Evening star., 1952-11-14
Warning to the Free World

warning 10 tne FYee W0rld
In his address here to the Overseas Writers,
Ambassador Frederick L. Anderson-one Of our
top air commanders in the Second World War
and now deputy special representative of the
Mutual Security Administration in Europe-has
set forth thesis SOLDERING enough to serve as
solemn warning to all free nations.
The thesis has to do particularly with the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but it ap-
plies generally to the entire non-Soviet world
For that world, according to Ambassador Ander-
son, "is entering a period more difficult and po-
tentially more dangerous than any it has known
since the early years of the last war"-a period
that will require not only extraordinarily con-
structive leadership and high degree of public
understanding and response" but also "interna-
tional cooperation and organization far beyond
that which exists today"
Why is this so? The basic answer given by
Mr.. Anderson is that the Kremlin, as revealed
at the recent Communist Congress in Moscow,
has adopted a new program calculated Ito lull,
divide, discourage, embitter and conquer the
alliance OF free nations opposing Soviet aims"
The program is to be sly and subtle. It is to be
made up of ceaseless propaganda about peace
full co-existence." It is to include at the same
time covert efforts to disrupt world trade and
strain the economies Of the Atlantic Powers in
way that will promote chronic idleness and
action to relax pressure on NATOs European
members "by easing fears of invasion, by aban-
doning direct and uncouth methods of internal
subversion" and by resorting to other moves de-
signed to make the comfort-loving peoples of
the West question and largely deny the need for
rearmament and for making the sacrifices neceS-
sary to develop" the kind of political, economic
and military unity they must have to survive
against the implacable threat of Red subjugation.
AS Mr.. Anderson has analyzed it, this divide
and-conquer program Is based on three major
assumptions by the men of the Kremlin D
That the Soviet Union, because it is a ruthless
dictatorship ruling an empire extending from the
Elbe to the China Sea, is much better equipped
than the free nations to play waiting game;
(2) that the Atlantic community, with the Iron
Curtain cutting it off from a vast area of its
former international market, is incapable of suS-
tanning over long period its present economic
and military defense effort; and CD that strains,
tensions, unemployment unfriendly competition
and bad feeling will therefore steadily mount
among the capitalistic countries several of
which-notably France and Britain-will break
away from the NATO alliance. OF course, these
assumptions which include a prediction that
Japan and Germany will also desert the Western
cause in due time-are full of numerous flaws.
Nevertheless, as Mr.. Anderson has warned, they
contain "a great deal of penetrating insight into
the extremely difficult problems that our world
must now cope with effectively or invite ultimate
defeat by the Red totalitarians.
What makes this situation particularly hard
to handle is the fact in Mr. Anderson's words,
that it does not present itself in the form of
dramatic and immediate crisis and hence
"arouses no powerful compulsion to counter
action" Yet it must be dealt with as matter
of urgency. It must be met by the United States
and lke-minded nations with great cooperative
measures aimed at maintaining their armed pre-
paredness, keeping their economies strong with
stepped-up productivity and mutual trade, and
insuring against the kind of differences that
could shatter their alliance. Without such long
term measures the West, despite its steady gain
in military power, will face the danger of grave
breach in it's political, moral and economic de-
fenses-a breach through which the Kremlin
would march to achieve its goal of world con-
quest.
Mr.. Anderson, who does not doubt that the
free world can make itself interchangeable If it
has the will to do so, is far from being an
alarmist. But he has not minced words in warn
ing against the consequences of taking too
little-too-late approach to this immense problem
of countering the new Soviet program It is a
problem likely to top all others confronting the
incoming Eisenhower administration, and very
large measure of brains, Drawn and unwavering
resolution will be needed to solve it.