by Slobodan M. Draskovich
Reprinted with permission from American Opinion, July/August 1963
If it is truethat battles and wars are often lost at office desks and in general headquarters rather than on the battlefield, then it is certain that the present war for the minds and hearts of the Asians, and for the preservation of the freedom and independence of their countries against Communism, is being lost not on the Plaine des Jarres or the rice paddies or strategic hamlets of Vietnam but in the offices of our Cold War experts in Washington. It is being lost in the offices of our Kremlinologists, Stalinologists, Sinologists, McNamara’s “whiz kids,” and his “Rand Corporation boys,” to whom the idea of really fighting the Communists and winning the Cold War is just a chauvinistic “spasm”: whose overwhelming concern is just how to devise the most fantastic and unnatural ways, means, and philosophies for refusing not only to win but even to do battle.
The United States of America being — in the considered and repeatedly expressed opinion of this writer — the absolutely decisive politico-military force in the world, the surest way to know what is happening in the world, and why, is not to roam the globe. To know these things one must but examine, much more closely than most Americans can imagine it to be necessary, the concepts and policies conceived in — and promoted and implemented from Washington, D.C. under the camouflage label of “fighting communism.” To know what is going on in the hearts and minds of Asians, it is even more important to know what is going on in the warped mentality of those who are formulating and implementing the foreign policy of the United States of America.
For the gist of the matter is that the Asian situation is worse in 1963 than it was in 1962 because our experts have had one more year to make it worse for Asia and better for the whole Communist World Conspiracy.
Before we turn geographically to Asia, we must — in order to get the proper perspective on its political problems — begin with Cuba. What occurred in the Cuban Crisis of October 1962, and has occurred since, wounded the prestige and position of the United States in the world more dangerously than the aborted invasion at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961. That invasion was clearly and without disguise a horrible failure for our country and a tremendous success for Fidel Castro and World Communism. But the Cuban Crisis of October/November 1962 was heralded and, for a comparatively long period of time, propounded as a great success; a turning point toward a joint US-USSR policy of insuring “world peace” at the cost of United States liberty, and to the full benefit of the total subversion of Latin America directed from Communist Cuba.
The United States has promised not to invade Cuba, thus consolidating Communist power ninety miles from our shores; it has engaged in a course of dismantling its strategically vital bases in Turkey and Italy; it has suppressed the efforts of our Latin American neighbors to have us invoke and apply the Monroe Doctrine; and. it has finally proceeded with the utmost determination and finality — qualities unknown in our dealings with Communists — to smash the efforts of the gallant anti-Communist Cuban freedom fighters.
It is very strange and revealing indeed to find our experts, who never tire of telling us about how small the world has become, failing to realize that [the world being so small] what we do or fail to do regarding Cuba forces reactions — in a matter of hours — throughout the globe. And at the same time the peoples of the world realize that we are consolidating our mortal enemy, Communist Castro. They know that we are brutally smashing our natural allies, the Cuban freedom fighters — who by fighting to free Cuba are fighting to keep America free. They notice that we are actually destroying all those anywhere in the world who are fighting the same battle and who believe that because American sends them arms, or foreign aid, or technical or military advisers, we are necessarily on their side in the Cold War.
The message we are spreading by our actions, much louder and more convincing than our words, is this message: While the Communists are waging a total war for destroying us at any cost, we are waging against them, or rather for them, total peace at any cost.
In the face of this fact, which no amount of dialectics on the part of the experts can manage out of existence, it is perfectly clear that our policy is one of self-paralysis and that such a policy can only alienate our active and potential allies and generate contempt for us in the ranks of the enemy. With friends like us, who needs enemies? And the Asians know it.
Laos
Thus the shape of things to come is not being decided in the most populous country of Asia, Red China. It is being carved in the tiniest, Laos.
We have been and we are continuing to proclaim that we will not desert the Laotians or anybody else not yet enslaved by Communism. But what we have done, precisely, is to pave the way for the Communist enslavement of Asia.
To accept the idea of Asian neutrality was in itself a desertion. In a world situation where neutrality is made impossible by the challenger, our proclamation of neutrality amounts to an acceptance of defeat in installments.
