Chapter VIII: Senator Fulbright and World Opinion

From some of the Senator’s remarks one can draw the conclusion that we are in a “popularity contest” in _the_ court of world opinion. This implies that if we are more popular with world opinion than are the Communists we shall win.

For the United States to liberate Cuba from the control of the communists would, the Senator thinks, result in “the alienation of most of Latin America, Asia and Africa.”[177]

Robert Murphy has written: “I was in Brazil at the time of the unhappy Cuban operation. Apart from the apathy of the mass I was a bit startled to be told that the reason the United States failed to intervene openly in Cuba was because our government feared it would provoke war between the U.S.S.R. and the United States. I found little or no recognition of the consistent effort our government has loyally made through the years to adhere to a policy of non-intervention. We have done this on moral grounds and by observing the rule of law in an effort to work in harmony with and as a good neighbor of the members of the Organization of American States. When I urged these reasons I was met by polite incredulity. I found that our government was actually blamed in the last analysis for permitting the Cuban attempt to fail but given little or no credit for restraint and non-intervention. President Kennedy’s statement warning that our patience is not inexhaustible and that the government of the United States will not hesitate to meet its primary obligations was like a timely ray of brilliant sunshine in the gloomy atmosphere. I gained the distinct impression that those Latin Americans with whom I talked, who are not unfriendly to the United States, would have welcomed successful intervention in Cuba because they fear the expansion of Castroism in South America and doubt it will be stopped without intervention. The test in their minds seemed to be that it succeed. There was evidence of understanding on their part that both under a reasonable interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine as well as because of the severe provocation by Castro that some form of intervention would be justifiable.”[178]

James A. Farley has spoken thus concerning Cuba, invasion and world opinion. “In the last year, I have spoken personally and privately to most of the heads of government in the Far East and in South America. It is my opinion that as spokesmen for the free world they are far more in favor of a firm and final position than a policy of appeasement masquerading as the easing of a series of crises, crises which the Communists themselves manufacture. These foreign statesmen are much more aware than some of our own statesmen, of the fact that by practicing unceasing brinksmanship, Khrushchev is pushing us back into the abyss of dishonor and disaster.

“It follows that the President has gained free world approval in drawing the line. He has placed the responsibility where it belongs—on the Communist aggressor.

“Since President Kennedy has said that we do not intend to abandon Cuba to Communism, and since the Communists are accelerating their rate of acquisition there, it may be that the force of the United States may be necessary to expel them. That decision can be made under American law and oath of God by one man alone.

“But it is my conviction that should President Kennedy elect to order the Armed Forces of the United States into action against Communist Castro his action would be hailed by the free governments and the free peoples of the world. In these times of agonizing decision, their prayers are already with him. Furthermore, even more important than the preservation of the Western Hemisphere, the avoidance of global War may well depend upon giving unmistakable evidence to the Kremlin that to the extent that it believes itself on the way to world conquest it is in fact on the road to global war.

“It is a fact that we may have to accept such war in defense of our liberty. We must not conceal this from ourselves and, still less, should we conceal it from our enemy. The peace of the world may well depend on the reeducation of Mr. Khrushchev, because if war he seeks he has found the way in which to make it inevitable. The fact is, freedom will not be edged off this earth by Mr. Khrushchev’s brinksmanship.”[179]

_What is World Opinion?_

On the news broadcast on Sept. 22, 1961, David Brinkley implied that the foreign policy advisors who were so concerned about world opinion were not very wise. He spoke of the “vague and formless thing called world opinion—whatever that is.”

_There is no such thing today as “world opinion.”_ There are many different views, aims and ambitions. Whose “world opinion” shall we court? Africa? Which tribe in Africa? Which Nation? Nkrumah? Or the freedom lovers he has jailed? The neutrals, are they the ones we should court? The Soviet manner of “courting” seems to be more successful with many of them than ours!

