Evening star., 1951-12-07
Ten Years Later

Gil CUIS LQtGF
It is easy to be cynical or despairing about
what has happened since the Japanese attack
on Pearl Harbor 10 years ago today-"a date
which will live in infamy." With the first shock
of that terrible event, ours was wondrously
united Nation inspired by high resolve, in
alliance with a great coalition of friends, to
smash the Rome Berlin Tokyo Axis and win a
victory that would insure decent and lasting
world peace.
Not many months later, after our allies
abroad had bought precious time for us with
their own blood, the full power of thoroughly
modified United States-combined air, sea and
land power without precedent in the history of
the world-was thrown against the foe First
Italy fell, then Germany, and finally, with the
awesome atomic bomb climaxfng everything,
Japan was through. Some four years after
Pearl Harbor, our Axis enemies lay shattered
in total defeat. We and our friends could hardly
have won more complete victory Peace-a
good peace, an enduring peace, nobly run
global system Of collective security-then seemed
to many of us to be not too far in the offing.
But soon we learned that one of our war
time friends was not really our friend. The
Soviet Union-whose agents have since subverted
such other former allies as China-lost no time
in making clear that it was intent upon moving
into the vacuums of power created by the down.
fall of Italy, Germany and Japan. Far from
wanting to establish good peace, it left no room
for doubt that it proposed to become the master
OF Europe and Asia, and ultimately of the whole
world. So, recognizing 1t for what it is-an
atomic-armed totalitarian tyranny in some ways
deadier than the tyranny of Mussolini, Hitler
and Tojo-we and the rest Of the free nations,
forgetting about peace, have been obliged to
rearYn in GREAT npw coalition rpanized tn cnDo
on global scale with the threat of Red aggres-
sion, which has already led to limited but very
costly and very bloody war in Korea With a
kind OF imperative irony moreover, we have
made our enemies of yesterday our allies of
today-the Italians the Germans Tin the West)
and the Japanese, who only 10 years ago were
branded with the brand of infamy.
On this day. therefore, in these circunn-
stances, our allied triumph in the Second World
War lends itself only too readily to lampooning
commentaries. Wholly apart from their hind
sight criticism and ridicule of the course of
foreign policy since VI day, the cynics can say
with Pyrrhus, "One more such victory and we
are undone" and they can go on from there to
drag out all the old cliches about how everything
has turned to ashes In the mouth. Yet, what
ever the mistakes of the past or the ironies and
Establishments of the present, the fact remains
that the vast armies of the brave who fought and
died to defeat the Axis did not fight and die in
vain. Within recent years, their sacrifices may
seem to have yielded bitter fruit, but what ought
to be remembered at all times is the immensity
of the evil that they crushed. AS far as America
is concerned, we can appreciate this the better
II we try to visualize where we would be now,
and what would have become of our freedom and
greatness, had Mussolni Hitler and TOTO con-
quered Europe and Asia and then concentrated
their full fury and limitless power on us.
1t is true. of couyse, that the potentialities
of the Soviet threat-what with the advent of
atomic weapons and the revolutionary advances
OF air power-are even more menacing than the
dangers we faced when the Axis was In its prime.
But that does not alter the fact that the situa-
ton confronting us today, leaving aside poten-
tialities, would in all probability be far worse
than it is if the Fascists the Nazis and the
japanese war lords had full control of Europe
and Asia. The men of the Kremlin, much as
they are striving for it, are still long way from
having such control and they will never get
1t If the United States-which no longer can
count on having time bought for it-goes for
ward with the rest of the free world in building
up powerful defensive system against aggres-
sion.
Indeed, assuming that this build-up is car
ried through to completion, there will be better
than-even chance that the Russians-having in
mind what happened to the Axis-will never dare
to challenge the might of the free world Instead,
In time, they may well shift to policy of CO.
operation, or at least to policy of non-aggres-
sion 1t is not for nothing that Prime Minister
Churchill has just declared that the danger of
a third world war has lessened since 1948 Actu-
ally, on this 10th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
regardless of the cynics and Cassandras, there
Is still reason to hope for good peace no matter
how slow it may be in coming