Evening star., 1951-03-27
Freedom and the Americas

IN MS welcoming aQdfeSS to the Foreign
Ministers of the American Republics, President
Truman has defined in plain terms why it is
imperative for this hemisphere to keep on per-
fecting its policy OF good neighborliness-a
policy aimed at promoting the greatest possible
degree OF POLITICAL economic and military
solidarity between ourselves and our sister
nations to the south.
The need for such continuing effort is
clear enough. It exists in an urgent form, as
the President has said for this simple but grim
reason: "The aggressive expansion Of Soviet
power threatens the whole world. In Europe
we see 1t trying to enguf the nations from
which we have drawn our cultural heritage. If
Soviet subverson and Soviet armed force were
to overthrow these nations, the consequences for
all Of us in the Western Hemisphere would be
disastrous. We would lose those cultural and
religious ties which mean so much to us. The
international trade on which we are so depend
ent would be violently disrupted. Worst of all,
we would be confronted by hostile power on
the shores Of the Atlantic, capable of using the
great economic resources of our conquered
friends to strike across the ocean at our own
independence"
It is primarily because Of this threat-which
has darkened not only Europe but Asia as well
that the 2l-nation Inter American Conference
has been called into session at the request Of
the United States. The meeting Is the fourth
of its kind since 1889. In that year, and again
in 1910 and 1912, the Foreign Ministers of our
hemisphere gathered together to form a conl-
mon front against the menacing pattern Of
encirclement that took shape as the Berlin
Rome Tokyo Axis moved from separate acts Of
aggression to q concerted aIl-out war for world
domination. Today the pattern is the same.
The only thing different is that this time instead
of Hitler Mussolini and TOTO, the wouldbe con-
querors are the men Of the Kremlin, who in
some ways-with their massive military power,
their ruthless totalitarianism and their globe
encircling system of acknowledgement a
graver danger than any ever before faced by the
Americas.
That is why the business before the current
conference is thing Of very great Importance.
What it calls for is agreement and action in
three broad fields: Cd Intensified political and
military cooperation for hemisphere defense;
a. concerted measures to strengthen the in
ternal security of all the American republics;
and 90 emergency economic collaboration to
increase the output of raw materials and cope
with inflationary pressures, shortages of certain
types of goods and kindred problems created by
the world crisis. Wholly apart from the ls47
Rio de Janeiro Treaty. for mutual assistance
against aggression, machinery already exists for
the execution of whatever decisions are reached
on these matters, including anti-subversion
work, armament aid and the use of armed forces.
This machinery-the exact like of which can be
found nowhere else in the worlds in being
because the Americas long ago recognized that
their interdependence required the development
OF farreaching cooperative system.
OF course, not all of the countries taking
part in this latest Inter-American Conference
see eye to eye. They differ from each other in
many respects. Some tend to be mavericks.
Some authoritarian. Argentina, for example,
has been moving more and more toward a
complete dictatorship under General Peron, and
that fact in itself has cast shadow on the
meeting. Yet, despite the diversities, the strains
and the rivalries that exist among them, these
81 nations are nevertheless unity in that they
share in common the rich heritage of the free
West, are inhabited by people with liberty
deeply rooted in their traditions, are overwhelm-
ingly opposed to Communist totalitarianism, and
are firmly committed to the idea of working
together for their mutual enrichment and the
preservation of their independence
Accordingly, there is reason for confidence
that the current conference will result in a
further Strengthening Of inter-American CO.
operation along the lines advocated by President
Truman-co-operation in which this hemisphere
will concert its defenses and combine its
strength not merely for its own sake but for
the sake of the free world at large. In any case,
we can be sure that most of the Foreign Min
listers now meeting here are sufficiently aware
OF the Soviet threat to appreciate the need for
such action.