600 Agenda for the Nation

have common purposes. Command arrangements cannot substitute for
common interests. Coordinated strategy will be empty unless it reflects
shared political concepts. The chance of disagreements on peripheral is-
sues may be the price for unity on issues that really matter. The memory of
European impotence and American tutelage should not delude us into
believing that we understand Europe's problems better than it does itself.
Third force dangers are not avoided by legal formulas, and more important,
they have been overdrawn. It is hard to visualize a "deal" between the
Soviet Union and Europe which would jeopardize our interests without
jeopardizing European interests first. In any event, a sense of responsibility
in Europe will be a much better counter to Soviet efforts to undermine
unity than American tutelage.

In short, our relations with Europeans are better founded on develop-
ing a community of interests than on the elaboration of formal legal
obligations. No precise blueprint for such an arrangement is possible
because different fields of activity have different needs. In the military
sphere, for example, modern technology will impose a greater degree of
integration than is necessary in other areas. Whatever their formal auton-
omy, it is almost inconceivable that our allies would prefer to go to war
without the support of the United States, given the relatively small nuclear
forces in prospect for them. Close coordination between Europe and the
United States in the military sphere is dictated by self-interest, and Eu-
rope has more to gain from it than the United States.

For this very reason, it is in our interest that Europeans should assume
much greater responsibility for developing doctrine and force levels in
NATO, perhaps by vitalizing such institutions as the West European
Union (WEU), perhaps by alternative arrangements. The Supreme
Allied Commander should in time be a European.

Military arrangements are not enough, however. Under current condi-
tions, no statesman will risk a cataclysm simply to fulfill a legal obligation.
He will do so only if a degree of political cooperation has been established
which links the fate of each partner with the survival of all the others. This
requires an entirely new order of political creativity.

Coordination is especially necessary in East-West relations. The con-
ventional view is that NATO can be as useful an instrument for détente as
for defense. This is doubtful—at least in NATO's present form. A military
alliance, one of the chief cohesive links of which is its integrated command
arrangement, is not the best instrument for flexible diplomacy. Turning
NATO into an instrument of détente might reduce its security contribu-

Central Issues of American Foreign Policy 601

tion without achieving a relaxation of tensions. A diplomatic confrontation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact would have all the rigidities of the bipolar military world. It would raise fears in Western Europe of an American-Soviet condominium, and it would tend to legitimize the Soviet hegemonical position in Eastern Europe. Above all, it would fail to take advantage of the flexibility afforded by greater Western European unity and autonomy. As Europe gains structure, its attraction for Eastern Europe is bound to increase. The major initiatives to improve relations between Western and Eastern Europe should originate in Europe with the United States in a reserve position.

Such an approach can work only if there is a real consensus as to objectives. Philosophical agreement can make possible flexibility of method. This will require a form of consultation much more substantial than that which now exists and a far more effective and coherent European contribution.

To be sure, events in Czechoslovakia demonstrate the limits of Eastern European autonomy that the Soviet Union is now prepared to tolerate. But the Soviet Union may not be willing indefinitely to use the Red Army primarily against allies as it has done three times in a decade and a half. In any event, no Western policy can guarantee a more favorable evolution in Central Europe; all it can do is to take advantage of an opportunity if it arises.

Policy outside Europe is likely to be divergent. Given the changed European perspective, an effort to bring about global burden-sharing might only produce stagnation. The allies would be able to agree primarily on doing nothing. Any crisis occurring anywhere would turn automatically and organically world-wide. American acceptance of European autonomy implies also European acceptance of a degree of American autonomy with respect to areas in which, for understandable reasons, European concern has lessened.

There may be opportunities for cooperation in hitherto purely national efforts, for example, our space program. European participation in it could help to remedy, the "technological gap."

Finally, under present circumstances, an especially meaningful community of interests can be developed in the social sphere. All modern states face problems of bureaucratization, pollution, environmental control, urban growth. These problems know no national considerations. If the nations of the Atlantic work together on these issues—either through private or governmental channels or both—a new generation habituated

602 Agenda for the Nation

to cooperative efforts could develop similar to that spawned in different circumstances by the Marshall Plan.

It is high time that the nations bordering the Atlantic deal—formally, systematically, and at the highest level—with questions such as these: (a) What are the relative roles of Europe and the United States in East-West contacts? (b) Is a division of functions conceivable in which Western Europe plays the principal role in relation to Eastern Europe while the United States concentrates on relationships with the USSR? (c) What forms of political consultation does this require? (d) In what areas of the world is common action possible? Where are divergent courses indicated? How are differences to be handled?

Thus, we face the root questions of a multipolar world. How much unity should we want? How much diversity can we stand? These questions never have a final answer within a pluralistic society. Adjusting the balance between integration and autonomy will be the key challenge of emerging Atlantic relations.

## Bipolarity and Multipolarity: The Conceptual Problem

In the years ahead, the most profound challenge to American policy will be philosophical: to develop some concept of order in a world which is bipolar militarily but multipolar politically. But a philosophical deepening will not come easily to those brought up in the American tradition of foreign policy.

Our political society was one of the few which was consciously created at a point in time. At least until the emergence of the race problem, we were blessed by the absence of conflicts between classes and over ultimate ends. These factors produced the characteristic aspects of American foreign policy: a certain manipulativeness and pragmatism, a conviction that the normal pattern of international relations was harmonious, a reluctance to think in structural terms, a belief in final answers—all qualities which reflect a sense of self-sufficiency not far removed from a sense of omnipotence. Yet the contemporary dilemma is that there are no total solutions; we live in a world gripped by revolutions in technology, values, and institutions. We are immersed in an unending process, not in a quest for a final destination. The deepest problems of equilibrium are not physical but psychological or moral. The shape of the future will depend ultimately on convictions which far transcend the physical balance of power.

Central Issues of American Foreign Policy 603

THE NEW NATIONS AND POLITICAL LEGITIMACY

This challenge is especially crucial with respect to the new nations. Future historians are likely to class the confusion and torment in the emerging countries with the great movements of religious awakening. Continents which had been dormant for centuries suddenly develop political consciousness. Regions which for scores of years had considered foreign rule as natural struggle for independence. Yet it is a curious nationalism which defines itself not as in Europe by common language or culture but often primarily by the common experience of foreign rule. Boundaries—especially in Africa—have tended to follow the administrative convenience of the colonial powers rather than linguistic or tribal lines. The new nations have faced problems both of identity and of political authority. They often lack social cohesiveness entirely, or they are split into competing groups each with a highly developed sense of identity.

It is no accident that between the Berlin crisis and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the principal threats to peace came from the emerging areas. Domestic weakness encourages foreign intervention. The temptation to deflect domestic dissatisfactions into foreign adventures is ever present. Leaders feel little sense of responsibility to an overall international equilibrium; they are much more conscious of their local grievances. The rivalry of the superpowers offers many opportunities for blackmail.

Yet their relations with other countries are not the most significant aspect of the turmoil of the new countries. It is in the new countries that questions of the purpose of political life and the meaning of political legitimacy—key issues also in the modern state—pose themselves in their most acute form. The new nations weigh little in the physical balance of power. But the forces unleashed in the emergence of so many new states may well affect the moral balance of the world—the convictions which form the structure for the world of tomorrow. This adds a new dimension to the problem of multipolarity.

Almost all of the new countries suffer from a revolutionary malaise: revolutions succeed through the coming together of all resentments. But the elimination of existing structures compounds the difficulty of establishing political consensus. A successful revolution leaves as its legacy a profound dislocation. In the new countries, contrary to all revolutionary expectations, the task of construction emerges as less glamorous and more complex than the struggle for freedom; the exaltation of the quest for

604 Agenda for the Nation

independence cannot be perpetuated. Sooner or later, positive goals must
replace resentment of the former colonial power as a motive force. In the
absence of autonomous social forces, this unifying role tends to be per-
formed by the state.

But the assumption of this role by the state does not produce stability. When social cohesiveness is slight, the struggle for control of authority is correspondingly more bitter. When government is the principal, sometimes the sole, expression of national identity, opposition comes to be considered treason. The profound social or religious schisms of many of the new nations turn the control of political authority quite literally into a matter of life and death. Where political obligation follows racial, religious, or tribal lines, self-restraint breaks down. Domestic conflicts assume the character of civil war. Such traditional authority as exists is personal or feudal. The problem is to make it "legitimate"—to develop a notion of political obligation which depends on legal norms rather than on coercive power or personal loyalty.

This process took centuries in Europe. It must be accomplished in decades in the new nations, where preconditions of success are less favorable than at comparable periods in Europe. The new countries are subject to outside pressures; there is a premium on foreign adventures to bring about domestic cohesiveness. Their lack of domestic structure compounds the already great international instabilities.

The American role in the new nations' efforts to build legitimate authority is in need of serious reexamination. The dominant American view about political structure has been that it will follow more or less automatically upon economic progress and that it will take the form of constitutional democracy.

Both assumptions are subject to serious questions. In every advanced
country, political stability preceded rather than emerged from the process
of industrialization. Where the rudiments of popular institutions did not
exist at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, they did not receive
their impetus from it. To be sure, representative institutions were broad-
ened and elaborated as the countries prospered, but their significant fea-
tures antedated economic development and are not attributable to it. In
fact, the system of government which brought about industrialization—
whether popular or authoritarian—has tended to be confirmed rather
than radically changed by this achievement.

Nor is democracy a natural evolution of nationalism. In the last cen-

Central Issues of American Foreign Policy 605

tury, democracy was accepted by a ruling class whose estimate of itself was founded outside the political process. It was buttressed by a middle class, holding a political philosophy in which the state was considered to be a referee of the ultimately important social forces rather than the principal focus of national consciousness. Professional revolutionaries were rarely involved; their bias is seldom democratic.

The pluralism of the West had many causes which cannot be duplicated elsewhere. These included a church organization outside the control of the state and therefore symbolizing the limitation of government power; the Greco-Roman philosophical tradition of justice based on human dignity, reinforced later by the Christian ethic; an emerging bourgeoisie; a stalemate in religious wars imposing tolerance as a practical necessity and a multiplicity of states. Industrialization was by no means the most significant of these factors. Had any of the others been missing, the Western political evolution could have been quite different.

This is why communism has never succeeded in the industrialized Western countries for which its theory was devised; its greatest successes have been in developing societies. This is no accident. Industrialization—in its early phases—multiplies dislocations. It smashes the traditional framework. It requires a system of values which makes the sacrifices involved in capital formation tolerable and which furnishes some integrating principles to contain psychological frustrations.

Communism is able to supply legitimacy for the sacrifices inseparably connected with capital formation in an age when the maxims of laissez faire are no longer acceptable. And Leninism has the attraction of providing a rationale for holding on to power. Many of the leaders of the new countries are revolutionaries who sustained themselves through the struggle for independence by visions of the transformations to be brought about after victory. They are not predisposed even to admit the possibility of giving up power in their hour of triumph. Since they usually began their struggle for independence while in a small minority and sustained it against heavy odds, they are not likely to be repelled by the notion that it is possible to "force men to be free."

The ironic feature of the current situation is that Marxism, professing a materialistic philosophy, is accepted only where it does not exist: in some new countries and among protest movements of the advanced democratic countries. Its appeal is its idealistic component and not its economic theory. It offers a doctrine of substantive change and an explana-

606 Agenda for the Nation

tion of final purposes. Its philosophy has totally failed to inspire the younger generation in communist countries where its bureaucratic reality is obvious.

On the other hand, the United States, professing an idealistic philosophy, often fails to gain acceptance for democratic values because of its heavy reliance on economic factors. It has answers to technical dislocations but has not been able to contribute much to building a political and moral consensus. It offers a procedure for change but little content for it.

The problem of political legitimacy is the key to political stability in regions containing two-thirds of the world's population. A stable domestic system in the new countries will not automatically produce international order, but international order is impossible without it. An American agenda must include some conception of what we understand by political legitimacy. In an age of instantaneous communication, we cannot pretend that what happens to over two-thirds of humanity is of no concern or interest to the United States. This does not mean that our goal should be to transfer American institutions to the new nations—even less that we should impose them. Nor should we define the problem as how to prevent the spread of communism. Our goal should be to build a moral consensus which can make a pluralistic world creative rather than destructive.

Irrelevance to one of the great revolutions of our time will mean that we will ultimately be engulfed by it—if not physically, then psychologically. Already some of the protest movements have made heroes of leaders in repressive new countries. The absurdity of founding a claim for freedom on protagonists of the totalitarian state—such as Guevara or Ho or Mao—underlines the impact of the travail of the new countries on older societies which share none of their technical but some of their spiritual problems, especially the problem of the nature of authority in the modern world. To a young generation in rebellion against bureaucracy and bored with material comfort, these societies offer at least the challenge of unlimited opportunity (and occasionally unlimited manipulativeness) in the quest for justice.

A world which is bipolar militarily and multipolar politically thus confronts an additional problem. Side by side with the physical balance of power, there exists a psychological balance based on intangibles of value and belief. The presuppositions of the physical equilibrium have changed drastically; those of the psychological balance remain to be discovered.

Central Issues of American Foreign Policy 607

THE PROBLEM OF SOVIET INTENTIONS

Nothing has been more difficult for Americans to assimilate in the
nuclear age than the fact that even enmity is complex. In the Soviet
Union, we confront an opponent whose public pronouncements are in-
sistently hostile. Yet the nuclear age imposes a degree of cooperation and
an absolute limit to conflicts.

The military relationship with the Soviet Union is difficult enough; the
political one confronts us with a profound conceptual problem. A society
which regards peace as the normal condition tends to ascribe tension not
to structural causes but to wicked or shortsighted individuals. Peace is
thought to result either from the automatic operation of economic forces
or from the emergence of a more benign leadership abroad.

The debate about Soviet trends between "hard-liners" and "soft-liners" illustrates this problem. Both sides tend to agree that the purpose of American policy is to encourage a more benign evolution of Soviet society—the original purpose of containment was, after all, to bring about the domestic transformation of the USSR. They are at one that a settlement presupposes a change in the Soviet system. Both groups imply that the nature of a possible settlement is perfectly obvious. But the apostles of containment have never specified the American negotiating program to be undertaken from the position of strength their policy was designed to achieve. The advocates of relaxation of tensions have been no more precise; they have been more concerned with atmosphere than with the substance of talks.

In fact, the difference between the "hawks" and "doves" has usually concerned timing: the hawks have maintained that a Soviet change of heart, while inevitable, was still in the future, whereas the doves have argued that it has already taken place. Many of the hawks tend to consider all negotiations as fruitless. Many of the doves argue—or did before Czechoslovakia—that the biggest step toward peace has already been accomplished by a Soviet change of heart about the cold war; negotiations need only remove some essentially technical obstacles.

This difference affects—and sometimes poisons—the entire American
debate about foreign policy. Left-wing critics of American foreign policy
seem incapable of attacking U.S. actions without elevating our opponent
(whether it happens to be Mao or Castro or Ho) to a pedestal. If they
discern some stupidity or self-interest on our side, they assume that the
other side must be virtuous. They then criticize the United States for

608 Agenda for the Nation

opposing the other side. The right follows the same logic in reverse: they
presuppose our good intentions and conclude that the other side must be
perverse in opposing us. Both the left and the right judge largely in terms
of intentions. In the process, whatever the issue—whether Berlin or Viet-
nam—more attention is paid to whether to get to the conference room
than what to do once we arrive there. The dispute over communist inten-
tions has diverted attention from elaborating our own purposes. In some
quarters, the test of dedication to peace has been whether one interprets
Soviet intentions in the most favorable manner.

