Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1962-03-26
The Shrinp's Whistle

at the University Of California, Presi-
dent Kennedy, though mindful of the
overhanging danger of nuclear war,
takes baSically optimistic view Of the
future. He disagrees completely with
Nikita KhruShchev's asSertion-which
the Soviet Premier has repeated ad
nauSeam over the years-that the day
is not very far off when peoples every
where, including Americans, will hap
PLY embrace communism, and vice
versa. Such a prospect, in the PreSi-
dents amply justified judgment, Is so
improbable as to be scarcely distinguish
able from sheer fantasy or wild dream
in the night.
Actually, as Mr. Kennedy sees 1t,
the global society now haltingly taking
shape-a society that freely unites ma
tional diversity with international CO.
operation"-is profoundly incompatible
with and antithetical to the Red totali-
tartan concept of universal monolithic
rule regimenting every aspect of human
existence. Hence, in the Presidents
words, this developing society will ire
sistibly burst the bonds of Communist
organization and Communist ideology;;"
hence, too, all of us can be reasonably
sure that "the wave of the future is not
the conquest of the world by a single
dogmatic creed but the liberation of the
diverse energies of free nations and free
men,"
It is interesting to recall that the
late Secretary of State John Foster
Dulles, just prior to the 1856 anti-Soviet
uprising in Hungary and the near-ex-
ploSion against the Reds in Poland, gave
voice to an assessment essentially the
same as Mr.. Kennedy's. Having in mind
Mr.. Khrushchev's assertion that the
West would have to wait until shrimp
learns to whistle" before the USSR
would abandon Marxism-Leninism, Mr..
Dulles predicted that the yeast of lib
erty at work among the Russians and
other peoples behind the Iron Curtain
would become so powerful and would
break so many chains that the world
could look forward to great and bene-
ficent international transformation by
1865. The President has refrained from
setting any such date. Indeed, he has
cautioned everybody against expecting
too much too soon, and he has warned
that freedom may suffer many setbacks
in the years ahead. Still, declaring that
the tide of history is running against
the Reds, he has had this to say:
I sometimes think that we are impressed
too much by the clamor of daily urgencies.
The newspaper headlines and the television
screen give IlS the short view Short
view gives us the impression as a nation of
being showed and harried, everywhere on the
defense. But this impression is surely an
optical illusion. From the perspective of
Moscow. the world today may seem even
more troublesome, intractable and frustrat-
ing than it does to us. The leaders of the
Communist world are not only confronted
by acute internal problems in each Com
munlst country-the failure of agriculture
the rising discomfort of the youth and the
1ntellectuals. the demands of technical and
managerial groups for status and security.
They are confronted in addition by profound
divisions primarily between Moscow and
Peipingl within the Communist world Itself
divisions which have already shattered the
image OF communism as a universal system
guaranteed to abolish all social and inter-
national conflicts.
Certainly, regardless of Mr.. Khru-
schev's shrimp, the winds of change
are blowing hard throughout the world.
This holds true not least of all within
the internally pickering and potentially
explosive Sino-Soviet empire, where
there Is deep yearning for liberty and
material advancement of the type en-
joyed on our side. In the circumstances,
the President has not exaggerated in
saying that free nations everywhere
"can have new confidence today in the
direction in which history is moving"