Prince Souvanna Phouma has revealed himself early enough as a “neutral” in favor of Communism. Nevertheless, our policy has been clearly against the nationalist Premiers Samsonith and Prince Boun Oum, and in favor of Souvanna Phouma. Moreover, at the June 1961 meeting between President Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna, it was agreed that the policy of neutrality would be a joint US-USSR policy in the interests both of America and the Soviet Union!
In 1960, when the Soviet Union was pouring arms into Laos to strengthen the Communists (Pathet Lao), we did not take any steps to stop that flagrant violation of the Geneva Agreements of 1954. And then, after accepting the fait accompli, we took the position that since the Laotian Communists were militarily stronger, any policy of victory for Laos and America was out of the question, and the best we could hope for was a neutral Laos.
Prince Boun Oum and General Phoumi Nosavan struggled for a long time against overwhelming odds. Boun Oum visited several Asian countries seeking help from his fellow-Asians. But the State Department boys, who never know of any anti-American activity in the world until it takes place, were very alert this time. According to Senator Peter H. Dominick [Colorado]:”… our Government went to each one of those countries, our own allies, and told them that if they gave any help to Prince Boun Oum who was trying to be on our side, we would cut off our foreign aid to each one of those countries, to the Phillippines, South Korea, and Nationalist China, the three key Asian nations which have been in support of our policy in that area of the world” (Speech in the United States Senate on May 17, 1963).
Thus the 1962 Agreement of Geneva about the formation of the coalition tripartite government (nationalists, neutralists, and Communists) was just another repetition of the old formula tested with disastrous effects (Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, China), but which held excellent result for the International Communist Conspiracy. In each of these cases we have forced the non-Communists to accept the Communists in their government, as an alleged means to save the country from Communism. In each case, it has worked as the surest and cheapest way for the Communist seizure of power.
The New York Times Moscow correspondent, Seymour Topping, wrote on May 16, 1962: “Moscow . . . takes the position that there is no reason to risk a general war in Southeast Asia when the strength of the Pathet Lao forces insure that any coalition government, even under neutralist leadership, will be compelled to respect communist wishes.”
Vietnam
In light of our policy toward Cuba and Laos, is there any possible mystery as to what is our State Department’s real attitude regarding South Vietnam, and what will be the outcome should the present course continue?
All that we are doing in Vietnam is doomed to failure because of what we are doing in Cuba and in Laos. How can any Vietnamese nationalist or anti-Communist believe that we are really fighting Communism and striving for a truly independent Vietnam, and not for a compromise with Communism (to say the least), when they see that we are fighting not Castro but Castro’s enemies in Cuba. It is so obvious to them that we are engaging all our influence and efforts not to make Laos independent, but to insure Communist participation inits government. And then there is our activity in Vietnam itself. No matter how good or how bad Vietnam’s President Ngo Dihn Diem is, it makes no sense to support him militarily while attempting to destroy him politically. Which is exactly what our State Department is doing. Who is willing to support wholeheartedly — and the struggle does require wholehearted efforts and perseverance — a man every Communist in Asia is trying to destroy when our vitriol also goes out to those who are courageous enough to give him economic and military aid to win against the Communists? Besides, our intervention in Vietnam is ideally suited for Communist propaganda purposes, and it renders the success of our intervention impossible. Our aid isvery limited, since our function is not active Military help, but only material support and technical advice. However, that is sufficient to let the Communists denounce our “Imperialism” throughout Asia and the world in the same way as if we had whole armies in the field.
Under these circumstances, all the valor Of our military commander, General Paul D. Harkins, and the deaths of all our fighting men can be of no avail nor can it influence the final outcome in the least. Our soldiers in World War II fought brilliantly and won the war militarily. But since, in the words of Mr. Acheson, “we were pursuing strictly military objectives,” and since we were not interested in the political aspect of World War II, the only real winner of that war was International Communism. In Korea our soldiers were again able to win many victories, such as the one at Inchon. But again our Achesons were stronger than our MacArthurs; and this time our fighting men were not even allowed to achieve final military victory.
So, as long as the State Department’s policy is not a policy of victory, there will be no victory, no matter how gallant those who fight in the rice paddies and strategic hamlets may be.