It should be obvious, however, that the Soviet domestic situation is
complex and its relationship to foreign policy far from obvious. It is true
that the risks of general nuclear war should be as unacceptable to Moscow
as to Washington; but this truism does not automatically produce détente.
It also seems to lessen the risks involved in local intervention. No doubt
the current generation of communist leaders lacks the ideological dynam-
mism of their predecessors who made the revolution; at the same time,
they have at their disposal a military machine of unprecedented strength,
and they must deal with a bureaucracy of formidable vested interests. Un-
questionably, Soviet consumers press their leaders to satisfy their demands;
but it is equally true that an expanding modern economy is able to supply
both guns and butter. Some Soviet leaders may have become more prag-
matic; but in an elaborated communist state, the results of pragmatism are
complex. Once power is seized and industrialization is largely accom-
plished, the Communist party faces a difficult situation. It is not needed to
conduct the government, and it has no real function in running the econ-
omy (though it tries to do both). In order to justify its continued existence
and command, it may develop a vested interest in vigilance against outside
danger and thus in perpetuating a fairly high level of tension.

It is beyond the scope of this essay to go into detail on the issue of
internal communist evolution. But it may be appropriate to inquire why,
in the past, every period of détente has proved stillborn. There have been
at least five periods of peaceful coexistence since the Bolshevik seizure of
power, one in each decade of the Soviet state. Each was hailed in the West
as ushering in a new era of reconciliation and as signifying the long-awaited
final change in Soviet purposes. Each ended abruptly with a new period of
intransigence, which was generally ascribed to a victory of Soviet hard-
liners rather than to the dynamics of the system. There were undoubtedly
many reasons for this. But the tendency of many in the West to be con-
tent with changes of Soviet tone and to confuse atmosphere with substance

Central Issues of American Foreign Policy 609

surely did not help matters. It has enabled the Communist leaders to postpone the choice which they must make sooner or later: Whether to use détente as a device to lull the West or whether to move toward a resolution of the outstanding differences. As long as this choice is postponed, the possibility exists that latent crises may run away with the principal protagonists as happened in the Middle East and perhaps even in Czechoslovakia.

The eagerness of many in the West to emphasize the liberalizing implications of Soviet economic trends and to make favorable interpretation of Soviet intentions a test of good faith may have the paradoxical consequence of strengthening the Soviet hard-liners. Soviet troops had hardly arrived in Prague when some Western leaders began to insist that the invasion would not affect the quest for détente while others continued to indicate a nostalgia for high-level meetings. Such an attitude hardly serves the cause of peace. The risk is great that if there is no penalty for intransigence there is no incentive for conciliation. The Kremlin may use negotiations—including arms control—as a safety valve to dissipate Western suspicions rather than as a serious endeavor to resolve concrete disputes or to remove the scourge of nuclear war.

If we focus our policy discussions on Soviet purposes, we confuse the debate in two ways: Soviet trends are too ambiguous to offer a reliable guide—it is possible that not even Soviet leaders fully understand the dynamics of their system; it deflects us from articulating the purposes we should pursue, whatever Soviet intentions. Peace will not, in any event, result from one grand settlement but from a long diplomatic process, and this process requires some clarity as to our destination. Confusing foreign policy with psychotherapy deprives us of criteria by which to judge the political foundations of international order.

The obsession with Soviet intentions causes the West to be smug during periods of détente and panicky during crises. A benign Soviet tone is equated with the achievement of peace; Soviet hostility is considered to be the signal for a new period of tension and usually evokes purely military countermeasures. The West is thus never ready for a Soviet change of course; it has been equally unprepared for détente and intransigence.

These lines are being written while outrage at the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia is still strong. There is a tendency to focus on military implications or to speak of strengthening unity in the abstract. But if history is a guide, there will be a new Soviet peace offensive sooner or later. Thus, reflecting about the nature of détente seems most important

610 Agenda for the Nation

while its achievement appears most problematical. If we are not to be
doomed to repeat the past, it may be well to learn some of its lessons: We
should not again confuse a change of tone with a change of heart. We
should not pose false inconsistencies between allied unity and détente;
indeed, a true relaxation of tensions presupposes Western unity. We
should concentrate negotiations on the concrete issues that threaten peace
such as intervention in the third world. Moderating the arms race must
also be high on the agenda. None of this is possible without a concrete idea
of what we understand by peace and a creative world order.

An Inquiry into the American National Interest

Wherever we turn, then, the central task of American foreign policy is to
analyze anew the current international environment and to develop some
concepts which will enable us to contribute to the emergence of a stable
order.

First, we must recognize the existence of profound structural problems
that are to a considerable extent independent of the intentions of the prin-
cipal protagonists and that cannot be solved merely by good will. The
vacuum in Central Europe and the decline of the Western European
countries would have disturbed the world equilibrium regardless of the
domestic structure of the Soviet Union. A strong China has historically
tended to establish suzerainty over its neighbors; in fact, one special prob-
lem of dealing with China—communism apart—is that it has had no
experience in conducting foreign policy with equals. China has been
either dominant or subjected.

To understand the structural issue, it is necessary to undertake an in-
quiry, from which we have historically shied away, into the essence of our
national interest and into the premises of our foreign policy. It is part of
American folklore that, while other nations have interests, we have re-
sponsibilites; while other nations are concerned with equilibrium, we are
concerned with the legal requirements of peace. We have a tendency to
offer our altruism as a guarantee of our reliability: "We have no quarrel
with the Communists," Secretary of State Rusk said on one occasion, "all
of our quarrels are on behalf of other people."

Such an attitude makes it difficult to develop a conception of our role in
the world. It inhibits other nations from gearing their policy to ours in a
confident way—a "disinterested" policy is likely to be considered "unre-

Central Issues of American Foreign Policy 611

liable." A mature conception of our interest in the world would obviously have to take into account the widespread interest in stability and peaceful change. It would deal with two fundamental questions: What is it in our interest to prevent? What should we seek to accomplish?

The answer to the first question is complicated by an often repeated proposition that we must resist aggression anywhere it occurs since peace is indivisible. A corollary is the argument that we do not oppose the fact of particular changes but the method by which they are brought about. We find it hard to articulate a truly vital interest which we would defend however "legal" the challenge. This leads to an undifferentiated globalism and confusion about our purposes. The abstract concept of aggression causes us to multiply our commitments. But the denial that our interests are involved diminishes our staying power when we try to carry out these commitments.

Part of the reason for our difficulties is our reluctance to think in terms of power and equilibrium. In 1949, for example, a State Department memorandum justified NATO as follows: "[The treaty] obligates the parties to defend the purposes and principles of the United Nations, the freedom, common heritage and civilization of the parties and their free institutions based upon the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the role of law. It obligates them to act in defense of peace and security. It is directed against no one; it is directed solely against aggression. It seeks not to influence any shifting balance of power but to strengthen a balance of principle."

But principle, however lofty, must at some point be related to practice; historically, stability has always coincided with an equilibrium that made physical domination difficult. Interest is not necessarily amoral; moral consequences can spring from interested acts. Britain did not contribute any less to international order for having a clear-cut concept of its interest which required it to prevent the domination of the Continent by a single power (no matter in what way it was threatened) and the control of the seas by anybody (even if the immediate intentions were not hostile). A new American administration confronts the challenge of relating our commitments to our interests and our obligations to our purposes.

The task of defining positive goals is more difficult but even more important. The first two decades after the end of the Second World War posed problems well suited to the American approach to international relations. Wherever we turned, massive dislocations required attention. Our pragmatic, ad hoc tendency was an advantage in a world clamoring

612 Agenda for the Nation

for technical remedies. Our legal bent contributed to the development of
many instruments of stability.

In the late sixties, the situation is more complex. The United States is
no longer in a position to operate programs globally; it has to encourage
them. It can no longer impose its preferred solution; it must seek to
evoke it. In the forties and fifties, we offered remedies; in the late sixties
and in the seventies our role will have to be to contribute to a structure
that will foster the initiative of others. We are a superpower physically,
but our designs can be meaningful only if they generate willing coopera-
tion. We can continue to contribute to defense and positive programs,
but we must seek to encourage and not stifle a sense of local responsibility.
Our contribution should not be the sole or principal effort, but it should
make the difference between success and failure.

This task requires a different kind of creativity and another form of
patience than we have displayed in the past. Enthusiasm, belief in progress,
and the invincible conviction that American remedies can work every-
where must give way to an understanding of historical trends, an ordering
of our preferences, and above all an understanding of the difference our
preferences can in fact make.

The dilemma is that there can be no stability without equilibrium, but
equally, equilibrium is not a purpose with which we can respond to the
travail of our world. A sense of mission is clearly a legacy of American
history; to most Americans, America has always stood for something other
than its own grandeur. But a clearer understanding of America's interests
and of the requirements of equilibrium can give perspective to our ideal-
ism and lead to humane and moderate objectives, especially in relation to
political and social change. Thus our conception of world order must have
deeper purposes than stability but greater restraints on our behavior than
would result if it were approached only in a fit of enthusiasm.

Whether such a leap of the imagination is possible in the modern
bureaucratic state remains to be seen. New administrations come to power
convinced of the need for goals and for comprehensive concepts. Sooner,
rather than later, they find themselves subjected to the pressures of the
immediate and the particular. Part of the reason is the pragmatic, issue-
oriented bias of our decision makers. But the fundamental reason may be
the pervasiveness of modern bureaucracy. What started out as an aid to
decision making has developed a momentum of its own. Increasingly, the
policy maker is more conscious of the pressures and the morale of his
staff than of the purpose this staff is supposed to serve. The policy maker

Central Issues of American Foreign Policy 613

becomes a referee among quasi-autonomous bureaucratic bodies. Success consists of moving the administrative machinery to the point of decision, leaving relatively little energy for analyzing the decision's merit. The modern bureaucratic state widens the range of technical choices while limiting the capacity to make them.

An even more serious problem is posed by the change of ethic of precisely the most idealistic element of American youth. The idealism of the fifties during the Kennedy era expressed itself in self-confident, often zealous institution building. Today, however, many in the younger generation consider the management of power irrelevant, perhaps even immoral. While the idea of service retains a potent influence, it does so largely with respect to problems which are clearly not connected with the strategic aspects of American foreign policy; the Peace Corps is a good example. The new ethic of freedom is not "civic"; it is indifferent or even hostile to systems and notions of order. Management is equated with manipulation. Structural designs are perceived as systems of "domination" —not of order. The generation which has come of age after the fifties has had Vietnam as its introduction to world politics. It has no memory of occasions when American-supported structural innovations were successful or of the motivations which prompted these enterprises.

Partly as a result of the generation gap, the American mood oscillates dangerously between being ashamed of power and expecting too much of it. The former attitude deprecates the use or possession of force; the latter is overly receptive to the possibilities of absolute action and overly indifferent to the likely consequences. The danger of a rejection of power is that it may result in a nihilistic perfectionism which disdains the gradual and seeks to destroy what does not conform to its notion of utopia. The danger of an overconcern with force is that policy makers may respond to clamor by a series of spasmodic gestures and stylistic maneuvers and then recoil before their implications.

These essentially psychological problems cannot be overemphasized. It is the essence of a satisfied, advanced society that it puts a premium on operating within familiar procedures and concepts. It draws its motivation from the present, and it defines excellence by the ability to manipulate an established framework. But for the major part of humanity, the present becomes endurable only through a vision of the future. To most Americans—including most American leaders—the significant reality is what they see around them. But for most of the world—including many of the leaders of the new nations—the significant reality is what they wish to

614 Agenda for the Nation

bring about. If we remain nothing but the managers of our physical patrimony, we will grow increasingly irrelevant. And since there can be no stability without us, the prospects of world order will decline.

We require a new burst of creativity, however, not so much for the sake of other countries as for our own people, especially the youth. The contemporary unrest is no doubt exploited by some whose purposes are all too clear. But that it is there to exploit is proof of a profound dissatisfaction with the merely managerial and consumer-oriented qualities of the modern state and with a world which seems to generate crises by inertia. The modern bureaucratic state, for all its panoply of strength, often finds itself shaken to its foundations by seemingly trivial causes. Its brittleness and the world-wide revolution of youth—especially in advanced countries and among the relatively affluent—suggest a spiritual void, an almost metaphysical boredom with a political environment that increasingly emphasizes bureaucratic challenges and is dedicated to no deeper purpose than material comfort.

Our unrest has no easy remedy. Nor is the solution to be found primarily in the realm of foreign policy. Yet a deeper nontechnical challenge would surely help us regain a sense of direction. The best and most prideful expressions of American purposes in the world have been those in which we acted in concert with others. Our influence in these situations has depended on achieving a reputation as a member of such a concert. To act consistently abroad we must be able to generate coalitions of shared purposes. Regional groupings supported by the United States will have to take over major responsibility for their immediate areas, with the United States being concerned more with the overall framework of order than with the management of every regional enterprise.

In the best of circumstances, the next administration will be beset by crises. In almost every area of the world, we have been living off capital—warding off the immediate, rarely dealing with underlying problems. These difficulties are likely to multiply when it becomes apparent that one of the legacies of the war in Vietnam will be a strong American reluctance to risk overseas involvements.

A new administration has the right to ask for compassion and understanding from the American people. But it must found its claim not on pat technical answers to difficult issues; it must above all ask the right questions. It must recognize that, in the field of foreign policy, we will never be able to contribute to building a stable and creative world order unless we first form some conception of it.

Joseph W. Still, M.D., M.P.H.

JAN 14 1969

Suite 108 - Masterson Bldg.
11401 East Valley Blvd.

El Monte, Calif. 91732
Phone (213) 686-0366

January 7, 1969

Mr. Henry Kissinger
The White House
Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. Kissinger:

I was very much impressed by your analysis of and suggestions regarding the most feasible way to carry on the negotiations in Paris. I would appreciate a copy of the full article.

I'm enclosing a suggestion for neutralizing much of the Underdeveloped nations of the world. Some people have responded that this approach seems idealistic and impractical. My response is that the Security Council has not been able to really settle any of the serious problems of world organization and there is no reason to believe that the Great Powers can impose a lasting peace on any area outside their own borders.

While I think it would destroy the Zone of Peace idea if it was publicly promoted by the United States, I do feel it would be very much in the interest of the U.S. to see such a treaty adopted. If the new Administration should agree, I'm sure a great deal could be done informally to encourage this approach.

With best wishes for success in your important new role.

JWS:hc
enclosure

"... there will always exist the objective need to promote in sufficient measure, the *universal* common good, that is, the common good of the entire human family.

"As a result of the far-reaching changes which have taken place in the relations between the human family, the universal common good gives rise to problems which are complex, very grave and extremely urgent, especially as regards security and world peace....

"It can be said, therefore, that at this historical moment the present system of organization and the way its principle of authority operates on a world basis no longer correspond to the objective requirements of the universal common good."

Pope John XXIII: *Pacem in Terris*

"We have seen how the great religions of the world, after lamentable periods of bigotry and violence, have become accommodated to each other, without losing their influence or spiritual independence, by a mutual respect for, and understanding of, the spiritual and moral aims which are common to them all. We must try, both earnestly and urgently, to extend that process of accommodation to the political, ideological, economic and racial differences that divide the world today."

U Thant, U.N. Secretary General

Address given at University of Chile

©Copyright 1967 by Joseph W. Still

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

# Introduction

The Honorable George E. Brown, Jr.

Member of Congress
29th District, California

I have long been unhappy over the fact that relatively few peace workers are politically and organizationally minded. My experience in legislation has made me very much aware that most important decisions by governments—local, state and federal—are often made without the general public having any clear realization of the long-range results that will follow.

It was a series of administrative decisions, all of them made without Congressional approval, in fact without the foreknowledge of most Congressmen, not to mention the American people, which led to the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

It was a similar series of decisions that has led to our country's involvement in Vietnam. We are now in a war which could end in a nuclear holocaust because of these decisions. Assuming we somehow avoid this fate there will still be a great deal for peace workers to do. But if we are to prevent World War III, it will be necessary for peace workers to build a peace lobby of sufficient size and competence to watch for these early wrong steps that eventually grow to larger dimensions. We must develop a preventive approach and not always wait until the "fat is in the fire" before we protest.

