Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1953-08-06
The President on Indo-Chino

President Eisenhower has not overstated
the case in declaring to the Governors con-
ference at Seattle that Communist conquest
of Indo-China would be an event of most
terrible significance to the United States of
America" There can be no question about
that. glance at the map, plus cursory
consideration of the resources located in that
part of the world, is enough to show why.
In itself, as one of Asia's great rice bowls
and region rich in raw materials for industry,
Indo- China would be an asset of tremendous
value to the Red totalitarianS if they could
bring it under their control But that is not it's
chief significance. It's chief significance
politically, economically militarily-is that it is
the strategic gateway to vast complex of
peoples and nations whose Importance in the
global balance of power can hardly be exag-
gerated.
Thus, as the President has said, if Indo-
China were lost to the Soviet empire several
things would happen right away Burma and
Thailand would be directly within reach of the
Subversion and aggression of rampant Com
muniSt imperialism. So would Malaya for the
peninsula, the last little bit of land hanging
on down there, would be scarcely defensible."
Further if the Kremlin and it's co-conSpiratorS
succeeded in gobbling up these nations OF
Southeast Asia, the free world probably would
find it next to impossible to stop the Reds from
going on from there to seize the enormously
rich islands of the young Republic OF Indonesia
BY the same token, westward on the AS1at1c
mainland, Pakistan and India-together with
countries like Iran in the Middle East-would
become terribly vulnerable to the danger of
being dragged in due course behind the Iron
Curtain.
Hence, as far as the United States is con-
other countries of Southeast Asa-wholly apart
from India and Pakistan-is every bit as great
as the President has said. One of his listeners
Governor Dewey. of New York-has summed
it up effectively in the following words, de-
livered some time ago: Moscow knows that if
those nations fall, Japan would also fall. The
Communists know that if they can get that
area, they will win 56 per cent Of the worlds
tin. 80 per cent of the worlds natural rubber,
two-thirds of the worlds exportable rice, an
enormous and growing percentage of the worlds
OIL coal. tungsten and many other products
essential to our survival in America. The Com
muniSts know also that if they win that area,
the Philippines will be surrounded on three
sides and Australia and New Zealand isolated"
In terms of our own vital interests, there
fore, in terms not only of our economic needs
but of our ability to defend ourselves, it is
imperative that the Indo-China gateway be
kept locked against Communist imperialism.
That is why it is stupid, as the President has
suggested to the Governors, for any American
to describe as "a give-away program" the $500
million that Congress has made available to
assist France and the Associated States in their
valiant struggle to deny this al-important
country to the Red totalitarians and hold it
firmly on the side of the free world.
The President, for his own part, has made
clear that he intends to do everything he can to
help insure the attainment of that objective.
AS he has put it, the menace to Indo-China
must be blocked and it must be blocked now"
The men of the Kremlin and the Chinese Com
muniSts, who may be tempted by the Korean
truce to embark on new adventures in Asia,
would do well to take his words at face value.
They are not empty words.