Nation: Rebuttal from the Grave

In an affectionate reminiscence of Adlai Stevenson that appeared in Look last month, CBS Correspondent Eric Sevareid quoted Stevenson as expressing misgivings about aspects of U.S. foreign policy the day before he died in London last summer. Though the late U.N. Ambassador’s comments on the subject made up only a fraction of Sevareid’s article, Stevenson was consequently pictured in the press as a man in revolt against President Johnson’s policy in Viet Nam.

Last week, “in the interest of history,” Stevenson’s son, Adlai III, released a seven-page letter that his father had composed three days before he died. Written in reply to a group of American artists, writers and scientists who had urged Stevenson to quit, the letter flatly contradicted what some called “the Stevenson tragedy.” The group’s arguments, Stevenson wrote, “rest on a simple presupposition: that I share your belief in the disastrous trend of American foreign policy. But it is precisely this presupposition that I do not share with you. Whatever criticisms may be made over the details and emphasis of American foreign policy, its purposes and directions are sound. I do not believe the policy of retreat in Asia or anywhere else would make any contribution whatsoever to the ideal that violence cannot be the formal arbitrator in world affairs.”

Noting that “history does not always give us the most convenient choice,” Stevenson reasoned: “I do not think the idea of Chinese expansionism is so fanciful that the effort to check it is irrational. And if you argue that it should not be checked, then I believe you set us off on the old, old route whereby expansive powers push at more and more doors, believing they will open until, at the ultimate door, resistance is unavoidable and major war breaks out . . . This is the point of the conflict in Viet Nam.”