The author of this essay has this approach and I believe his book can be very useful for two reasons:

1. It provides a clear-cut political formula for organizing peace; a formula which seems to me to be in the long-range interest of all nations—great and small, advanced and underdeveloped—to adopt; a formula which seems to me to contain the seed ideas, an approach that could be useful in resolving both the Vietnam conflict and the organizational crises of the United Nations. Whether or not its proposals are eventually adopted by the General Assembly, I feel certain they can stimulate a whole new line of thinking on organizing peace.

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2. It emphasizes the fact that it is not enough for peace-makers to merely be against war. There really are very few people who are crazy enough to want war, certainly not President Johnson. The really difficult, complex and perplexing problem that peace-makers should also work at is this: How can the present-day world, which has inherited all of the stupidities, envies, prejudices and hatreds of the past — how can such a world be organized to promote peace and to advance the well-being or wealth of others?

When I introduced "Peace by Finesse" to my fellow Congressmen I said, "I strongly urge our Department of State and, all who are concerned for bringing peace to the Congo and Vietnam to seriously consider the proposals of 'Peace by Finesse' as a possible way to end these brutal wars." I now want to broaden that appeal as follows: I strongly urge all world leaders, especially leaders of the new small nations of the so-called underdeveloped world, to seriously consider the proposals of "Peace by Finesse;" to consider whether these do not present a face-saving way of ending the several crises which now confront humanity; to carefully consider the desirability of isolating their countries from the Cold War by first establishing and then joining the Zone of Peace in order that they be freed thereby to give exclusive attention to the economic development of their countries.

It is widely believed that Cold Warring is an invention of the last twenty years. This is not so. History indicates that war is an invention of nations. Before the evolution of nation-states, organized fighting between tribes and city-states could more accurately have been called predatory raids by part-time warriors —usually to steal women or loot—sometimes scalps, heads, or slaves. But with the emergence of modern nation-states the specialized profession of full-time warrior and the desire to control (enslave) whole nations also emerged. And once the leaders of nations had permanent professionalized military muscles to use in their competition with each other it was only natural that they used them—sometimes in hot wars but more as mere threats in Cold War.

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The Cold War in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries more or less neutralized, vis-a-vis the New World, the Great Powers of that time—England, France and Spain—and thus left the underdeveloped United States to develop for a century in peaceful isolation from that Cold War. On the other hand it was ceaseless Cold War between the Islamic powers (notably Turkey), western, southern and northern European powers and Czarist Russia which for centuries has kept Eastern Europe and the Balkans in a state of perpetual turmoil and war and thereby kept the development of those nations far behind that of the rest of Europe. If the present Cold War is carried on for another 10, 20 or 30 years we will see much if not all of Southern Asia, Africa and South America "balkanized" in similar fashion as Korea, the Congo and Vietnam already have been.

Unless the small new nations of the Southern Hemisphere now find a way to isolate themselves from the present Cold War they will suffer essentially this same fate.

Fortunately, the small new nations have these advantages over the Balkan nations in their efforts to escape such a predicament:

1. Today the United Nations exists and its General Assembly provides a powerful forum and voice amplifier from which to plead the case of the small nations.

2. The world now has a "conscience" about these matters that is far more sensitive than it was in the 18th and 19th centuries. There are hundreds of millions of people who have lived through World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Hungarian and Berlin crises, the Algerian war, the Vietnam wars and Congo war, to mention only those which come quickly to mind. They remember. Many of them were among the millions of wounded, disabled and uprooted and had friends and relatives who paid the supreme price for man's failure to organize an alternative to war as an instrument for change. They are not so easily stampeded into the psychology of war. They know that General Sherman was right when he said, "War is Hell!"

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3. There is growing realization that nationalism as a means of protecting one group from another has run its course in history. Of course nations will continue to be useful administrative units for years to come. But for nations to continue to have *sovereign* powers for starting—to be self-endowed with the *right* to start—wars that may easily grow to involve the entire human race, that is another matter. Mankind has had enough of that kind of ism.

Ecumenicalism and transnationalism. These are the isms that have a future if man has a future. These are the only isms that can bring humanity to a realization of our most cherished dream—the dream of One World of United Nations serving a single Brotherhood of Man.

4. There is widespread sentiment at long last giving reality to the dream of Christ — the dream of a real Brotherhood of Man. If the leaders of the small nations will grasp the opportunity presented at this pregnant moment of history we may at last see fulfilled that far-seeing prophecy of Jesus, "The meek shall inherit the earth," and see Peace settle over all the land of the Earth.

But if this dream is to be realized, the peace organizations of the world must unite to support such leadership. Too many of them seem to be merely bureaucratic establishments serving the interests of their own nations, sometimes I fear only the interests of their own bureaucrats. Though these people talk of One World and United Nations they often seem to support positions which would give an advantage to that Great Power of which they are a national. As Pope John XXIII saw and stated so clearly, the world needs to adopt the ecumenical spirit and then face up to his challenge—to build an organization that "corresponds to the objective requirements of the universal common good."

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Preface to Third Edition

My 5½ years service in the U. S. Army in World War II provided me with a thorough education in the costs of war—social as well as personal. It also provided me with the opportunity of observing the start of the “population explosion” for I saw DDT stop the first epidemic ever stopped “cold,” and I saw its tremendous effectiveness as an agent to prevent malaria, still the most important disease in the world. Those of us who saw these events in 1944 and 1945 knew that a population explosion was certain to follow, a population explosion of just as great danger to mankind as the explosion at Hiroshima. One just as much as the other demanded an end to international war and the beginning of a world-wide war on ignorance, disease and poverty. Such thoughts as these have caused me to make the study of war and peace-making my major avocation.

As a physician-scientist I know that whenever we learn the cause of a disease we have found more effective ways to prevent it. I believe that social ills, including wars, have understandable causes which can be rationally detected, analyzed and treated.

*Peace by Finesse* diagnoses the present Cold War and offers a preventive prescription for bringing peace to the underdeveloped world.

During my 25 years or so of study, I have quite closely studied the history of the League of Nations and the reasons for its failure. I have followed the activities of the small nations as well as the Great Powers in their relations to each other and with respect to the United Nations. As a result I have concluded several years ago that the Security Council is constitutionally unable to organize peace or to reorganize itself. Having reached that conclusion, I began searching for some path to peace that did not have to pass through the Security Council—an obstacle which still appears insurmountable.

It soon occured to me that if the Great Powers are locked in a struggle from which they can not be deflected, it still would

9

be worth while for the small nations, which really have no stake
in the Great Power struggle, to establish peace in their part of
the world. Just because the Great Powers can use the veto to
block Security Council actions against themselves does not give
them authority to prevent small nations from establishing real
peace in their countries if they wished to do so. But how could
the small nations do this?

These thoughts soon led to the concept of a Zone of Peace
Treaty which small nations could adopt in the General Assembly.
Such a treaty would give General Assembly protection to any
nation that joined the Zone of Peace. The Zone of Peace Treaty
would also define the obligations that a nation must accept in
order to become a part of and to enjoy the benefits of being in
the Zone of Peace.

Briefly stated, nations wishing to join the Zone of Peace
would be required to give up the "right" to make war on other
nations and be required to carry out their foreign relations under
the supervision of the entire membership of the Zone of Peace.
The members of the Zone of Peace would maintain strict neu-
trality in respect to all outside conflicts—especially toward Cold
War conflicts of the Great Powers.

*Peace by Finesse* does not aspire to create instantaneous total
One World peace as Disarmament-Inspection plans do. Instead
of this unattainable goal it would make possible the very prac-
tical idea of creating real peace in at least part of the world. It
would do that NOW. However few and weak the first nations in
the Zone might be, there is every reason to believe that as time
passes more nations would join. If the peaceful status of those
nations in the Zone proves beneficial, ultimately even the Great
Powers might choose to join.

11401 E. Valley Blvd.
El Monte, Calif. 91731

JOSEPH W. STILL

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Prologue:

A New Road to Peace Needed

This is written by a peace-worker who has been too often disappointed by Geneva Conferences, Camp David Meetings, Summit Conferences, General Disarmament Conferences; a peace-worker who has lost confidence in the high level Great Power approaches to peace.

I have even less confidence in the little-man's three-P's—postcards, placards, and picketing-approach. Having closely followed and having participated in these efforts for a number of years I have reached the conclusion that the Great Power leaders can't possibly make peace. Every leader of an Advanced country is pledged to preserve the sovereignty and advance the interest of his country. How can we expect men with such a charge to relinquish their country's "right" and power to make war?

I have lost faith also in the power of *national peace organizations*, be they private or public, to make *transnational peace*.

If we who consider ourselves peace-workers want to "sell" peace to a majority of the World's people we must develop a positive, affirmative program for living it and stop just talking about it. When the pro-peace movement has built a sufficiently large body of public sentiment for peaceful transnational living it will then not be difficult for the various national leaders (Chief Executives) to liquidate the Cold War and other military threats to peace. But until world public opinion reaches a point where it is good politics to be for peace, it is unrealistic to expect that the majority of politicians or leaders of any of the Great Powers are going to do anything except talk peace while they prepare for war.

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No sane American any longer feels secure because we can
overkill the Soviet Union more than 1,000 times while they
can overkill us no more than 10 to 100 times. The absurdity
of the situation would be funny if it did not relate to such an
un-funny matter as the life and death of humanity. But absurd
and insane as it may be, the Advanced Nations have spent well
over a trillion dollars on the Cold War. The real problem that
peace-makers face is not how to expose and dramatize this
waste. Almost everyone from President Johnson down has be-
moaned the situation. What is needed is to find a way to break
the rigid patterns of thinking that have made it impossible for
the present leaders of the Great Power nations to break away
from the insane positions that they have inherited.

What adds to the complexity of the matter is the fact that
the time for making real peace probably is short. Every passing
day is a day on which a nuclear accident could occur. It is also
a day on which the probability of famine on an unprecedented
and catastrophic scale moves a little closer to reality.

Finally, it is essential that all peace-makers accept the full
implications of Pope John's challenge and try to think through
—to invent—a “system of organization” which would “corres-
pond to the objective requirements of the universal common
good.” *Peace by Finesse* is one such effort.

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Basic Problems

The basic paradox that faces peace-makers has been succinctly stated by President Johnson who has said, "The world has become a neighborhood before it has become a brotherhood."

Unfortunately, although the Advanced countries have developed the transportation and communication facilities that have made the World a neighborhood, it (the World) has not developed enough of the people-to-people friendliness and brotherliness necessary for it to operate as a real brotherly neighborhood. In our fears of each other, every country is policing its borders and planning as if it is threatened by an invasion. When we ask why this is the case, we discover that there are a few main causes:

1. Strangeness—The result of actual lack of human physical contact between the peoples of the world. Because of this lack of contact there is tremendous

2. Ignorance—of what other people and their countries are like—what their aspirations and hopes and dreams are. This results in the natural

3. Suspicion and Fear—of strange people and places and things and ideas which all people feel.

4. Envy—Undoubtedly many people in countries that are less advanced are envious and feel hatred for people from more advanced countries. Most of the world's people are from countries in which the average annual personal income is often less than $100, (compared with a U.S. average in the mid-1950s of over $2,500).

5. Scientific and Technical Backwardness—Regardless of the more remote historical reasons for it, the immediate reason for the poverty of the D-world* is that its people have very little scientific knowledge or technical skills in comparison with their cousins who were fortunate enough to have been born in the A-world. Most of the people from

*Henceforth, the abbreviation A is for advanced and D is for developing.

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the underdeveloped countries of the world cannot read or write, not because they are stupid but because no one ever gave them a chance to learn the 3 Rs. Unfortunately, merely admitting this does nothing to overcome the handicap of illiteracy and scientific and technical backwardness.

6. Snobbery—If you (assuming you are from an A-country) had been born and raised in Central Africa or in Asia or South America you, too, would probably not be able to read or write. In that case your earning power would also be very small. Those A-people who are unable to feel compassionate rather than snobbish toward those who are born into ignorance, proverty and misery are difficult to tolerate much less to understand.

7. Legal and Economic Barriers—between people do exist to some extent and, unhappily, seem to be increasing rather than receding.

8. The Nature of Nations and Tribes—Tribes, city-states and nations which represent the successive stages in man's social evolution have all been based on the need of individuals to unite in order to enhance their ability to survive. Man has evolved as the supreme animal. But man is still emerging from a dark past clouded by ignorance, fear and superstition. Only a small fraction of all human beings have ever obtained a high degree of scientific understanding of the technical mastery over many of the forces of nature. These developments have opened up great possibilities for overcoming most of the physical causes for fear that have existed in the past. Unfortunately our established social institutions—our tribal and national organizations—were built as a defense against a hostile Nature and generally hostile human neighbors. And social institutions are not easily changed even though the quantum jump that has occurred in the destructive potential of modern weapons has made war an irrational political instrument that threatens to destroy us.

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The problem that peace-makers must help them solve is this: How can we transform nations that evolved as powerful, vicious, but fully controlled "sheep dogs" whose prime job was to protect their sheep; how can we transform these "sheep dogs" which can no longer be fully controlled, into mere "watch dogs" who will bark but not bite? In the international jungle which the world still is, it is utterly unrealistic to expect the three most powerful "sheep dogs" to stop being "sheep dogs." This is especially the case while there are 50 or 75 uncorralled "lambs," each of which is continuously exciting one or another of the "sheep dogs." Not only are the "sheep dogs" unable to change their character but the Security Council (the "shepherd") also lacks the power to change their relationships with each other. To my mind this situation makes it clear that the uncorralled "lambs" must either build a "corral" of their own or continue to be the helpless pawns in the games the "sheep dogs" must play.

There is no confusion about what the basic law of transnational (United Nations) society must be: *No nation shall be permitted to violate the territory of another nor to interfere in the internal affairs of another nation.* This could be called The Golden Rule for forming a world society. *Peace by Finesse offers a way for the "lambs" (the small nations) to establish this basic law in their part of the world—right now.

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The Political and Economic
Geography of the World

Since World War II it has become apparent that, politically speaking, there are five main areas of the world:

1. *Advanced Capitalist*—The United States and Canada and the northern European (NATO) countries form the core of this group. It also includes Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey as well as still powerful Japan, England, Australia and New Zealand.

2. *Advanced Communist*—The Soviet Union plus the European countries allied with it form this group.

3. *Advanced Unaligned*—There are a few countries—Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia being the largest ones—which pursue a more or less neutral policy as regards the East vs. West Cold War struggle.

4. *Developing Communist*—Peking China plus North Korea, North Vietnam and Cuba form this group.

5. *Developing and Unaligned*—These fall geographically into five sub-groups:

(a) South and Central America

(b) Central and South Africa

(c) North Africa and the Middle East

(d) India, Pakistan and South Asia

(e) Oceania including Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The Advanced World is divided into two major sized and deeply hostile groups of allies—one group committed to private capitalist, the other to communist economic principles and a smaller, but not unimportant, “neutral” group. Since all of these have had real success in overcoming their former backward economic status it is not surprising that each is a strong advocate of its way as the way for all D-world countries to follow.

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The D-world (including Peking in the term) has lived under foreign (white) domination for centuries. Now most of it has, and the rest of it soon will have, thrown off open foreign domination and have become politically independent. But for a small economically weak country political independence is, in reality, seriously limited.

Simultaneous with the achievement of national independence D-countries have (by virtue of insecticides and antibiotics) each begun to have a population explosion that makes more difficult their problem of rapid development. Due to the increasing ease of travel and communication, people in the D-world are becoming increasingly aware of the stark differences between their way of life and the advanced ways of living that some people enjoy. As a result, D-world people are demanding that their leaders help them to raise their standards of living now.

