (who would merely shake their
fists, tell Russia to beware of us, and do
nothing more to back up their tough
words fear that it may lead to war, but
there is every reason to believe that it
will do just the opposite. For it creates
a gigantic partnership of well over
300, 100000 people whose skill, industrial
power, agricultural output and military
potential, if properly integrated, cannot
be matched by the Soviet world-a fact
likely to deter the Kremlin from embark
ing on new adventures against the West
In that sense, therefore, the Atlantic
Pact may rightly be called a pact for peace.
It will serve not merely the interests OF
our European friends, not merely our own
interests, but also the interests of the
world at large. 1t will do so because If
the Western nations organize strong
defensive front under it, and If at the
same time they surmount the dollar crisis
and push forward with the Marshall Plan,
the Russians are likely to find themselves
so outweighed in the international balance
of economic and military power that they
will feel an inner compulsion to drop their
aggressive policy, abandon the cold war;
and start cooperating in the United
Nations for genuine system of collective
security.
But all this, wholly apart from the prob
lem of economic recovery, is dependent on
how we'll the Atlantic Pact is put to work.
Now that it has been ratified, the defense
committee envisioned in Article 9 must be
set up to define and effectuate the mutual
aid called for in Article 8. In addition,
Congress will have to take action on the
military assistance program proposed by
the State Department. There is no moral
or legal obligation to vote for that program,
but consistency and the clear necessities of
the hour demand that something like 1t
even if on a reduced scale-be enacted.
This is no time for half measures. With
the Marshall Plan and the North Atlantic
Treaty, we have wrested the initiative from
the Russians. If we move forward now