Evening star., 1949-04-04
Churchill Seen Puttinq
Too Much Emphasis on
Armed Might in Talk
Attitude Held to Be Wrong
When Peace Is Needed to
Prevent Atomic Conflict
By David Laurence


portraying a point of view that
went so far as to deny the doc
trine Of self determination" Of
peoples. Americans who are en-
tranced by the lit of the Churchill
phrases and the historic consis-
tency of his approach to world
affairs know very little of why the
same Mr.. Churchill and his party
are not in power in Britain today.
For the Labor party is in Office
in England and President Tru-
man, acting on the advice of the
State Department, did not join in
the Boston ceremonies at time
when Foreign Secretary Bevin Of
the Labor cabinet is here to sign
the North Atlantic Pact. Mr.. Tru-
man could not appear to be lend
ing the presidential prestige-as
observed abroad-to the Churchill
address. Once before, when the
former Prime Minister spoke Mt
Fulton. Mo, and President Tru-
man attended, there were reper-
cussions in Europe.
The admiration of Americans
for Britain's wartime Prime Min
lister has grown rather than di-
minished with the years, and
rightly so because his service was
unexampled. But the same prag-
matism and unawareness Of the
deep social currents that are astir
in the postwar world and which
lost for Winston Churchill the
leadership of the British people
in economic reconstruction can be
perceived in his analysis of world
problems.
Distinction Is Drawn.
There runs through the
Churchill speech an assumption
that military might is the sole
answer to the friction between the
East and the West and that If
war is to be averted there must
come collapse from within Rus
sia on the death of Prime Minis
ter Stain or an acceptance by
Russia of the weight of the powers
balanced against her.
True enough, there was the GUS
tomary distinction drawn by Mr..
Churchill between the legitimate
aspirations of the Russian people
and those illegitimate. if not un-
scrupulous, aims, of the 13 men
in the Kremlin. But there was
little else in the speech on which
to base a positive program Of war
prevention.
It has become quite common
place for world figures to talk of
military force as if it offered the
only solution or else to emphasize
a military alliance of superior
might as the only key to world
security. This results partly from
q sense of disbursement and
despair over, the annoying and
harassing tactics pursued by the
Soviet rulers, which has produced
deep evaporation. 1t results also,
however. from a sense of fear and
distrust.
The whole thesis of every speech
of which the one by Mr.. Churchill
Is typical is that military force
is the only language the Russian
government understands and that
but for the atomic bomb the
Communist armies would have
overrun Europe.
Questionable Point.
To accept this thesis, however.
does not explain the almost total
indifference to those appeals to
reason and moral law which can
be utilized to drive wedge be-
tween the Russian government
and the peoples of Russia and the
satellite states. The usual answer
is that such pleas cannot pene-
trate the Iron Curtain" or that
they are wasted on the deaf ears
of a materialistic government in
Moscow. This is a questionable
point, however, for the course of
the Russian rulers could be
changed if there were signs of a
popular negation of any policy
that seemed to lead to war.
The very fact that the Soviet
press gave so much space to the
proceedings of the so-called cul-
tural and scientific conference for
world peace held in New York a
week ago under auspices sympa-
thetic to Russia is sign that the
Russian leaders seek to impress
their people with the belief that
peace is being vigorously sought.
What an opportunity there is
for a world figure to expound
with spiritual courage the philos-
ophy of reason and the moral
law and thus to challenge the
ingenuity of man to devise ways
of using his head instead of his
fists in building a new way of
life for nations! Ideas from time
immemorial have penetrated the
thickest of iron curtains and as
yet the Allied statesmen have not
perceived that the language of
democracy nowadays is full of the
proud phrases of intimidation and
the boast of military proweSs.
Against MARKHAM theology
something more is needed. con-
tanning the promise of a better
world for the average man than
the prospect of another period of
war. Mr.. Churchill had a great
opportunity to interpret the ideals
of the postwar world, but he
passed it by. 1t was the speech
of 1912 or 1888 but hardly the
theme of 1949 as the world num-
bers by the fingers of the hand