But it always takes capital and know-how and time to advance. To advance rapidly requires much capital and know-how. Because the Cold War is wasting so much of the resources of both the capitalist and communist nations of the A-world, neither group has much excess capital or know-how to loan or give to the D-world. In fact, because the Cold War dominates the policies of both the Soviet Union and the United States the main interest of both countries in the D-world cannot possibly be humanitarian or altruistic. Both East and West are forced to be primarily concerned that no portion of the D-world join the opposing Cold War Bloc. Each bloc must try to ally with itself as much of the D-world as it can. This is the reality from which all discussions of peace-making should start.

Of course, the D-world has learned that its best chance to attract outside support is to join neither side—to maintain a position of neutrality, playing East and West blocs off against each other.

When the previous paragraph was first written, the conflict between China and the Soviet Union was just beginning. Now that this has deepened to present dimensions and now that de Gaulle has also clearly separated France from U.S.

17

leadership, the D-world nations no longer have a simple two-power struggle but a very complex four-power struggle to relate to. This makes the diplomatic game for D-nations much more difficult and much more dangerous than it was a few years ago. It is now apparent that the small nation which plays off one Great Power against another, or which merely has the misfortune to be geographically situated at a place where the strategic interests—that is, the spheres of influence—of two or more Great Powers come into conflict is very likely to become a Cold War battlefield on which Great Powers let proxy armies fight each other.

The net result of these political realities is a stalemate in which the people of the D-world grow relatively poorer each day, the Cold War wastes tend to grow larger and larger each day, and the dangers of a nuclear World War III also grow larger and larger each day. This trend promises to bring neither prosperity nor peace.

## The Basic Premises of Peace by Finesse

Disarmament with inspection or Unilateralism have for years been represented as the *only* alternatives to a continuation of the Cold War stalemate. Because neither of these alternatives is acceptable to either East or West, a stalemate exists which is likely to ultimately drift into or accidentally explode into World War III.

In the following pages we will consider a third approach to peace; an approach which the Small Nations, the D-countries, could carry out; an approach which would not replace but supplement existing anti-war efforts; and that might be called *Peace by Finesse*.

It rests on four basic observations:

1. Many problems that cannot be overcome by direct assault can be overcome by subtlety, by a carefully planned long-range strategy, by a series of small-scale attacks, by flanking actions and so on.

18

2. In the realm of politics, especially in the 20th Century, nothing is static. Important changes can and do occur rapidly. Modern technology—especially techniques using radio, TV, airplanes and the like—makes rapid changes of many kinds much easier an accomplishment than in the past.

3. Two-thirds of the people of the world live in the D-countries of Asia, Oceania, Africa and South America and have no valid incentives to be involved in the Cold War, yet they have, since World War II, been involuntarily involved to their own detriment. Undoubtedly if they had an opportunity to escape from the tensions of the Cold War conflict and at the same time to improve their economic and political status they would choose to do so.

4. That there are substantial amounts of capital and know-how now being misused and wasted in the A-world that could be diverted to the D-world. The steps to do this would require the General Assembly to pass a few enabling acts. And the D-countries would need to cooperate (as they undoubtedly would do) with the plan outlined in Proposal III to privately direct A-world know-how and capital to their countries. Undoubtedly many countries would cooperate with such plans—plans not technically much different from some that are already in operation in their countries but over which they do not have much control.

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## PROPOSAL I: *Isolating the D-World from the Cold War*

Early in the Cold War when East and West began to woo the leaders of D-World countries the latter thought they had found the key to rapid advancement. Just play off one side against the other. Get East and West to outbid each other and, presto, all problems could be solved.

That situation didn't last long. Now both Soviet and American strategists have developed their long-range strategies. And all the Great- and Middle-Powers have each decided what areas are of vital importance, what areas are of secondary and what areas are of little importance to them. With few exceptions they (the Great- and Middle-Powers) are no longer bidding strongly against one another except where immediate and vital interests seem to be involved.

If D-world countries were free to go ahead in peace and to develop their resources that would be fine. But because the world has become a congested neighborhood, no such freedom (the kind the United States enjoyed for over a century) will ever again exist. The Congo crisis has made everyone aware that Katanga province contains one of the world's major reserves of uranium. And that fact is too important, both militarily and financially, to be overlooked and ignored by the Great Powers. So the Congo, despite its remoteness, was brought to Civil War before it had finished celebrating its "independence."

Such facts as these must have caused many a D-world leader to wish that his country could enjoy the same isolation from foreign entanglements, the same freedom to advance that the United States enjoyed in its youth. Many a D-world leader must frequently wish his country was surrounded by an oceanic moat like America is.

Now that many young D-world countries are settling down to the long and difficult task of changing from underdeveloped to advanced status, as quickly as possible, their leaders are discovering that the East-West struggle is extremely distracting.

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Obviously it is seriously delaying and hampering the develop-
ment of the D-world. D-world leaders must often wish that both
the U.S. and U.S.S.R. and their close allies could be shipped to
the Moon so the D-world could develop at a normal rate. Like
President Monroe, leading a developing young nation in the
19th century, today's D-world leaders must long for real tran-
quility and peace—long to isolate their countries from the Cold
War; long to undertake, without too much fear of interruption,
the long-range projects so necessary for the full development of
their economically backward countries. Many of those leaders
must be almost frantically concerned about such "facts of life" as
these:

1. With their population explosion producing great increases in caloric needs, they are unable, without A-world help, to make the rapid technical advancement needed to increase productivity more rapidly than their calorie and other basic needs increase. In short, they are losing the calorie race and are not advancing. Instead they are growing poorer day by day and so are moving toward eventual economic and social breakdowns.

2. Because the Great Powers are wasting approximately $150* billion a year on the Cold War they can give (or loan) very little capital (money or human) to the D-world to help them move faster on the Road to Advancement.

3. In Korea, Laos, Vietnam and the Congo to mention a few prime examples—parts of the D-world have, because of strategic political considerations, become of vital concern to both East and West. When such strategic crises have occurred the resultant Cold War struggle has in all cases been devastating to the D-people directly involved.

4. The foregoing facts may be forcing D-world leaders to conclude that the Cold War struggle is basically a struggle for control of the D-world. Not, of course, for a colonial-style control but for overall economic and poli-

*Total direct cost over the 20 years of the Cold War to the Great Powers is now nearing 1½ trillion dollars. Think of that—1,500 billions! It staggers the imagination.

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tical control nonetheless. In a deep and long-range sense control of the D-world can be considered the *causus belli* over which the Cold War is being fought. Walter Lippman has confirmed this statement: "The end of the empires has left a vacuum of power which the liberated peoples have not yet mustered the strength or found the political maturity to fill without foreign aid. The Cold War is in large part a conflict about whether the vacuum shall be filled by Moscow, Peking or Washington."

If that statement is accepted as true then the following, also a quote from Walter Lippmann, is a logical corollary of it: "... spheres of influence are fundamental in the very nature of international society. They are as much a fact of life as are birth and death." It seems to me that this statement has been proven in the past twenty years by China in regard to Korea; by the Soviet Union in regard to Hungary; by the United States in regard to Cuba and most recently the Dominican Republic. Clearly the long-range goal of each of the Great Powers is to guide the evolution of the world-economy into patterns acceptable to it. As evidence of the strategic importance of the D-world consider the fact that, except for Berlin, all other Cold War incidents have occurred in the D-world. Can that be an accident? Certainly there is little in the record of the past twenty years to suggest that altruism is a major factor in the policy of any country.

Considerations such as these could lead an Asian or African "Monroe" to decide to use his country's vote in the General Assembly to politically isolate his and other D-world countries from the Cold War. He would then ask himself: How could my and other D-world countries be quarantined as President Monroe did the United States? How could we isolate our countries politically and militarily without giving up the opportunity to get economic development aid from either East or West or elsewhere?

The evidence of the last twenty years seems to prove con-

22

clusively that there is no possibility of ending the Cold War and getting on with the business of developing the underdeveloped nations until the latter unite on the basic proposition that the first step toward advancement is to exclude the Cold War struggle—in all its aspects, military, economic and ideological—from their territory.

The history of the United States points to the desirability of small states federating in order to attain a size and strength great enough to command the respect of great powers and in order to carry out a common foreign policy. Such regional federations can be loose enough to accommodate wide differences in economic, cultural and other matters. By means of the strength which the thirteen colonies achieved by federating to form the U.S.A. it became possible, with the help of our geography, to isolate our country from the cold war of the nineteenth century, a cold war carried on by the then Great Powers of Great Britain and Europe. During the peaceful nineteenth century of isolation the United States was able to advance from the status of a small weak country and become a first-class power strong enough to influence decisively the outcomes of both World Wars.

If the separate colonies could not go it alone then it is in-
conceivable that today's small weak nations in Asia, Africa and
South America can go it alone in a world in which military inter-
vention and ideological subversion can be carried out with the
speed and skill made possible by modern technology. The leaders
of today's small nations should consider the fact that the three
major powers of today's world—the U.S.A., the U.S.S.R., and the
Chinese People's Republic—are each federations of states and
regions and cultures which differ greatly one from another. The
fact that two of these countries are communist and one capi-
talist proves that this form of organization has no ideological
bias. The size, strength and compactness of these Great Powers as
compared with the small size of the eighteenth and nineteenth
century European powers which they have replaced as the world's
Great Powers convinces me that political evolution is moving
toward a world with perhaps ten to twenty more or less co-equal
regional federations which will be of sizes comparable to these

23

three powers. If true, then it is surely in the interest of the
D-nations to form these regional federations as quickly as pos-
sible.

But the Zone of Peace treaty, and certainly not federation,
cannot be forced on the small nations by the Great Powers. The
small nations must themselves discover the need for a Zone of
Peace treaty and for federation just as the thirteen colonies even-
tually, after several years' debate saw that their only hope of
obtaining the freedom and independence needed to advance eco-
nomically lay in federation and isolation.

None of these D-countries has the geographic advantages that the United States enjoyed. But one way to achieve a similar political isolation for the group as a whole would be for the General Assembly, acting under the authority of the 1950 Uniting for Peace resolution, instigated by John Foster Dulles, to pass a resolution establishing a theoretical Zone of Peace—an area from which Cold War competition would be banned—a truly neutral area; an area which any nation could join providing it would accept the requirements laid down for entry and membership. Possibly the Zone should be sub-divided for administrative purposes into regional sub-Zones.

The two basic requirements for membership in the Zone of
Peace would be that an applicant country would sign an agree-
ment to (1) relinquish its power to make war on other nations,
and (2) relinquish its right to permit a country not a member
of the Zone of Peace to use its soil for any purpose not accept-
able to a majority (or perhaps all) of the countries which are
members of the Zone of Peace. In other words, each nation in
the Zone would pledge to maintain strict neutrality with regard
to the Cold War struggle or any international struggle from
being conducted on its soil.

To implement the first requirement, the General Assembly
Peace Treaty would need to establish a transnational Military
Force capable of protecting the boundaries of the Zone of Peace
members from external aggression. Probably the members of that
force should be limited to nationals of Zone of Peace countries.
Certainly there should be no organized forces from the Great

24

Powers or their close associates. And the people performing military or other services for the Zone of Peace, at least those working at policy levels, should be given dual citizenship in the Zone of Peace as well as in their own nation.

With their national boundaries guaranteed by Zone of Peace membership and protected by the General Assembly sanctioned Military Force for the Zone of Peace, as well as by agreement to submit unresolved international disputes to the World Court, countries in the Zone would need only to maintain small internal police forces to preserve law and order within their own boundaries.

It is difficult to estimate how large a Zone of Peace military force would be needed. At the time of their birth as independent nations most of the D-countries had practically no military forces. It was only when they became politically involved in the Cold War that some of these countries were able to obtain modern weapons and organized military forces. Perhaps if small nations have the possibility of joining the Zone of Peace they will be glad to turn their weapons and military forces over to the Zone in order to have the more secure protection that the larger developmentally oriented organization could provide. It seems quite possible that the Zone of Peace military force would not need to be large. Its greatest power would rest in its symbol as an instrument of peace because any nation which challenged this would attract adverse world opinion.

To implement and control the second main membership essential for countries joining the Zone of Peace—the members of the Zone of Peace would establish Review Councils which would scrutinize from an international political viewpoint all prospective agreements between members of the Zone of Peace and outside countries. These Review Councils would be empowered to either approve or reject each proposed agreement in order to insure that no arrangement was made that would endanger the neutral status of the Zone of Peace.

Perhaps these Review Councils could use the administrative, fact-finding and policing machinery of the already existing U.N. agencies such as UNESCO, WHO, SUNFED, and so on, as

25

Secretariats to help them arrive at decisions regarding the desirability of proposed agreements. If so, it should be possible to rather easily and quickly put the Review Council machinery into operation.

Presumably the rivalry between the Great Powers and the existing "balance of terror" would prevent any of them from making a direct military attack on a country in the Zone of Peace. Thus, in effect, the Great Powers would become indirect guarantors of the Zone of Peace against Great Power aggression. The situation would be somewhat similar to the way the rivalry between France and England underwrote the Monroe Doctrine as United States policy.

Of course, as already suggested, those countries entering the Zone of Peace would lose the bargaining power that they now possess as a result of being able to play off one side of the Cold War against the other. So when countries relinquished that bargaining position and joined the Zone of Peace, many of them might find it even more difficult than at present to attract assistance from the Great Powers. To meet this possibility the Zone of Peace should arrange machinery to assure that all members would receive developmental assistance on a fair and essentially equal basis. At first glance it would appear that both East and West Great Powers would, under the circumstances just outlined, lose interest in large parts of the underdeveloped area. But actually, the total political and economic strength of the D-countries (hopefully abetted by some of the neutral A-countries) in the Zone(s) of Peace would be increased by their combining themselves in the larger Zone of Peace organization(s). The D-world does possess some important natural resources that cannot be synthesized. Perhaps they could set up machinery to promote economic cooperation between their members. If so, the enhanced economic and political bargaining power resulting from this arrangement might add billions to the income of the D-world, perhaps more than they ever will get through UNESCO, WHO, etc., as they now are being supported largely by meager Great Power contributions.

The group's bargaining power, especially if it set up ma-

26

machinery to promote economic cooperation between the Zone of
 Peace members, would certainly be much greater than the sum
 of the individual bargaining power of the separate members. The
 formation of a Zone(s) of Peace and the related administrative
 machinery may be an economic necessity for the D-countries.
 They need such organizations to enhance their bargaining posi-
tion in dealing with the international groups which have already
 been formed in the A-world—the Soviet bloc, the European Com-
 mon Market, the Outer Seven and the U.S.- Canadian groups.

There are a number of efforts now underway in the D-world to form international groups in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Some of these efforts are limited to forming nuclear-free zones while others are intended to effect economic cooperation between nations. Only a few propose a limited form of political unification as suggested above.

Presumably if it were established, a large part of the D-world would join the Zone of Peace and thus isolate those nations both politically and militarily from the Cold War. Such a development would stabilize world politics and prevent the occurrence of many future D-world incidents such as those which in the past few years have so often taken us to the brink of World War III. It would also make the D-world a really powerful and attractive place in which to live and work. The D-world nations in the Zone of Peace might then take on the characteristics—peacefulness and freedom to earn a good living for oneself and family—that endeared the U.S., in the 19th century, to the freedom-loving and peace-loving peoples of the world. The D-nations could, during the 21st century, become the New World of Opportunities for the young and ambitious of the whole world.

The changes proposed would tend sharply to polarize the U.N. into a positive (peace) pole, the General Assembly, and a negative (anti-war) pole, the Security Council. Whether or not such a polarization is desirable and how far it should go needs to be carefully considered. Possibly much of the difficulty which the U.N. has encountered as a peace-making agency is due to the overwhelming dominance which the Great Powers assigned to the negative pole of the organization. In any case, it appears

27

that the time has come to formally establish a better balance
within the organization. Possibly the U.N. budget should even
be divided so the Security Council would control the budget for
Security Council activities and the General Assembly the budget
for its peace promoting work. Certainly the Security Council
dominated U.N. has not been very successful in promoting peace
and prosperity for the D-world. Partly as a result of their failures
and whether the Great Powers like it or not the prestige of the
General Assembly seems to be increasing and the United Nations
seems to be rapidly evolving into a bi-polar organization.

