Evening star., 1950-09-30
Our Guard Must Stuy Up (.

4uOuSIl IL Is Observation-Disclosures tIiOuS1l IL LncdAS
that American and Allied arms are winning
great and significant victory under the flag of
the United Nations, the news from Korea ought
not to lead any of us into the wishful thought
that now we can relax and return to business and
life as usual Nothing could be farther from the
truth. Nothing could be less In keeping with the
hard realities of this day and age. Nothing
could be more helpful to the men of the Kremlin
and their relentless conspiracy to spread their
tyranny everywhere through direct and indirect
aggression.
For the fact is-as has been emphasized by
President Truman and General Bradley chair
man of our Joint Chiefs of Staf-that the United
States and the rest of the free world cannot let
their guard down now without gravely endanger-
ing themselves. Winning the war in Korea
represents only a phase of what we. must yet
achieve if we to be safe, if we are to prevent
an all-out global conflict, If we are to survive
and win that conflict in case it cannot be pre-
vented. The defeat of the puppet North Korean
Reds has not ended the towering menace Of
these times. That menace still casts its shadow
in every direction, and to cope with it, to hold
1t in check and guard against its destroying our
way of life, we must carry through with an
unprecedented peacetime preparedness program
in the years Immediately ahead.
The program is one of large and costly
dimensions It calls for billions of dollars in
American ornaments aid to our friends abroad.
It calls for the creation, under the Atlantic Pact,
of unified and greatly enlarged Allied defensive
forces in free Europe. It calls for the dispatch
of additional divisions of our troops to Western
Germany. 1t calls for a far-reaching speed-up in
our military production here at home. 1t calls
for sharp increase in the size of our Army, Navy
and Air Force to a personnel level of at least
3 million men. 1t calls, in short, for the con-
version of our country into kind of semiarmed
camp plus proportionate exertionS by all powers
in alliance with us. And it means, as far as our
civilian society is concerned, much higher taxes,
a complex of economic controls, and the imposi-
tion of numerous other individual and collective
restraints for years to come.
With victory on the way in Korea, all this
may strike many Americans as unnecessary, and
that feeling is likely to grow if the world at large
seems to quiet down in the immediate future
Accordingly, no one should be surprised If the
Russians, in line with their recent shift to more
temperate behavior, now undertake to speak with
increasing SoftneSs and to launch some kind of
peace" offensive. BY so doing by easing tensions
in trouble spots like Germany, by appearing to
be conciliatory and by putting on a show of
moderation in general, they might hope to lull
everybody into a false sense of security and to
play upon public psychology in such way as to
bring about a marked showdown in the efforts
now being made by the United States and the
other Western Powers to build UP collective
defensive strength.
Here is danger to be guarded against. We
must refuse to be hoodwinked by soft words or
empty gestures. We must hold fast to the course
that has been set. With everything that the
years have taught us since the end of the Second
World War, we must keep constantly in mind this
major lesson: That If we do not look to our arms,
if we do not get back at least part of the strength
we senselessly threw away after 1945, we shall be
inviting the Russians to walk all over us. Until
they themselves disarm substantially, do away
with their Iron Curtain agree to atomic control,
and otherwise demonstrate that they really want
peace, we must continue to prepare for the worst
We cannot do less without risking our survival
as a free nation.