Arthur Krock of the _New York Times_ has pointed out that the concept of “world opinion” ignores the fact that hundreds of millions have no knowledge whatever of exterior events.[180] And yet, as he pointed out, in some matters affecting our national security we have paid more attention to “world opinion” than to the warnings of experts. He has special reference to the three year test ban, without inspection, which we gave to the U.S.S.R.

Yet Senator Fulbright says: “World opinion is a civilizing force in the world, helping to restrain the great powers from the worst possible consequences of their mutual hostility.”[181] This hostility is mutual only in the sense that after our countless words and deeds of good will, the Communists still hate us. They are inherently hostile to all that stands in their way of world conquest. They have said that they are our irreconcilable enemy, and then they have proceeded to treat us in this light. The hostility is mutual only in the sense that we have been waking up to the fact that this is an enemy bent on our destruction.

How has the U.S.S.R. been responding to world opinion? How has world opinion helped civilize the Communists in Russia or in China, or in the United States?

What is world opinion doing to civilize Castro? Did world opinion keep the U.S.S.R. from renewing the bomb tests?

As Senator Prouty said: “Twenty-four so-called neutral nations were sitting in the jury box at Belgrade when the Soviet Union announced its intention—since carried out—to resume nuclear explosions.

“And what was the verdict of this jury we have been so assiduously courting? ‘Not quite guilty’.

“Nehru said: I am not in a position and I suppose no one else here is in a position to know all the facts underlying the decision—military, political or nonpolitical, whatever they may be.

‘But I know this decision makes the situation much more dangerous. This is obvious to me. Therefore, I regret it deeply.’

“President Tito of Yugoslavia said he understood why Moscow had decided to resume nuclear testing; Nasser was simply shocked. The rest were eloquently silent.

“The shrieking shame on you, Russia, hoped for by the White House, turned out to be a whispered version of ‘Miss Otis regrets she is unable to lunch today.’

“About the only character missing from the very tragic comedy in Belgrade was the fictional creation of Lewis Carroll who said: ‘I am very brave generally only today I happen to have a headache.’

“Joseph Alsop nailed to the wall for all time the naive code of leading U.S. policy-makers—the code that lets a synthetic world opinion—not enlightened self-interest—shape the policies of this Nation. Alsop said:

‘If you listen to persons of this school of thought you might suppose that foreign policy could be conducted on the principle of Sir Galahad—“my strength is as the strength of 10, because my heart is pure.”

‘The truth is, alas, that naked power counts far more in this sad world than virtuous intentions.’

“Mr. Khrushchev did not give a hoot about world opinion. He was brutally frank about his reason for resuming nuclear weapons tests at this time. According to the New York Times, Khrushchev told some leftwing British visitors, he is doing it to terrorize the Western Powers into negotiations on Berlin, Germany, and disarmament—on his own terms.”[182]

Eric Sevareid, who as far as I know has never been accused by Senator Fulbright of being a rightwing radical, had this to say of the Communists as they read about the concern of some Americans for “world opinion”. “Surely they adore reading the worrying, hair-shirt arguments that the United States must not do this or that because it will offend ‘world opinion’, knowing as they do that there is no such thing in the moralistic sense—the proof of which is that after all their crimes, including Hungary, they enjoy more influence and respect in the world than ever. They must love the British-American notion that the bosses of the new ‘neutral’ nations are somehow more high-minded and spiritual than those of the committed nations.”[183]

“The gamesmen in the Kremlin must smile in their sleep as they realize how deeply ingrained is the American illusion that a ton of wheat can offset a ton of Communist artillery shells, that a squad of Peace Corpsmen is a match for a squad of guerrilla fighters.

“But I hope they frowned a bit when they read the angry retort of Defense Secretary McNamara when he heard for the umpteenth time the pious theory that the Communists were gaining in Laos and South Vietnam because the regimes there are ‘unresponsive to the people’s needs.’ A burning sense of reality on a short fuse can make a quiet man shout (as I’m afraid it makes me shout these days), and McNamara shouted that the Communists are gaining in those countries for very simple reasons known as guns, bombs, fighters and threats.