Consideration of these possibilities make it seem likely that
if a majority of the members of the General Assembly should
choose to act along the lines proposed here there really is very
little that the Great Powers could do to stop such action.

28

## PROPOSAL II: Zone of Peace (dual) Citizenship for Peace Workers

Proposal III, which follows this one, would involve private people from A-countries moving to and working in D-countries. If this is to be done on a substantial scale it is necessary to do at least two things to attract such people:

1. Protect them from unwarranted and unnecessary risks—physical, economic or political—arising from their work.

2. Make it possible for them to be helpful and work freely in the D-countries where they may go.

### Need for U.N. Citizenship

Isolating the D-world from the Cold War should also tend to stabilize the "balance of terror." The resulting increase in tranquility would open up many new possibilities for private contacts between the peoples of the A-world and the D-world; possibilities for the private export of capital and know-how to the D-world. To facilitate this and because the activities of people working in the Zone of Peace might sometimes be disapproved by the people or governments in their own or other countries, it probably would be desirable to cloak their peaceful work with a special sanction from the U.N. This could be done by having the General Assembly establish a form of Zone of Peace citizenship for those who worked either as soliders or as civil servants or even privately in the Zone of Peace.

The arrangements might be somewhat as follows:

1. The resolution establishing the Zone of Peace citizenship status would need to provide that those holding Zone of Peace citizenship would be guaranteed, by the Zone of Peace organization, against economic or other reprisal from any source because of any act or decision made in carrying out their Zone of Peace role. They would be given a kind of transnational diplomatic immunity. If necessary some form of financial insurance might even be set up to protect

29

people from economic losses. Some kind of machinery
for redressing any losses that might occur should
be established. Of course, people from the A-world
could usually be spared from embarassing situations by
allowing them to withdraw in advance from situations in-
volving their native country much as judges do when they
find themselves about to hear a case in which they have a
personal interest. But these situations cannot always be
foreseen so these people should, nonetheless, be protected
from reprisal.

2. Individuals accepting Zone of Peace citizenship should be guaranteed the right thereafter to live anywhere they might choose in their own country or in any other country in the Zone of Peace. They would thus be guaranteed against becoming a stateless person as a result of some breakdown of the Zone of Peace arrangement in some country where they happened to be involved at the time of the breakdown. Without such a guarantee there would be danger of these people becoming persona non grata in all or in large parts of the world. But with it they would be guaranteed political asylum in a substantial part of the world.

3. Finally, something should be done to end the work discrimination against A-world people that exists in some D-world countries. It would seem that these discriminations are actually to the disadvantage of D-world countries in most cases. How can the D-world hope to advance rapidly if it will not allow people with advanced know-how to live and work in their countries? The United States and Canada made their rapid advancement by importing many people with advanced know-how from Europe. In many situations know-how is more valuable to the D-world than money or machinery because it is often necessary to adapt technical know-how to fit local conditions which often are vastly different from those usually found in A-countries.

With arrangements such as those just outlined, it would
become much easier for private people from the A-world to
bring their know-how and capital to D-world countries.

30

Such private arrangements raise none of the political prob-
lems that arise when one deals with these problems on a
government to government basis.

And, also, as already discussed. it appears that the Great
Powers are not likely to end the Cold War in order to divert
their energy to the D-world. Hence the countries of the
D-world had better isolate themselves and strengthen their
present self-help efforts.

The D-countries taken as a whole are losing ground in
their efforts to improve the living standards of their people.
They aren't getting enough help to go forward. They are
growing relatively poorer. The net of the situation may be
summarized in two statistics: *The population of the D-world
since about 1945 has been growing at a rate of about 3%
per year whereas their food production has been increas-
ing only at a rate of 2%. Horrible famines on an unprece-
dented scale are expected soon in many places in the
Southern hemisphere.*

The two former D-countries which have had the most
rapid economic advances in the history of the World are
the United States and the U.S.S.R. If we study the main
factors that made their rapid advances possible, perhaps
we will get some useful hints as to what might be done to
speed the development of the D-world. Let us briefly con-
sider the main elements that enter into the economy of a
country—soil, climate, minerals, knowledge and capital.

*Soil*—We are accustomed to credit the United States and U.S.S.R. with possessing the two finest breadbaskets in the world—the Great Plains States in the United States and the similar Donbas and Ukraine areas in the Soviet Union. Certainly these are areas of great fertility. But when we consider the vast amount of highly productive soils in the D-world as well as the still largely unexploited tropical forests existing in Asia, Africa and South America, and the tremendous potential (with the aid of irrigation) of many of the presently desert areas of the D-world, it is clear that the people of the D-world need not be hungry

31

because they do not have enough fertile soil on which to
grow food.

*Climate*—Large parts of the D-world lie in tropical and sub-tropical regions. The net difference in climates between the average square mile of land in the Advanced, as compared with the D-world, is this: The Advanced square mile is cooler, receives less sunlight and rainfall and has a shorter growing season than the average square mile of the D-world. In general, the natural advantages for producing food would seem to be on the side of the D-world. Why then is it losing the calorie race?

Briefly stated the answer is:

1. Until very recent times diseases such as malaria, diarrhea, dysentery, plague, typhus, typhoid and many others were continuously either killing or devitalizing millions of people and animals in these countries. But now through the introduction of modern chemicals—especially DDT and other insecticides, Penicillin and other antibiotics and mass vaccines—human deaths as well as diseases of plants, animals and humans have been greatly reduced. But so far the net effect of these public health factors has been to increase human mouths faster than food production has grown.

2. For reasons that we need not enter into here, the industrial revolution occurred mainly in Northern Europe and North America. And one of its by-products was colonialism and exploitation. Because of this, during the early centuries of the Industrial Revolution the more advanced countries were able to import large amounts of raw materials, including foods, from the socially and economically static D-world. But the A-world did little to help D-peoples advance educationally or economically. And so the D-world more or less stood still for centuries.

Now the A-world produces most of its own food. And chemistry has progressed so far that the A-countries are also becoming less and less dependent on natural products, such as fibers and rubber, for example. So, at the very moment when they need more capital, the economic bar-

32

gaining power of the D-world is declining relative to the A-world. Hence they—the people of the D-world—not only lack the tools, machinery and know-how to increase their agricultural productiveness, but they also are severely handicapped, for the reasons just cited, in their ability to raise capital with which to purchase tools, machinery and know-how.

3. By and large D-world people are technically almost completely uneducated and unskilled in the use of the kinds of tools, machinery and techniques which account for the high level of productivity of the average worker in A-countries. So most of them cannot easily do a "boot strap" job as some of the less disadvantaged D-countries (such as those in North Africa and the Balkans) can do if necessary. If the latter countries can get a little modern equipment they have a few people to operate it effectively and to use it to teach others.

*Minerals*—There is no reason to believe that the D-world contains relatively less mineral deposits than does the A-world. But, as in the case of fibers and rubber, many of these minerals are not in as good a bargaining position in today's world markets as they were a few years ago. Advancing technology has developed competing materials for many of them. So as a way of bringing in outside capital, these resources have limitations also. However, these still are important natural resources which the D-countries must learn to exploit both for export and for their own internal consumption and in industrialization. But doing this requires overcoming many handicaps and problems.

*Scientific Education and Technical Know-how*—Far and away the most important deficit of the D-world is the relatively low level of scientific knowledge and technical know-how of their people. Today most citizens of the United States and U.S.S.R.—to return to our prime examples—can operate and even repair some if not many kinds of tools. The vast majority of the people in D-countries have had almost no contact with such tools, machines and techniques.

33

As mentioned above, the United States and Canada had the great good fortune to be opened up just as the Industrial Revolu-
tion was getting well under way and also to be able to import many highly educated and technically trained people from Eu-
rope. The abundant natural resources waiting to be expoited in North America and the free enterprise economy developed by our forefathers were ideally suited to produce the rapid economic advancement that took place, especially in the United States.

Those who carried out the American Revolution recognized that political democracy could only be realized in a country whose citizens were literate. Hence the principle of universal compulsory education was first adopted and implemented in the United States. Furthermore, because of unemployment and political unrest in Europe during the years when the North American continent was being settled, the United States and Canada were able to import many well-educated and technically skilled people to privately help develop their resources.

The Soviet Union, like the United States, had abundant
natural resources—both agricultural and mineral—and she also
had a cool climate which was less favorable to disease than is
the case in most of the D-world. But unlike the United States she
was not in a position to import scientifically educated and tech-
nically skilled people to help her exploit her natural resources.
In fact the combined effects of World War I, and the Revolution
with their accompanying famine and epidemics destroyed many
of the best educated and best trained people of Russia. And, of
the survivors, many fled.

So the Soviet Union, like the D-world, faced a need to rapidly increase the level of scientific education and technical know-how of most of her people. Although the average Russian of the pre-Soviet period probably had a somewhat higher level of education and technical skill than the average citizen of the D-world has today, it is likely that the difference isn't very great. This is encouraging. For if the Soviet Union could overcome much of its scientific and technical backwardness in a generation, so could the D-world.

How did they do it? Even though they were unable to import
educated and technically skilled people, they still possessed cer-

34

tain advantages over the United States in the 19th Century. The
Russian Revolution resulted in the complete victory of the Bol-
sheviks and so gave them *complete* power over the country—
including its economy, its educational system, its news media.
They made science and education keystones of their strategy for
modernizing their country.

They also had the advantage that their revolution occurred
much longer after the Renaissance—at a much more advanced
stage of the Industrial Revolution—than did ours. By 1917 when
theirs began, the A-world had accumulated a vast fund of sci-
entific knowledge and industrial and technical know-how not
known in 1776. Of course, this was freely available to Soviet
scientists and technicians. Hence, the Soviets were able to start
their industrialization on the basis of the newest ideas and tech-
niques available then. They also had the "clean slate" advantage
that seems to have played an important role in the more recent
rapid growth of post-war Europe—especially Germany. Because
much of their industrial plant was destroyed in W.W. II they got
rid of all obsolescence and rebuilt on a new and hence much
more efficient basis than before.

Because the Soviets operated a completely centralized totali-
tarian nation it was very easy for them to establish a national
curriculum and national education standards, and also to pay high
salaries in order to attract their most intelligent and ambitious
young people into education, science and related technologies.
Perhaps some readers may find it difficult to separate in their
minds the notions of central control of education and dictatorial
thought control. If so, they should be reminded that these are
not inseparable concepts. As a matter of fact, all A-countries
except the United States have centralized control of their curricu-
lum and overall planning but most of them are operated in ways
that we consider free and democratic. What we are concerned
with here is not political goals or methods but educational meth-
ods. What is important to recognize now is merely the fact that
the Soviet's educational methods have succeeded in transforming
a country whose people were over 70% illiterate in 1917 to one
in which most mentally normal people are literate. History re-
cords no faster change than theirs. By any standards this is a

35

tremendous accomplishment and one which D-countries will need to duplicate or exceed if they are to advance rapidly.

— Turning to the technical level we note that the two educational tools which have been most influential in the rapid intellectual progress of the Russian people have been their use of nursery (and kindergarten) schools and after-high-school clubs.

Through the use of nursery (and kindergarten) schools the children of ignorant field- and factory-working mothers were exposed for several hours each day to the influence of better educated and trained nursery-school and kindergarten teachers. With these relatively cheap institutions they freed mothers to do productive work in fields and factories. At the same time these institutions made it possible for a relatively few young teachers to implant, in the minds of most of Russia's two to eight year old children, ideas about nature and science and technology and, of course, Communism. Thus we see that the Soviets, who reject Freud and Catholicism, do not reject their doctrines concerning the psychological importance of the early formative years of a child's life. Through the almost universal use of nursery schools and kindergartens they were able to by-pass the pre-Revolutionary ignorance of their adults and to instill a passion for knowledge in the average Russian child which has been remarked upon by many outside visitors.

Incidentally, the Soviet success in educating young underprivileged children has been matched by Maria Montessori, in Italy, whose work began ten years before the Soviet Union came into being. As the result of the pioneer educational work and research carried out in her schools and carefully reported by her and her associates we possess a fine body of theory and documents on which to base the development of similar schools in the D-world.

The nationwide use of after-high-school clubs has been another important reason why the Soviets have advanced educationally so rapidly. By means of these clubs for children 9 to 15, the Soviets have found a very effective way of channeling a great deal of the leisure time and extra energy of their young people into cultural, educational and scientifically productive channels.

36

These after-school clubs are centered in club houses (often palaces of pre-revolutionary vintage) separate, both physically and administratively, from the high or grade school whose pupils they serve. The range of club activities is wide-ranging from games, camera, dancing and dramatics to various kinds of shop work and serious scientific research.

American experience as well as the experience of other A-countries fully corroborate the value of after-school clubs and vacation-time activities. By using these tools so they reach underprivileged children as well as those from better circumstances it is possible to rather quickly advance the educational and cultural level of a backward country.

Of course, all A-countries have made important contributions to educational theory and practice. I only stress the U.S. and Soviet contributions because these countries present outstanding examples of rapid advancement. Probably one of the major research efforts of the Zone of Peace Research and Planning organization (to be presented in Proposal III) should be to study the educational theories and practices of all A-countries in order to use these data as effectively as possible in developing theories and practices for rapidly educating D-peoples.

The problem most of the underdeveloped countries have in following the examples of either the United States or the Soviet Union is that there is no obvious source of easily importable technically skilled man-power today, as there was when the United States was developing. And most of the underdeveloped countries do not even have the small nucleus of well-educated or highly skilled people such as the Soviets had. Later we shall discuss how this handicap might be overcome. First consider the problem of investment capital.

*Investment Capital* — When they were at the underdeveloped stage the United States and Canada were extremely fortunate as compared with most of today's D-countries. First of all there was tremendous natural-both mineral and agricultural-wealth almost waiting to be picked up in North America. Hence the accumulation of investment capital was relatively easy. And the scientifically and technically educated people who migrated here

37

from Europe were not slow in discovering and exploiting these
possibilities. Furthermore, Great Britain and Europe had excess
investment capital to export at the very time the United States
needed it. Old World capital came not only from large European
companies—The Hudson Bay Company is the best known ex-
ample—but also from private citizens who “grub-staked” a son
or brother who came to America, founded a business or acquired
a job and who then aided other relatives or friends.

The Soviet Union was not so fortunate in obtaining outside
capital. She had to raise almost all of her investment capital by
restricting the consumption of her people and thus keeping their
living standard at a very low level. But by such techniques she
succeeded in exporting agricultural, and to some extent mineral
"surpluses," which she traded for industrial tools and machines.
Gradually, through the import of these and the upgrading of the
scientific and technical know-how of her people, the Soviet Union
has been transformed from a quite backward underdeveloped
country to one of the more advanced countries. Of course her
people still do not enjoy a living standard comparable to Ameri-
cans or Canadians though it is definitely rising but, in terms of
military technology, she has reached essential parity with the
United States.

In raising investment capital the D-world is not in a position
to directly emulate either the United States or the U.S.S.R. But
the D-world must find a way to accumulate hard currency money
from A-countries in order to purchase from them the tools and
machines and know-how, so necessary for industrial development.
The next section outlines a program and plan whereby the D-
world could do this. To some degree this can be done by using
some of their cheapest and most readily available resources,
hence they can do it at relatively small cost in physical resources.
They would trade their good climate, the warm peace loving atti-
tudes of their people and the interesting significant human social
problems for private capital and know-how from the A-world.

