National Affairs: JUDGMENTS & PROPHECIES

“STUPIDITY” BRINGING REPUBLICAN DEFEAT

CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND, 73, Arizona Republican National Committeeman, irreconcilable old guardsman and prolific, bestselling author (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town), in a letter published in the Arizona Republic:

I BELIEVE we are facing an altogether unnecessary defeat in November—a defeat which elementary political intelligence could have made a sweeping Republican victory. Because of stupidity, ineptness, arrogance on the part of a few men who have been placed in positions of power we are going into this campaign, not with a compact army but with scattered regiments. What seems not to be understood by the dolts who have usurped control of the party is that the National Committee is the catalyst of the party. But the little hard core of men close to the President ignore the organization. The symbol of this [group] has become Sherman Adams. He is anathema to the organization and its resentment centers upon him. His attitude of somewhat contemptuous flouting of the organization and its duly elected representatives has been taken as typical of the attitude of the Administration. The natural result of all this is that the organization is dragging its feet.

U. S. MAY LOSE ATOM SUPREMACY TO RUSSIANS

THOMAS K. FINLETTER, Air Force Secretary during the Truman Administration, in his new book, Power and Policy.

We will soon reach a point in the atomic race with Russia when, unless we become considerably more alert than we are, the supremacy in air-atomic power which to date has been ours will shift from us to Russia. We should assume for the purpose of our national policies and planning that the Russians will reach this point during the year 1956. We need new national policies for what I would call Phase II of the Atomic Age—the time when the Russians will have enough fission and hydrogen bombs, and the planes and missiles to make a sneak attack on the United States which will destroy our major cities and most of our industries. In the first phase the United States was safe; the atomic bomb was a powerful asset in the American arsenal. In the second phase the atom bomb in the hands of the Russians will become a vital threat to our safety.

We may expect the Russians during Phase II to be much more aggressive in their foreign policy, to be considerably more willing to risk a general war. And when the fact of this Russian Phase II atomic power becomes generally known, it may have a damaging effect on the will to resist in some of the nations that are still free.

Military policy ought to be getting ready for Phase II now. It is not. We do not have priority systems. [Top priorities should be:] 1) the NATO Atomic-Air, 2) the Air Defense of the North American Conti nent and the NATO area generally, 3) the ground, sea and non-atomic Air which the United States should contribute to NATO.

There seems to be almost no doubt that the known weapons of today and of the future may well, unless controlled, destroy the United States. A substantially increased political solidarity of the NATO powers must be the foundation of [our] strength, coupled with a greatly increased U.S. air-atomic power. Only one thing can give us some sense of security that the Russians will not make atomic war during Phase II: to build an overwhelmingly defended, overwhelmingly powerful U.S. Atomic-Air plainly capable of destroying the Russian state in the counterattack (if the Russians tried to attack us).

DANGERS IN “DESTROYING” U. S. COMMUNIST PARTY

The pro-Eisenhower PROVIDENCE JOURNAL-BULLETIN :

WHEN Attorney General Brownell and FBI Director Hoover talk about a stepped-up program that will “utterly destroy the Communist Party, U.S.A.,” they presumably know exactly what they mean. But a campaign that would “utterly destroy” all persons who have had any formal connection with the Communist Party in this country, however innocent of wrongful action individually, would be quite another matter.

There is a line—sometimes difficult to identify but always a vital demarcation—between punishing for individual acts of subversion and punishing for adherence to political sentiments. Up to now, the American machinery of justice has operated on the premise that an individual can and should be punished for committing specific wrongs, but not solely for holding an opinion that is heretical to our concept of democracy. Stealing state secrets, conspiring to advocate the forceful overthrow of government or encouraging sabotage are included in the category of specific, punishable wrongs. Indicating an interest in Marxist philosophy or holding a membership card in the Communist Party have not been so included.

If the new, stepped-up campaign planned by the Attorney General and the chief of the FBI can be anchored firmly to existing law and guided by the sound principles of individual guilt and innocence which have previously applied, the pitfalls of the witch hunt and political persecution can be avoided in this country. [But] it would help to keep the air clear and avoid misconceptions all around if there could be less indulgence of such colorful—but loaded—phrases as “utterly destroy the Communist Party, U.S.A.”

SOVIETS HAVE KILLED 45 U.S. AIRMEN SINCE 1950

HANSON W. BALDWIN, military analyst of the New York Times:

The United Nations Security Council has before it the official complaint of the United States Government listing the attacks of Soviet aircraft against American planes, over the Sea of Japan on Sept. 4. One United States naval officer was lost in this attack. In a sense, Mr. Lodge’s logical and detailed presentation served as obituary, requiem and justification for this officer and for the forty-four other American airmen on missions who have lost their lives in seven major “incidents” with Russian aircraft since April, 1950.

The purpose of these [U.S.] flights near the Iron Curtain is not provocation but security. For eight years, and particularly since the start of the Korean War in 1950, United States Air Force and naval planes have skirted the borders of the Soviet Union and in a few cases have crossed those frontiers.

All these fact-finding missions fly well clear of the Soviet frontier unless their crews make bad navigational errors. These occur occasionally, but not often. A few other American—as well as Soviet—aircraft probably deliberately penetrate the other nation’s air frontiers. The mission of these planes might be termed an espionage one, as distinct from the routine and continuous reconnaissance flights over the high seas or over friendly territory. Agents could be dropped by parachute and photographs or electronic recordings made in the air space above the other nation’s territory. It is this silent “war,” this ceaseless search for information, that must be inevitably a part of the “cold war.” We have no confidence in the Soviet Government, yet we know that the Soviet Government has the capabilities of devastating destruction against the United States unless we are alert.