Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1957-04-23
Hard Headed or Thick?

0cCIcLdIy Oul1cS T6IIldTkS 10 LIlG
Associated Press luncheon were really
addressed as we read them, to the men
In the Kremlin. It was lawyers speech
to the men on the other side of the
counsel table, an appeal to Khrushchev
and company to examine the facts and
reach the correct conclusions.
Chief among these facts, as Mr..
Dulles sees them, is surging, irresistible
demand throughout the world for liberty
IA demand which can neither be sup
pressed nor long denied. As he phrased
1t, Soviet rulers are supposed to be hard
headed. For how long, we may ask, will
they expend their resources in combat
ting historic forces for national freedom
which are bound ultimately to prevail?"
While thus appealing to self-interest.
Secretary Dulles sought also to reas-
sure the Kremlin concerning our own
intentions.
He said that United States foreign
policy rests on the concepts of peace,
justice and liberty. We accept change
as the law of life, asking only that it
be peaceful, not violent, change While
q threat of violence persists, as it does,
collective defense and the deterrent eff
feet of nuclear power are indispensable
to the West. He was at pains to point
out, however, that the power of the free
world will not be used except to retahate
In event Of attack, that even then the
scope of retaliation would be determined
by the extent and nature of the agrees
sion, and that we are fully aware that
modern weapons have such vast de-
structive power that there could be no
real victor were general war ever to
occur"
Mr.. Dulles turned next to the area
In which our relations with Russia are
most delicate-the question of the cap
tive nations. To these, he held out as
surance that they are not forgotten, and
promised that I'VE shall never make a
political settlement at their expense"
At the same time, however, he tried to
make his meaning clear to the Soviet
rulers. We condemn and oppose their
Imperialism, he declared, and we seek
the liberation by evolutionary means of
the captive states. 1--WE seek this, how
ever, not in order to encircle Russia with
hostile forces, but because peace is in
Jeopardy and freedom word of mockery
until the divided nations are reunited and
the captive nations are set free"
In closing, Mr.. Dulles adverted again
to the dreadful possibility of total war.
He said that even as he is briefed on the
modern weapons, he finds it impossible
to grasp the full, the awful, significance
of the words and figures used. However,
we would be reckless, he said, not to rec
ogniZe that nuclear war is a possibility
that history suggests that conflict
as basic as that dividing the world of
freedom and the world of international
communism ultimately erupts in war;
For his own part Mr. Dulles rejects this
suggestion. The religious element in his
makeup will not permit him to believe
that our own Nation has reached a new
peak OF power and responsibility merely
to partake of the greatest, and perhaps
the last, of all human disasters"
The decision, however, is not one for
us to make alone. If there is not to be
war, there must come time when the
Soviet Union will also be willing to wage
peace" One would think that the men
In the Kremlin would be moved by Mr.
Dulles arguments, for the truth of what
he says should be as evident to them as
to anyone else. But the Soviet rulers
are only supposed" to be hard-headed.
The great danger is that they may turn
out, instead, to be merely thick headed.