38

## PROPOSAL III: *Importing Know-How and Capital to Help D-People*

### Sources of Know-How

There appear to be considerable numbers of advanced peoples who are potential migrants to the D-world and who also are potential sources of capital. A-people who possess educational or technical knowledge (as well as certain amounts of private capital) that could be useful to those countries are: (1) unemployed, (2) dissenting intellectuals who are unhappy working to further the Cold War but who have no other ready alternatives and (3) retirees (not necessarily over 65) who are potential part-time and some of them full-time workers. Let us consider what the D-world might do to attract some of these people:

1. *Unemployed*—There are whole communities in the United States where mines or mills or other kinds of factories or businesses have become obsolete and been closed. With the rapid advance of automation we can expect that in the future more and more such communities will develop not only in the U. S. but elsewhere. Would it not be possible for some D-country which possesses a potential mine or other raw material to approach one of these communities and offer to form a joint corporation with the unemployed miners (or mill-workers) and managers, and import a whole community—both people and machines? By such a scheme the D-Country would be able to transform a useless natural asset—their raw material—into useful capital. And at the same time they would be importing scientifically and technically advanced people, who could, if properly integrated with native workers, become on-the-job educators of very great importance to the whole D-community where they settled.

There may be some objection to this proposal on the grounds that there are already unemployed people in many D-countries, so that they scarcely need to import some more. This view fails to take into account the fact that an

39

unemployed worker in an A-country is often a highly
skilled person with a fair education, many technical skills
and much know-how that extends far beyond their specific
trade. Such a person is not comparable with an illiterate,
technically ignorant D-world laborer who also happens to
be unemployed.

The joint corporations might have a limited duration
of life of something like twenty-five or fifty years. The D-
country might reserve the right to retire the foreign capital
at the end of that time. However, the arrangements should
make it possible for the individuals and their families to
obtain equal citizenship, remain in the country, enjoy their
savings and continue to work if they chose to do so. This
provision would be guaranteed by the dual citizenship ar-
rangement outlined in the previous section.

If such a plan can be applied to mining, it undoubtedly
can be applied to milling and factory and handicraft work
of many kinds. For example, one of the remarkable sights
that a tourist quickly notices in the D-world is the large
number of foot-pedalled Singer sewing machines one sees.
There is an important lesson to be derived from this ob-
servation. Though today it probably would be difficult to
sell one such machine in all of North America, these are
of tremendous value to women in D-countries. In most
parts of those countries an electric machine would be value-
less. Undoubtedly there are many other tools, machines
and techniques as well as whole factories that are out-
moded in this country that could with mutual profit be ex-
ported to D-countries. But many of these tools and ma-
chines are useless unless people with the know-how to use
and service them are available. By importing some A-people
along with such tools and machines the D-world could in-
crease their productivity and at the same time obtain tools,
machines and facilities which could be used for teaching
and training their people how to use them. Incidentally
older and more primitive tools and machines are often
simpler and more easily understood than more modern
versions. Hence they often have advantages from the stand-

40

point of using them for education as well as for production.

2. *Dissenting Intellectuals*—There are reasons to believe that in all countries of the A-world there are substantial numbers of teachers, scientists, intellectuals and people who are in substantial disagreement with the Cold War policies of their governments and who are eager to live exciting, useful and constructive lives. They could be called conscientious objectors to the Cold War. Though thoroughly loyal to our country, many such people now find themselves obliged to work at jobs for which they did not prepare, or are forced to work at jobs which are contributing to the sharpening of the Cold War conflict, even though they would prefer to be working on peacefully directed projects. If suitable facilities—universities, schools and research facilities—or opportunities to develop them were available there, many of this group of people could be attracted to the peaceful jobs in the D-world.

It seems likely that D-countries might be more successful than at present in attracting such people if they would invite A-world scientists and teachers and others to unite with some of their people to form small cadres for the purpose of organizing new schools and scientific or other institutes. These might be formed as joint corporations, somewhat like those already outlined above for importing groups of miners or factory workers. In short the D-world would invite private citizens in the A-world to come and form living-working colonies of various kinds in their countries. I hasten to add this would be a far different relationship than when the European white men came before on their own initiative and in organized groups to colonize and exploit part of the completely underdeveloped world.

3. *Retirees* (*Not necessarily over 65*)—Many people in the United States and other advanced countries are financially able to retire in their fifties and early sixties. And most Americans today are forced to retire at sixty-five. If climatically pleasant, economical, healthful and socially attractive communities were developed in many places in

41

the D-world it seems likely that many over-45 people could
be induced to spend their physically declining, but in-
tellectually for many of them their very best, years living
and working (part time) in developing areas of the World.
Such people could become a valuable source of volunteer
as well as part-time and full-time teachers, scientists, ad-
ministrators, consultants, *and* hard currency.

That many such people enjoy traveling about and see-
ing the world is a demonstrated fact. That many of them
have sufficient income to support themselves is beyond
question. Naturally such people would want to live at
least as well (physically and otherwise) as they could in
the United States or Europe. And they are naturally con-
cerned about their health. They want to be near good
doctors and good hospitals. But most of all, many of them
want to have useful, interesting opportunities to work and
use their knowledge and skills.

This brief analysis makes it evident that there are sub-
stantial numbers of A-people who might be induced to live
and work in the D-world; people who could bring badly
needed know-how and capital to the D-world to help it de-
velop rapidly. Let us consider some of the negative factors
that must be overcome if this is to occur.

Prejudice Against Whites

Since the D-world has been and in some places still is com-
batting colonialism; colonialism once carried out by Englishmen,
Frenchmen, Belgians, Dutch, Portugese or other Europeans, there
is a natural tendency for D-people to unconsciously assume that
every white person is another colonialist—possibly even a racist.
Because colonialism has only recently been expelled from many
D-world countries there is an understandable reluctance to allow
whites to live and especially to work in those countries. But if
these prejudices are persisted in, the D-world will itself be adopt-
ing a new kind of racism and thus cut itself off from receiving
help from the kinds of A-people just mentioned, who, though
generally white are not colonialists, and who can be very helpful

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to the D-world in its efforts to advance rapidly. What needs to be realized is that if A-world people are attracted to the D-world as *individuals* (not as members of colonizing groups) and are integrated into the economic and social life of those countries they will be no more of a threat to the government of those countries than were the millions of Europeans who came to this country in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Besides, not all A-people are white and so some well-educated colored ones will also be attracted to the D-world.

No doubt some people will misinterpret this suggestion as a means of once more dominating and even converting colored people into body servants. The fact is that many older people badly need personal services—nursing, massage and so on—and many are unable to get them today in the United States. What is wrong with making a sound business exchange of this kind of honorable work for honest money? An exchange which will bring both A-capital and A-know-how to D-countries in exchange for the use of their climate and some of their food, shelter and services.

## The Charity Approach to Advancement

D-countries cannot expect substantial numbers of A-people to accept such development programs if they must lower their standard of living to do it. You can get a handful of dedicated youngsters to live for a year or two like D-world natives—as members of the Peace Corps. But it is unreasonable to expect large numbers of mature adults to migrate more or less permanently toward a *lower* standard of living. Those who migrated to America came to *raise* not to lower their living standard. In doing so they helped raise the living standard of the whole country. If the D-world wants to attract energetic people from the A-world it will have to give them a chance to earn a decent living and permit, yes even help, them to establish settlements providing an advanced style of living. As matters now stand most plans for using A-people in the D-world involve their donating their services—as in the Peace Corps and similar programs. This essentially charitable approach should be supplemented by the same kind of realistic, business-

43

like importing of manpower that helped the United States to develop so rapidly. The D-world can't be rapidly advanced on a charity basis.

So it would seem that if the D-world wishes to attract the amounts of A-world know-how and capital it needs, it will have to develop a definite business-like program to do this essentially as those who developed the United States did in its early days.

## Inadequate Living Facilities

Many parts of the D-world—probably many of the parts that are most badly in need of A-world know-how—do not have modern living facilities to attract A-people. If A-people are now to be attracted in substantial numbers it will be necessary for someone to build suitable living facilities—to establish settlements which would be attractive places to live in.

## Inadequate Health, Social and Recreational Facilities

It will not be possible to attract very many people to the D-world if those people must work for little or nothing *and* live in primitive buildings *and especially* if they are cut off from A-world levels of health, social and recreational amenities. So something would have to be done to bring these kinds of services to these settlements.

## A Business-like Approach to Attracting A-world People

If the D-countries want to attract large numbers of A-people—enough to help them advance rapidly—they will need to organize and build settlements with modern living and social facilities and import the medical care that would be needed to make them attractive. Perhaps they could purchase the latter, on an insurance basis, from one of the medical plans operating so well in the Scandinavian countries. They would also need to develop personnel agencies to locate and employ those A-people possessing skills of value to the D-countries, who wanted to work as well as live there.

The D-world possesses many areas which are climatically ideal for building settlements where such people could live and

44

work. In the D-world it is generally possible to build relatively cheaply. The D-world can produce food relatively cheaply and it has millions of people who could help to staff the hospitals and the living facilities of such A-peoples' villages. In doing such jobs the D-world people would absorb a great deal of A-world know-how and technical skill as well as earn money. So a basis for a sound business deal exists.

It would seem that what is mainly needed to make a good many over-45 people a source of capital and know-how is the same kind of research that Del Webb carried out to learn to design his Retirement Villages. It may be true that the vast majority of today's over-45 people could not, at the start, be interested in such a proposition. Anyway, such developments should start small and grow as experience justifies.

If such a business-like plan can be implemented on a large scale it will lead to the development of many A-people settlements in under-developed countries. It seems possible that once such a plan got "off the ground" it would serve to advertise the D-countries as places where large numbers of advanced people could cheaply and pleasantly and usefully spend some of their later years of life. In the long run, if these A-settlements are operated on an integrated basis from the first, these would become contact and communication centers where people from A-world and D-world could meet, exchange information and ideas and learn how to work cooperatively to solve problems of mutual interest.

The countries of the D-world will undoubtedly have to take the initiative in organizing such a plan. And they will probably have to underwrite the risks of getting such a plan started. It probably should begin by establishing a Research & Planning agency to serve the Zone of Peace. This agency would be controlled by D-world personnel but it could employ A-world scientists and technicians as advisors and in administrative and technical capacities. If the problem were approached in some such business-like way, it should not be too difficult to develop such an operation and to get it under way fairly quickly on a reasonable scale, a scale which would then grow normally as demand grew.

45

## Conclusions

The Zone of Peace plan has the great advantage of being a sound business exchange from which both sides can profit. It "goes over the heads" of the Great Power governments and even "over the head" of the U.N. Security Council and encourages and enables the peoples of the world to make direct human contact with each other. It permits them to do sound private business with each other in ways that will strengthen peace.

What other way is there to keep the Cold War conflicts of the Great Powers from being carried out on the territory of the small underdeveloped nations?

This plan has one great political advantage over all proposals so far made for forming neutral or de-nuclearized zones. The Zone of Peace proposal would be offered to the General Assembly *without* regard to what nations might eventually enter it. By thus eliminating any discussion of specific territory the matter could be considered purely on its *theoretical* merits. It would thereby be completely divorced from all considerations of a "practical," real estate, or vested interest nature. In that form it would seem to be very difficult for any nation to oppose the adoption of a Zone of Peace Treaty. Once passed it would be impossible for any nation to prevent another from joining the Zone of Peace, if the latter nation was willing to accept the requirements for membership contained in the treaty. Since many nations in the Southern Hemisphere have already shown an interest in excluding nuclear warfare from their territory and a few have seen the value of regional economic cooperation, it would seem likely that many of them would welcome a plan that would place such zones under the protection of the General Assembly.

The world would be far better off at this stage of history with a truly neutral self-protected Zone of Peace, even if it contained only a handful of small nations, than if it were to have a larger so-called "Zone of Peace" whose future depended on the Great Powers to act in a neutral manner toward the Zone of Peace.

46

The present Vietnam war is the result of this kind of "neutralization." It didn't work there or in Korea or Berlin, to mention only the three best known places where Great Power neutrality has been tried.

Given the stability and peaceful climate that would obtain in the Zone of peace, the D-nations in it would, like Germany, France and Russia after World War II, be free to industrialize with the most modern techniques available. And so to the extent they could gain the needed capital and know-how they could insure that areas move very rapidly toward modern industrialization and in some fields begin to exercise worldwide leadership before too many years.

Many A-people whose skills have become obsolete in the A-world, or who are considered too old to be useful there, or who are out of sympathy with the Cold War and the way of life in A-world countries would, through this plan, be provided with ways of salvaging their happiness and usefulness in the D-world. They would be able to do this on an affirmative and positive rather than a mere escapist and negative basis, as do those who have in recent years been migrating to the South Seas. Such a plan would constitute a direct assault on the problem of racial segregation, and could lead to the finest kinds of transracial and transnational people-to-people cooperation.

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Epilogue

As the history of the 20th Century has unfolded, it seems to many that the Soviet and Chinese revolutions have been the most significant events of this century. I disagree. I believe historians of the 20th century will conclude that advances in the scientific theories and practical technology of communication, transportation and biology have provided the basic stuff out of which the 20th century social revolutions have grown. Let us look at some of the advances that support this view.

1. *Communications*—Improvements in the telegraph, telephone and trans-oceanic cables and the invention of radio and now Telstar communication have made it possible for public officials and public agencies to communicate almost instantaneously and continuously with each other. These advances in communication have made it possible to centralize the control of nations—their economies, armies, police forces and so on—to a degree that was not even dreamed of before these techniques became available. These advances in communication have also made it possible for national leaders to cooperate and coordinate the policies and programs of their nations with a speed and precision utterly impossible in earlier times.

2. *Transportation*—In this realm the auto, the airplane and the rocket are the three revolutionary advances which have occurred in this century.

The contrast between the present and earlier transportation possibilities is shown below:

<table><thead><tr><th>Approx. minim. time</th><th>About 1900</th><th>About 1965</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>To cross the U.S. (east to west)</td><td>5 days by trains</td><td>4½ hours by plane</td></tr><tr><td>To circle the world</td><td>60 days by train and boat</td><td>2 days by plane</td></tr></tbody></table>

3. *Biology and Medicine*—Here the results are equally spectacular. Some highlights are shown in the following table:

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About 1900

About 1965

<table><tr><td>Life expectancy at birth in U.S.</td><td>47 years</td><td>70 years</td></tr><tr><td>Vaccines available</td><td>Smallpox</td><td>Diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, influenza, typhus, yellow fever and many others.</td></tr><tr><td>Antibiotics</td><td>None were known</td><td>Penicillin, streptomycin and dozens of others.</td></tr><tr><td>Insecticides</td><td>Paris green (arsenic) and a few similar chemicals which were both very dangerous as well as very limited in their effectiveness and efficiency.</td><td>D.D.T. and others which are essentially non-toxic to humans and animals, and relatively very cheap and easy to apply, but which are highly effective in combatting the most important diseases of the Southern Hemisphere—malaria, typhus, diarrhea, plague, dysentery and many others.</td></tr><tr><td>Surgery</td><td>Even such relatively simple surgery as appendectomies or gall bladder surgery carried substantial risks. A ruptured bowel or a punctured lung or heart or brain was almost certain to cause death.</td><td>Today the most fantastic feats of surgery—replacing arteries and even organs, cleaning out the debris in clogged blood vessels, replacing heart valves, keeping people alive for years who have no kidneys. All these and many more “miracles” of modern medicine are changing both the length and the quality of life.</td></tr></table>

The increased span of life results in an increase in the maturity and wisdom of the general public. As one example of what this can mean, consider the number of Europeans who are still alive and politically alert who have lived through World War II and know the destruction, privation and fear that it brought them. Consider how many of this group also lived through World War I.

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Is it conceivable that these war-wise millions do not represent an important restraint on any advocacy of policies which might seem to risk a third world war?

Marx and Engels' theories rested mainly on studies of the social and economic history of the 300 years that followed the Renaissance and the first 100 years of the Industrial Revolution. For slavish Marxists who consider *Das Kapital* to be an economic and political Bible, I ask: Did you ever stop to consider such facts as these?

