National Affairs: EISENHOWER ON COMMUNISM

GREAT truths,” said Dwight Eisenhower last week at Milwaukee, “can, at times, be startlingly simple.” The great truth Ike had in mind: the opposition of Communism and freedom. Said Ike:

“Communism and freedom . . . signify two titanic ideas, two ways of life, two totally irreconcilable beliefs in the nature and destiny of man. The one—freedom—knows man as a creature of God, blessed with a free and individual destiny, governed by eternal moral and natural laws.

“The second—Communism—claims man to be an animal creature of the state, curses him for his stubborn instinct for independence, governs with a tyranny that makes its subjects wither away . . .

“Only a few years ago, many moved among us who argued cunningly against this plain truth. Their speech was persuasive and their vocabulary very clever. Remember? It went like this: ‘After all, while we stand for political democracy, they stand for economic democracy . . .’

“We must never forget that sophisticated lie. We will never forget it. For it partly poisoned two whole decades of our national life. It insinuated itself into our schools, our public forums, some of our news channels, some of our labor unions and—most terrifyingly—into Government itself . . .

“These years have indeed been a harrowing time in our history. It has been a time of both honest illusion and dishonest betrayal—both terribly costly. It has been a time that should have taught us, with cold finality, the truth about freedom and Communism.”

“Proud Prisoners.” “Most of us … have learned. An important few have not … They are the proud prisoners of their own mistakes.” The men who did not learn about Communism, Eisenhower implied, were the followers of Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson, both of whom he proceeded to quote. “They are those who cheered the blithe dismissal of the Alger Hiss case as ‘a red herring.’ They are those who applauded two weeks ago when an Administration Democrat grandly declared that Communists in our national life were ‘not very important’ and he advised that we should not waste time chasing ‘phantoms’ . . .

“Perhaps,” said Ike, “my deep concern is sharpened by personal experience and personal knowledge. I know what fifth columns can do to a free nation . . . and I know personally what alertness was required—both in our wartime operations and in NATO planning—to guard against espionage. I learned that national secrets and national security can be guarded and that there are ways to defeat the cleverest of spies—Nazi or Communist … In the entire American record in Europe there is no single instance where the enemy gained essential information of our plans through the medium of spies or subversive agents.”

Drawing a distinction between his kind of fight against Communism and Joe McCarthy’s, Eisenhower warned against “violent vigilantism. To defend freedom,” said he, “is—first of all —to respect freedom . . . That respect demands another, quite simple kind of respect—respect for the integrity of fellow citizens who enjoy their right to disagree with us. The right to challenge a man’s judgment carries with it no automatic right to question his honor.” (Joe McCarthy, on the platform, did not applaud these sentences—although the crowd did.)

“No Grant of Privilege.” Eisenhower outlined his own counterattack against Communist infiltration: “To begin with: all of us … must remember that the Bill of Rights contains no grant of privilege for a group of people to destroy the Bill of Rights. A group—like the Communist conspiracy—dedicated to the ultimate destruction of all civil liberties cannnot be allowed to claim civil liberties as its privileged sanctuary from which to carry on subversion of the Government . . .

“Let every person or organization distributing political literature through the mails be made to disclose its source of funds and its membership. Let every organization affecting our political life be compelled to make public its finances, membership and affiliations . . .

“Having done this, let us make one more fact plain: to work for the United States Government is a privilege, not a right . . . Every official of the Federal Government—on every level —must ever be ready to answer any question from appropriate sources touching upon his loyalty and devotion to the United States of America . . .

“We have all had enough, I believe, of those who have sneered at the warnings of men trying to drive Communists from high places . . . We have all had enough, I believe, of men who seem to feel that freedom can do nothing but fret and whine as it watches its own slow, sure death.

“The future of this country belongs to more courageous men . . . The future belongs to men who know—in their hearts and minds, their souls and very bones—that freedom can be strong.”