Ideology: Home Truths

From the drone of U.N. debate, the words of British Foreign Secretary Lord Home stood out with freshness and clarity.

∙ON THE RULE OF LAW: “The task of diplomacy is reconciliation, justice and order. I emphasize justice and order. They are the pillars of stability. Some people are suspicious … as though the rule of law were a mere trick to freeze the status quo. It is quite the opposite. Its observance is the sine qua non of peaceful change. The rule of law is a lesson learned from centuries of human experience, from many mistakes and much suffering . . . Without it, we destroy one another.”

∙ON THE ROOTS OF TENSION: “The first and most dangerous cause of conflict is the Communist effort to impose their system on the rest of the world by that type of political warfare backed by force they call ‘peaceful coexistence.’ “

∙ON MARXISM: “The reactionary doctrines of the 19th century philosophers like Marx and Engels will before long begin to give way before the contemporary facts of life. Marx spent most of his working life in my country, it is true, and based his theories upon his experiences there: but we have spent the years since his death proving in practice that most of his prophecies are false. I must not intrude on Mr. Gromyko’s preserve, but I will be very surprised if the young generation of Russians are not rapidly arriving at the same conclusion. Very slowly, but I think perceptibly, the processes of the thaw in international life have be gun … If imperialism is going out of the window, so is Marx. Good riddance too.”