Darwin published the *Origin of Species* in 1859. This was eleven years after Marx and Engels published the *Communist Manifesto*.

Sigmund Freud, who first developed both the theory and the basic technique for studying man's unconscious mind, was not even born until 1856, eight years after the *Manifesto*. Though not all of his theories have stood the test of time, Freud can be credited with opening the door to the scientific study of the mind.

Einstein, the creator of the Theory of Relativity, was born in 1879. And Niels Bohr, another great physicist and theoretician of Quantum Mechanics, was not born until 1885. These are the two physicists whose theoretical creations are most responsible for the fact that science has now developed the ability to split the atom and perhaps end civilization. When we consider the further and more pleasant fact that atomic power will be capable of replacing the Earth's rapidly dwindling reserves of fossil fuels which cannot last more than a few hundred years, it seems clear that their creations will rank in history as among the most important of all time.

Norbert Wiener, the creator of Cybernetic Theory, was born in 1895; John Von Neumann, the inventor of Decision Theory, was not born until 1903, and Claude Shannon, the creator of Information Theory, not until 1916. These are the three great mathematical geniuses who are more responsible than any others for the development of modern computers and automatic control system which make it possible to automatically control airplanes, machines and even whole factories; computers to handle many kinds of tedious, time-consuming, data-collecting and bookkeeping.

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ing transactions; computers to follow and automatically control
continuous dynamic processes such as the distilling of crude oil
to separate it into its various fractions; computers to make it
possible to record and store and then use, as needed, masses of
data on a scale impossible to contemplate without computers.

In biology and medicine, dozens of brilliant names come to
mind: Pasteur, who first proved that germs can cause human
disease, was born in 1822 and died in 1895; Fleming, the dis-
coverer of penicillin, lived from 1881 to 1955; Salk and Sabin,
the inventors of polio vaccines; Stone, the discoverer of the pub-
lic health potentials of D.D.T.; Watson and Crick, who found the
key for unlocking the code of inherited characteristics; and
dozens of brilliant physiologists, surgeons, and other scientists who
have contributed to the fantastic advances of modern chest, heart,
organ, and vessel surgery are still living and actively working to
create still more biological and medical miracles.

These (and other related) scientific-technical revolutions have
so profoundly changed the nature and potentials of modern
societies as to possibly make the social theories of Marx and Engles
essentially obsolete. Though there are conflicts of interest between
management and labor in the United States, the manner of re-
solving them today bears little resemblance to the heartless and
brutal conflicts from which Marx and Engels drew their con-
clusions. Of course, the conflicts of interest between management
and workers and even strikes which occur in the Soviet Union
cannot possibly be explained with the theories of Marx. Clearly
conflicts of interest are not a capitalistic monopoly. This and
much other evidence strongly suggest that the division of the
20th Century world into rich and poor nations is of much greater
significance than are the differences between capitalist and com-
munist nations. And the extent to which the Soviet Union and the
United States are "borrowing" from each other strongly suggests
that the differences will continue to lessen.

Some readers of *Peace by Finesse* say, "It's a nice idea but
how can it be applied to the Vietnam situation?" The best answer
I can give to that question is to quote Congressman Brown's
speech introducing *Peace by Finesse* to his colleagues. He said,

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"In Vietnam it seems to me the best solution we can now see is to change the framework—the background—for considering the problem. This could be done by forming a Southeast Asian Zone of Peace in which all of former Indochina, Burma, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Malaya, Indonesia, and, no doubt, other nations in that area would be included. If this regional Zone of Peace were also to form a developmental bank and a research organization to assist the bank in reaching wise decisions, and if the regional Zone of Peace would also assume the responsibility for preserving its own neutrality, as between the United States versus the U.S.S.R., the United States versus China, the U.S.S.R. versus China, and so on, would this not provide as satisfactory a way to end the present senseless bloodshed as can be found?" President Johnson has already indicated his approval of the idea of establishing a Mekong Basin Development organization.

Others point to the fact that both the United States and the Soviet Union seem to wish to reduce the powers of the General Assembly. They feel that the *Peace by Finesse* proposals fly in the face of this situation and therefore have no chance to be adopted. To answer this objection I again quote Congressman Brown:

"I'm aware that the Soviet Union is insisting that the Security Council maintain a monopoly on peacekeeping and thus maintain the power of the five great powers to veto action by the Security Council. In my recollection, this was not the intent when the United Nations Charter was adopted. The veto was intended to prevent three or four Great Powers from using the Security Council to organize an assault on one or two others. The only thought in anyone's mind was to prevent Great Power wars. Obviously, the Security council is poorly suited to the handling of disputes such as those in the Congo and Vietnam. Based on such reasoning I find it a very sensible idea that the nations of the Southern Hemisphere should set up their own machinery to exclude the Cold War struggle from their territory and then do their own peacekeeping."

It seems to me that those who see a conflict between the proposals of *Peace by Finesse* and the existing Charter of the

52

United Nations are failing to distinguish between the preventive actions which *Peace by Finesse* proposes and deterrent or coercive actions which only the Security Council is empowered by the Charter to take when a threat to the peace already exists. *Peace by Finesse* is perfectly happy to leave these latter kinds of obviously neglected cases, which threaten the health of the whole world, in the hands of the Security Council's "surgeons." But *Peace by Finesse* insists that surgeons, no matter how skilled or colorful they may be, have no right to prevent more prosaic public health officers from preventing the occurrence of diseases which might otherwise require the services of the surgeons. The proposals for forming a Zone of Peace and thus removing much (hopefully all) of the underdeveloped world from the spheres of influence of all of the great powers would certainly have prevented almost all of the kinds of quarrels that have occurred since World War II. If Korea, Vietnam or the Congo, to name only three, had been a part of a neutralized Zone of Peace existing under the authority of the General Assembly, it is very unlikely that Great Power conflicts could have occurred there as they did.

The philosophy of prevention is as applicable to politics and war as it is to disease. It is not difficult to defend the proposition that the General Assembly has not only the right but the duty to act to prevent the Cold War from being fought on the territory of nations in the underdeveloped world. The Zone of Peace proposals would make it possible for them to so act and to act in unison.

It seems evident that both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. have abandoned earlier hopes that either by military defeat or as the result of internal revolts its opponent would disappear. Both seem resigned to an indefinitely long period of fierce but essentially peaceful competition. There can be no doubt but that these two powers also see how wasteful the Cold War is and how it prevents the giving of adequate amounts of aid to the nations in the underdeveloped world. President Johnson has been very explicit in saying he would like to end the Vietnam war in order to make war on poverty in the whole of former Indo-China—

53

that is, in the Mekong Delta. How mainland China's leaders view
this matter is not clear. They seem to believe the time is not far
distant when those they support can win a total victory in Vietnam,
Cambodia and Laos and evict the United States from that area
entirely. Perhaps their opinion is correct. Perhaps not. But what
I feel they should ask themselves is this: Is it in the long-range
interest of these countries and of China and the rest of the world
for them to win such a total victory?

Whatever China's answer may be it seems likely that the U.S.
and the U.S.S.R. would welcome the establishment of regional
Zone(s) of Peace providing such zones maintained true neutral-
ity. This step could and probably would make a tremendous
change in the nature of the Cold War. Such a step would stabilize
the D-world and therefore help to stabilize world politics and stop
the occurrence of many incidents in developing countries; in-
cidents which in the past few years have so often taken us to the
brink of World War III.

It seems likely that if most of the Southern Hemisphere of
the world entered the Zone of Peace that it would then be much
easier, than at present, for the Great Powers to achieve a detente
and appreciably reduce the costs of the Cold War. If so, this
would no doubt make it possible for them to contribute by long-
term loans and sound business trades to a much more rapid
advancement of the underdeveloped world than is now occurring.

One of the most important positive results of Regional Zones
of Peace would be that they would become Common Market
arrangements.

Even after the Zone of Peace treaty was approved by the
General Assembly, it is doubtful if all the small nations would
immediately rush to sign it. In fact, it probably would be best if
only a few small nations in a relatively small part of the world
were allowed to join for a year or so. Thus it would be possible
to establish the Zone of Peace machinery on a small and manage-
able scale. This would avoid the possibility of overwhelming it at
the start as might happen if 75 or 100 were to join immediately.

At the time *Peace by Finesse* was first written (summer of
1963) it was not intended as a formula that would solve the Viet-

54

nam or similar problems nor the U.N. financial crisis which was
then only on the horizon. But as these problems have fully un-
folded it has become increasingly apparent that the Zone of
Peace formula is applicable to these problems and perhaps offers
the only approach to them that could be accepted by all con-
cerned.

If the Great Powers would not respect the Geneva Agreement
of 1954 which "neutralized" Vietnam, can we be sure they'll
respect a new agreement made now? It is clear that there are
only two ways to support anything. An animal must have an
internal or an external skeleton. A building must be suspended
from internal supports or be held up by outside buttresses. A
small nation's political independence must arise either from in-
ternal military and economic strength or be supported by out-
side powers which use *their* military and economic forces to give
the small nation protection. But such support always carries a
price tag. Thus the only real neutrality for Vietnam would be a
neutrality which arose from within Vietnam; from the needs and
wishes of those people themselves. Of course by itself Vietnam is
unable to protect its own neutrality. But if it were a part of a
Southeast Asian Zone of Peace that would be another matter.
There is a great deal of evidence that the Vietnamese, the Lao-
tians, the Cambodians, the Burmese and other peoples in this
area do not wish to be dominated by *any* outside power. But
unless they can form a loose federation in a Southeast Asian
Zone of Peace they cannot individually or even through alliances
protect their own independence. And because of its strategic im-
portance Moscow, Peking and Washington are each fearful of
a Vietnam that is a mere puppet of one of the other Great Powers.

The Zone of Peace approach offers the possibility of a per-
manent solution to the Vietnam problem and is one which could
be acceptable to all—the Vietnamese, their close neighbors in
Southeast Asia, China, the Soviet Union, France, Great Britain
and the United States.

Some critics of the Peace by Finesse formula feel that the
small nations would no more renounce their warmaking power
than would the Great Powers. There seem to be several reasons

55

why this may not be true. First, the small nations can't afford it. It is costing the United States 8% of its G.N.P.* For most small nations a respectable military force would require an even higher percentage of their country's G.N.P. Second, if the leaders of small nations are following events outside their countries they must see how damaging to their development has been the existence of military power in India and Pakistan. It has cost both countries millions and millions which they could not afford to spend that way. And in the end the Security Council will probably not let them use their military power anyway**. In contrast, Japan and Germany, which have not been allowed to establish military forces, are enjoying the most rapid increases in their living standards of any nations in the world. Most economists relate these facts as cause and effect.

If countries in the Zone of Peace instead of spending perhaps 4 or 5% of G.N.P. on *national* military forces would contribute perhaps 2% to a Zone of Peace force they would get much more for their money. Their near neighbors would all be disarmed and the Zone of Peace military force which would enjoy the public approval of all who believe in transnational law and order should be highly effective.

If the Zone of Peace countries were unable to afford an adequate military force—which seems unlikely as the Zone of Peace probably would need only a small but highly mobile force to effectively protect a very large *de-militarized* area—there is no reason why the Great Powers acting through the General Assembly's budget could not make an annual contribution to help maintain the Zone of Peace force. After all, if it kept them, the Great Powers, from becoming embroiled in other Vietnams and Congos it would be very cheap insurance and probably cost much less than they are now giving as military “aid” to various countries.

Some have objected that since the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. have not accepted the World Court as the Supreme Court of the World small nations will not be willing to do so. This requirement would

*GNP=Gross National Product.

**These lines were written a few days before war broke out between these countries.

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have to be a corollary of the renunciation of the right to have
national military forces. Without it there would be no conceivable
way to resolve international disputes. So the Zone of Peace Treaty
would stipulate that the World Court would be the Supreme Court
for adjudicating international disputes between members of the
Zone of Peace. Since small nations simply do not now have the
kind of power that the Great Powers have, I doubt that this pro-
viso would keep any of them from signing the Zone of Peace
Treaty. Incidentally, once a few nations had done this it would
put considerable pressure on the Great Powers to follow suit.

There also have been questions raised about the Review
Council's authority to rule on all agreements between Zone of
Peace countries and outside powers. It has been alleged that this
constitutes a delegation of sovereignty. First of all the Review
Council would not have the power of initiative but only of veto.
This kind of delegation of power exists in many situations with-
out nations feeling that their sovereignty is impinged. And, of
course, the circumstances under which the Review Council could
exercise this veto power would be carefully spelled out by those
nations forming the Zone of Peace, so we may be sure they
would do everything that words can be expected to do to protect
their nations from arbitrary or foolish decisions by the Review
Council. Finally, it probably should be possible for nations in
the Zone of Peace to withdraw from it under carefully spelled
out arrangements. This would give individual nations the power
to resist what they considered were unfair decisions by the
Review Council.

As for distributing developmental funds within the Zone of
Peace, when such plans are made on a regional basis by the
regional Research and Planning Agency we can expect that the
realities of geography and nature will largely dictate what is to
be done. Under these conditions, if regional boundaries are proper-
ly drawn, the opportunities for internal conflicts will not be as
great as might be imagined. After all, great river basins or
mountain ranges or deserts each have a natural logic of their
own which will tend to dictate where the dams and roads, etc.,
should be put to be most efficient and most effective. Of course

57

there will probably be compromises and log-rolling within these
regional zones just as there is in the U.S. Congress, the British
Parliament and in fact in every responsible national legislative
body. No one has yet found a magic formula for giving each side
of any dispute all that each of them wants. The need for a great
deal of compromise seems to be an essential part of a peaceful
world and realism requires that we accept it as not only neces-
sary but wise.

The changes proposed in *Peace by Finesse* would tend to sharply polarize the U.N. into a positive (pro-peace) pole, the General Assembly, and a negative (anti-war) pole, the Security Council. Such a polarization appears to be a step that could make it easier for the United Nations to end the crisis over financing past peace-keeping efforts that has rendered the General Assembly impotent. Nevertheless some would abhor such a change. But with the U.N. formally polarized the General Assembly would be the organ dominated by and used by the small nations to speed their development while the Great Powers continue to dominate and use the Security Council as a forum in which they can contain and mediate their conflicts.

Would such a change really be undesirable? Undoubtedly the difficulty with the U.N. as a peace-making agency is due to the fact it was not organized for that purpose. Because all real power was reserved for the Security Council, that body has in effect been made the policeman of the entire world. But with the Great Power veto operating, it turns out that the Security Council cannot act militarily whenever a dispute of strategic proportions of two or more of the Great Powers arises. Whenever such an impasse arises, a Korea, a Vietnam or a Congo situation results. So its immense theoretical power comes to nought, if the veto operates. It even becomes part of a destructive process—as occurred in the Congo when the great powers began to disagree after the U.N. had sent a military force there.

It appears that the time has come to formally establish better
balance within the organization, and the proposals of *Peace by
Finesse* show how this might be done without formal Charter
revision. Possibly the U.N. budget should even be divided, so

58

that the Security Council would control the budget for its own
Great Power war-preventing activities and the General Assembly
the budget for its peace-promoting work. Perhaps the Great Powers
would be willing to contribute a disproportionate share of the
General Assembly budget. But if they do they would not be per-
mitted to pass on individual items of the General Assembly budget.
Certainly the Security Council-dominated U.N. has not been suc-
cessful in promoting peace and prosperity for the developing
countries, so that whether the Great Powers like it or not the U.N.
seems to be rapidly evolving into a bi-polar organization (or none).
The growing demands on the part of Asia, Africa and South
America for achieving a nuclear-free status is but one example of
this drive toward neutrality for the developing world.

Consideration of these possibilities makes it seem likely that
if the General Assembly should choose to act along these lines
there really is very little that the Great Powers could do to stop
it and considerable reason to think they would not wish to try.