“Frightened people in a score of desperate countries want to be on the winning but not necessarily the moral side; and we have to start winning soon. We are going to lose in several more places before we do. We may as well face the fact that we will also lose in places we cannot afford to lose, until and unless we are willing to fight, no matter the reproving editorials in the Manchester Guardian, no matter what the temporary backlash of world opinion may be.

“The relations between nations are not the same as those between individuals. We can afford to lose everything—except respect for our strength and determination. Lose that, and Khrushchev won’t bother to sit down and talk again even to say no.”[184]

The Senator who is so impressed with “world” opinion does not think that the President should be too impressed with opinion in the United States. Instead of being influenced by public opinion, Senator Fulbright thinks that the main problem of the President may be to restrain the American people from too vigorous a response to Communist aggression and gains and the resulting losses for the non-communist world.

Winning the victory over those who would enslave the world is far more important than what Nehru, or Latin America thinks.[185] Goa shows that Nehru thumbs his nose at “world opinion.” Nehru, of course, is one of the “neutrals” whose “world opinion” some in America have courted.

Edgar Ansel Mowrer said that aside from a major war, “the next strongest weapon in the cold war is prestige.” He said that this was largely “a matter of military power—and the readiness to use it.” The crushing of the Hungarian revolt hurt the popularity of the U.S.S.R. but increased its prestige.[186]

James A. Farley on July 8, 1960 said: “Any American administration which refuses to protect American citizens and American property in any quarter of the globe, on the ground that its action will be called Yankee imperialism, has in effect struck the flag. Let us not perform the disgraceful act of offering the American people a spurious dove of peace, when every page of recent history identifies it as the white flag of cowardly surrender.”[187] Just before this he stated: “I have traveled as much abroad as almost any man in this party. I, too, value the opinion of the world. But I am sure that sound policy cannot be based on loss of self-respect.”

FOOTNOTES:

[177] _Congressional Record_, June 29, 1961, pp. 10874-10875.

[178] Address of Robert Murphy, Commencement Exercises, Boston College, June 12, 1961, pp. 8-9. Also reprinted in the _Congressional Record_, June 13, 1961, p. A4314, col. 2,t.

[179] _Congressional Record_, June 12, 1961, p. A4237, col. 2,b.-3,t. General Carlos P. Romulo said: “But what is significant to the peoples outside this country is that in these 16 years you have not succeeded to make Soviet Russia recede or retreat one inch from any of her ill-gotten gains.” (_Congressional Record_, Feb. 15, 1962, p. A1134, col. 3,t.) The Republic of China Chapter of the Asian Peoples’ Anti-Communist League has spoken of the weakening of confidence in the United States on the part of Southeast Asian countries as a result of our actions in Laos (_Free China and Asia_, March, 1962, p 2. See also the _Congressional Record_, March 7, 1962, p. A1714).

Burmese Army leaders think that the Chinese Communists will take Southeast Asia in a few years; therefore, they lean toward them (_Newsweek_, May 21, 1962, p. 17.)

George E. Sokolsky has pointed out that not only Cuba, but aiding our enemies and alienating our allies in certain instances has damaged our prestige (“The National Image,” _Searcy Daily Citizen_, May 3, 1962, p. 4.)

[180] _Arkansas Gazette_, September 5, 1961.

[181] _Congressional Record_, July 24, 1961, p. 12281, col. 2,b.

[182] _Congressional Record_, September 19, 1961, p. 19015, col. 2,t.-3,m.

[183] _Congressional Record_, June 29, 1961, p. 10891, col. 1,b.

[184] _Ibid._, p. 10891, col. 2,m.

[185] Compare Marguerite Higgins, “Power and Popularity,” _Congressional Record_, September 5, 1961, p. A6963.

[186] _Congressional Record_, June 25, 1960, p. A5506, col. 3,t.

[187] _Ibid._, August 22, 1960, p. A6153, col. 3,m.