59

*Already in the Congressional Record*

The basic ideas of this book have been placed in the Congressional Record (February 8 and August 26, 1965). Its proposals are being widely discussed throughout the world as a really new, different and positive approach to the organization of peace. The full details of the proposal for establishing a Zone of Peace, the premises on which it rests and the potentialities of such a solution can only be obtained by reading the full text.

If you would send a copy to your Congressman, Senator or other world leaders indicating your support for these proposals, this would be a significant act for peace. Likewise, sending copies to the editors of local papers, to commentators on radio and TV, to clergymen, to State and Municipal legislators and other community leaders, would help broaden a public discussion of this new and different approach to peace. Hopefully, this will make it possible to stop the dangerous drift toward World War III which now seems to be taking place.

Additional copies will be available until our present supply, which has been contributed, is exhausted.

*Write to*
PROMOTING ENDURING PEACE
P.O. Box 103
Woodmont, Connecticut 66460

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About the Author

Joseph W. Still is an M.D. whose medical specialty is Preventive Medi-
cine. Since World War II, he has devoted much of his professional life to
research and education in the general field of psycho-physiology. He is
now in the private practice of Adult Preventive Medicine.

His M.D. degree is from Nebraska and his Preventive Medicine
degree is from Johns Hopkins. He has also done post-graduate work at
George Washington Medical School and the Washington School of
Psychiatry.

During his five and one-half years in the Medical Corps during
World War II, he became a Lieutenant Colonel and served for over two
years as Assistant to the Chief of Preventive Medicine in the Mediter-
ranean Theatre of Operations. He assisted in the earliest applications of
D.D.T. to combat typhus, malaria, diarrhea, dysentery, plague and other
insect-borne diseases. Thus he helped "light the match" that set off the
population explosion.

After the war he spent a number of years in the physiology depart-
ment of George Washington Medical School where he taught physiology
and conducted physiological research on problems of kidney function,
blood viscosity and biochemical research on the chemistry of aging.

His best-known scientific work was the development of a "Cybernetic
Theory of Aging," the development of a permanent (blood vessel) intu-
bation technique in rats and the invention of the Automatic Blood Collect-
ing (ABC) Instrument on which he holds a basic patent.

He has done research and published scientific papers in all of the
major areas of medical science—biochemistry, physiology, psychology,
and health sociology. He has also done a good deal of writing about
medical and health matters for such popular magazines as New York
Times Sunday Magazine, Better Homes and Gardens, Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists, Clubwoman, and others.

An earlier book was "Science and Education at the Crossroads,"
Public Affairs Press (1958). That book related the disease problems of
the underdeveloped world to their desire to make rapid economic ad-
vancement. It also presented the argument (perhaps for the first time in
writing) that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. have a mutual interest in helping the
economically underdeveloped world advance as rapidly as possible. An-
other book, "God Without Magic" is now in manuscript.

61

Comments

"I am deeply impressed by the depth of knowledge and intellectual power evident in this analysis . . . some way must be found to isolate the underdeveloped world from the conflicts of the Great Powers."

PROFESSOR EMERITUS D. F. FLEMING, Vanderbilt University,
Author of *The Origin of the Cold War*

*Peace by Finesse* is by far the best treatment of the issue I have read over the past five years. I certainly intend to circulate your document among my colleagues here."

Prof. AMATAI ETZIONI, Institute of War and Peace Studies.
Author, *The Hard Way to Peace* and *Winning Without War*.

"I have now read the imaginative and yet realistic *Peace by Finesse* and found it intensely interesting. I enclose my check for ten copies which I wish to send to the members of the Executive Committee of our Commission (so we may) discuss your proposals at our next meeting."

Prof. A. N. HOLCOMBE, Chairman, Commission to Study the Organization of Peace (Research Affiliate of the American Association for the United Nations).

"*Peace by Finesse* has some real thought-provoking fundamental points which should be discussed widely . . . Your three proposals are sound and they deserve a hearing."

JAMES G. RONEY, M.D., Physician and Anthropologist, Stanford Research Institute.

"*Peace by Finesse* combines a number of stimulating ideas for moving us from the present dangerous condition to a more livable one."

MRS. EDITH WYNNER, Co-Author, *Searchlight on Peace Plans*;
*Chose Your Road to World Government*.

"I have read with great interest your material on *Peace by Finesse*. Much of what you had to say makes sense to me, and I hope your ideas gain wide circulation."

JAMES A. MICHENER, Author.

62

"In my personal search and research for new approaches to peace, I find *Peace by Finesse* plausible and challenging. I hope Dr. Still finds the few creative minds necessary to launch the Zone of Peace; areas free of national threats of war and with protected U.N. citizenship."

MRS. HELEN TUCKER, Canada, Co-Founder Voice of Women.

"I have read *Peace by Finesse* very carefully and must say it is an excellent piece of work."

MAJOR GENERAL MORRISON C. STAYER, U.S. Army (Retired). Chief Medical Officer, U.S. Occupation Forces, Europe.

"I am very much interested in the theories you have put forth in your article . . . your idea has enormous possibilities, if and when an adequate number of appropriate persons go to work on it."

DR. THEODORE F. LENTZ, Peace Research Laboratory, St. Louis.

"It is a provocative piece, built around an ingenious and possibly workable idea that ought to have considerably more public debate and discussion . . ."

ALFRED HASSLER, Executive Secretary, Fellowship of Reconciliation.

"We need a great deal of this sort of broad-based thinking about world affairs to get us out of our present narrow and straight-jacketed viewpoints."

COLIN B. BELL, Executive Secretary, American Friends Service Committee.

"I have just finished reading again the speech of Congressman Brown of California on *Peace by Finesse*. I was deeply impressed by every word he and you had to say."

WHITTINGTON GORHAM, New York City, Physician to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"*Peace by Finesse* should be read by everyone *and* acted on."

PROF. JEROME DAVIS, Exc. Dir. Promoting Enduring Peace.

63

"Your *Peace by Finesse* touches especially the problem of the developing nation and hence the root problem of Power. . . Your suggestions are a move toward solution.

IRVING F. LAUCKS, Santa Barbara, California, Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, Industrialist and Peace Worker.

"I agree with much of it (*Peace by Finesse*), although I think it would be a little difficult to get the 'show on the road.' A number of groups might help it on the way, like James Robinson's Crossroads Africa, MEDICO, and the International Cardiology Foundation which I belong to . . ."

PAUL DUDLEY WHITE, M.D., world-famed cardiologist.

"*Peace by Finesse* may be one of the seminal ideas of our day. Exploration of its possibilities could lead to some small opening out of the international jungle which now imprisons us."

BEN SEAVER, Secretary, San Francisco A.F.S.C.

"Many thanks for the little book *Peace by Finesse*. The idea of isolating the developing world from the conflicts of the Great Powers was a constant theme in Nehru's thinking and policies. The Great Powers did not always cooperate; nor did some of the developing countries. The idea remains, never-the-less, an excellent one."

ARTHUR LALL, former Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

"Many thanks for *Peace by Finesse*. It is an original, perceptive, fresh approach to world peace which, if it is widely read, may help tip the scales and turn us toward a hopeful future."

STEWART MEACHAM, Peace Education Secretary, American Friends Service Committee.

"Dr. J. W. Still's interesting little book is well named *Peace by Finesse*. What we have not been able to get wholesale, Dr. Still argues that we may get retail—at least as far as the protection of the weaker nations against war is concerned. . . . His idea has the merits of imagination and logical possibility."

NORMAN THOMAS.

64

NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL

January 31, 1969

MEMORANDUM FOR MR. MOOSE

Dick --

Dick Spurgin reviewed Mr. Kutter's
suggestions and attached the following note,
in case Mr. Kissinger wished to know something
about the content of Kutter's views:

The writer compliments Mr. Kissinger
on his _Foreign Affairs_ article. Basically,
the writer feels Mr. Kissinger overdrew the
distinction between our side fighting a military
war and the other side fighting a political one.
He thinks that current military strategy pays
greater heed to political considerations than
Mr. Kissinger gave it credit for, and he sees
problems if U.S. ground forces cease being a
"shield" and are withdrawn to populated areas.

Dean Moor

JAN 13 1969

Mr. Wolf D. Kutter
1210 N. Taft Street, Apt 509
Arlington, Virginia, 22201
January 8, 1969

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Asst to the President-Elect
The White House
Washington, D.C.

Dear Sir,

this is my first letter to any official, academia or government, and I would sincerely appreciate it if you were to personally read these remarks and give them your considerations. I begin with this request because I realize the demands on your time and that this letter may very well be passed on to an assistant. As a student of American University's School of International Service I was very interested in your recent essay which appeared in both the Washington Post and now in the *Foreign Affairs* magazine. It is indeed a very fine essay with respect to your discernment of the patterns and recommendations for an eventual end to the conflict in Vietnam. My concern though is with your interpretation and thoughts on our military strategy for we may soon see these same thoughts make their weight felt in the highest councils of national policy. Moreover, since the war will undoubtedly run another year, if not two years until the Nixon Administration is tested at the negotiating tables and has formulated a Post-Vietnam policy, I ask that you at least consider my correspondence to you.

Any statement about Vietnam, taken for its own merits, will inevitably both be true and false at the same time. In order to gain a more accurate truth one must be prepared to see such a statement within the total picture, that is all of the complex factors which constitute the American dilemma in S. Vietnam. So, I must confess, and I hope, that your essay was limited by the publishers for I am very much concerned with what the public may draw from your statements. Specifically the following few lines will undoubtedly be oft repeated:

> We fought a military war; our opponents fought a political one. We sought physical attrition; our opponents aimed for our psychological exhaustion. In the process, we lost sight of one of the cardinal maxims of guerrilla war: the guerrilla wins if he does not loose. The conventional army loses if it does not win. The N. Vietnames used their main forces the way a bull fighter uses his cape - to keep us lunging into areas of marginal political importance.

The article clearly implies that the United States of America

2

has some ability to control the events in South East Asia. Its not that we fought a military war and denied military victory to Hanoi, but the fact that Hanoi could not win the military war, after shifting from a political to a military strategy in the early 1960ties, and now is waiting us out - politically. Secondly, I think there ought to be no doubt what so ever that we also fought a political war. That WE entailed a partnership (of sorts) with the South Vietnamese, a partnership in which the S. Vietnamese are essentially the junior partners in the military war, and the U.S. the junior partner in the political/pacification war.

The Komer reports not with-standing, the fact that progress is slow in the other war, is not due to U.S. military strategy but the aforementioned partnership. So, to my mind, the complexities of this partnership alone are a point for consideration. In a war which must be prosecuted on many levels - I term it panoply of effort - cooperation by the S. Vietnamese has been more verbal than action oriented. Consequently, no wonder we can show American military success because that is the area where we do have maximum control and where we can bring our management talents and, technology to bear. My point of contention therefore is centered around this partnership and military strategy.

As a nation we must recognize that our military strategy was not lacking, but our national policy toward the complexities of the partnership. As a minimum we have never had, to my knowledge, a strategy to counter graft, corruption, etc., in S. Vietnam nor a workable strategy to establish an ascetic civil and military bureaucracy. Some of my friends have absolutely despaired, Dr. Kissinger, of our seemingly closed eye approach when money and material dis-appeared. Better to have a policy of supporting the South Vietnamese people than to save the face of the S. Vietnamese government by letting them disburse the supplies needed for the other war. Perhaps a policy of taking over at least the salary payment of the present military and civil servants of S. Vietnam might pay dividends. (They are already decried as our puppets so why not pay them adequate salaries so that graft can be curtailed)

The panoply of cooperating effort, between two serious partners and supporting allies, requires not only coordination at the highest level, but also on the lowest. Militarily, it has been oft stated, the United States fights several wars. First there is the war on the hamlet and village level, the war on the province level, and the war to find the main force units and to annihilate them. (I've left the war we fight in Laos and Cambodia for your classified papers) The point here is the level of warfare which in turn corresponds to the military arm of the Viet Cong/Viet-Namese "political body", the infrastructure which has such amazing reconstituting power of both the structure itself and its agent military units. That cooperating efforts are required to destroy the military apparatus of the NLF - Lao Dong, seems to me a distinct demand on the partnership. What

3

is not clear to me then, is how U.S. military strategy in this
situation is an ingredient for political failure. No U.S.
commander talks about holding terrain. No commander in fact holds
terrain other than base areas and logistics complexes. American
military units go after the N. Vietnamese or VC main force units
because they are equipped and have the inherent supporting weapons
required to handle that level of warfare. Just because American
line units fight in the hinterlands, "the area of marginal political
importance," does not mean no one is fighting the "guerilla" war,
nor that that effort is insubstantial. American units are located
where the Viet Cong base areas can be reached and destroyed, such
as the Iron Triangle, War Zone D, etc. Moreover, now that Cambodia
and Laos are used as sanctuaries, our main line units sit astride
the infiltration routes. In effect they constitute a shield between
the sanctuaries and the populated areas.

I think the concept of a shield, which is constantly moving
to keep the VC main force units off balance, should not be changed.
As you know from your studies, guerrilla base areas are always in
inaccessible geographic regions. Someone has to go in and wipe them
out. That, I think is and should be the main mission of American
ground units. Here is where tactical firepower can be brought to
bear to minimize U.S. casualties without fear of hurting innocent
bystanders. Behind the shield an array of other forces should be, and
presently are working. Primarily South Vietnamese units are involved
in the protection of the population and the ferreting out of the VC
infrastructure. Not all American units are involved in the shield
effort behind which the other war is prosecuted. In fact, a check
of the records will probably reveal no more than 1/3 of the maneuver
battalions available to Westmoreland or Abrams were at any time used
in these areas of marginal political importance.

The theory "that defeat of the main forces would cause the guerrilla to wither on the vine" is certainly not accepted, nor lent credence in the military establishment. The recognition is all to clear that the infrastructure has to be dug out also, on all levels, if success on the battlefield is to pay dividends in the political/pacification war. Consequently, a query will reveal the extent U.S. forces, in joint operations with the South Vietnamese, are involved to ferret out the guerrilla infrastructure. As I have indicated previously, the military war, which we seem to have fought at the exclusion of everything else, simply does not exist. It is a war in fact of many component strategies, fought on various levels to oppose the size of the Viet Cong and N. Vietnamese military formations. It is also a war with the realization that success on the battlefield is temporary unless the body of the infrastructure and its proselytizing agents is eliminated.

The eradication of the infrastructure is essentially a South
Vietnamese task to which we can only provide the supporting cast.
If we were however to move almost all of our elements into this

4

effort and protect the population, what will happen to the main
force Viet Cong and N. Vietnamese formations? The hinterland
battlefield will become a battlefield in the populated areas.
Instead of raining destruction on bamboos and rubber trees, more
than likely many innocent bystanders will be caught as the
American commander seeks to minimize his casualties and to
maximize the opponents destruction. I suspect in this type of
strategy approach we will see more towns which we destroy in order
to save it. Soon even the American commander will be forced to justify
South Vietnamese casualties.

My question at this point, then, is how a military commander
can combine a strategy of operating in an area for maximum political
control, to provide security to the population and still expect
to reduce casualties. Your brilliant essay is holding out a
promise to the public of "substantially reducing casualties" when
this may be well nigh impossible unless the Viet Cong accomodate
you and decrease the level of war-fare violence. This suggestion
may very well be a haunting shadow to both the new Administration
and the American commanders on the ground. The latter are already
aware of the psychological significance of our casualty rate to our
public. To operate in S. Vietnam militarily is difficult enough,
but to increase the casualty syndrome as a matter of policy is
going to evoke bitter acrimony and in effect force commanders to
fight with one hand tied. (Some Vietnamese units, notably the 25th
Division initiate action to avoid the enemy)

In summation, as this humble student of International Affairs
requested earlier, I do hope you will view these remarks kindly.
I am a sincerely concerned American and I hope you will serve
President Nixon wisely with your counsel as we chart our ship of
State into an uncertain future.