And speaking of strategic hamlets, it has been said that Mr. Thompson, the originator of the concept, who made the victory over the Communists in Malaya possible, is now in Vietnam hoping to apply the same remedy . The analogy is completely spurious. In Malaya General Gerald Templer had absolute authority to deal with the situation as he saw fit, with no strings attached and no holds barred. And his policy was a policy of victory. The strategic hamlets did not work wonders against the Communists in Malaya because of the brick and mortar which went into them, but because of the unflinching will to victory of Gerald Templer. Everyone, including many who were inclined to help the Communists, realized that he meant business and was going to win.
That is not the position of General Harkins in Vietnam. He is under the orders of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara who, in the words of Miss Marguerite Higgins (“How Many Times Can Khrushchev Cross The Line,” Chicago Sun-Times, March 4, 1963), is acting in a way that makes him “sound like Russia’s defense attorney,” and his “whiz kids,” to whom “controlled response,” i.e. the willingness to be beaten, is Gospel.
China
The year 1962 could have been the year of doom for Communism in China IF our policy had been a policy aimed at the destruction of Communism in China. The catastrophic failure of the “leap forward” as well as the failure of the industrialization program in Red China and the ensuing demoralization in all areas of public life were such that even observers like Joseph Alsop considered the overthrow of the Red Chinese regime a real possibility. But in the same way that our non-intervention in Hungary saved Communism in that country — by making it safe for Nikita Khrushchev to come back with five thousand tanks, and fresh troops from Mongolia — our State Department made sure that the Red Chinese should be left in no doubt about our intentions. According to an Associated Press dispatch of July 1, 1962, a secret meeting took place in Warsaw on June twenty-third at which our Ambassador John Cabot Moore gave assurances to the Red Chinese Ambassador Wang Ping-nan “that the United States will not support any Chinese Nationalist move against the mainland.” “Some diplomats feel,” concluded the AP dispatch, “that details of the meeting were leaked in Washington to serve as a reminder to the Nationalists that an invasion of China would not be backed by the United States.” We will dispense with any commentary.
But how does sparing bad guy Mao square with the favorite State Department and Walter Lippmann line about the terrible conflict between Khrushchev and Mao Tse-tung, which makes it imperative for us to help good guy Nikita against bad guy Mao?
Perfectly! The fairy tale about the horrible rift between good Nikita and bad Mao is ideally suited as a basis for helping Khrushchev. It is an extension and expansion of the original idea, applied on a much smaller scale, of helping good guy Tito against bad guy Stalin (and then Malenkov and then Khrushchev).
The American people apparently are not sufficiently “dialectically” trained to understand that if we have to help Khrushchev because he is at loggerheads with Mao, ergo: we harm Mao. That is what Mr. George Ball, one of the leading experts, told us during the investigation of the muzzling of the military. For our experts are great dialecticians. We must help Nikita, but we must make sure not to harm Mao because whatever we would do against him, would “escalate” into a thermonuclear holocaust; and, as all Harvard experts and their friends know, that would annihilate you and me and everybody.
In utter contempt for the intelligence and common sense of the American people, the experts do not deem it necessary to explain how Red China, which needs the protection of the United States State Department from Chiang Kaishek, could start a world war against the strongest military power in the world — especially if it cannot count on the Soviet Union, with which relations have, according to them, reached a breaking point!
Indonesia
If all Communist regimes are equal in their criminal ineptitude in the economic field, the “socialist” regime of Achmed S. Sukarno in Indonesia is just a little more so. But, in view of all the aid we have given to the Communists since 1917 (Soviet Union, Tito, Gomulka, etc.) who needs to worry about economic efficiency if he is riding the “wave of the future,” i.e. siding with the Communists in the Cold War? And the more brazen your contempt for the “Yankee imperialists,” the surer you can be that you will not be left wanting. On January 8,1962, Sukarno — at a meeting convoked to whip up the feelings of Indonesian imperialism and lust for West New Guinea — proclaimed unashamedly: “We don’t care about international opinion.” The dashing collaborator of the Japanese in World War II was just parroting, only more contemptuously, those words of Nikita Khrushchev of a few months before, that if all the members of the UNT voted one way, the Soviet Union would ignore their will if the vote was against Soviet interests.
Sukarno obtained what he wanted, in the name of anti-colonialism, freedom, national independence, and all the lofty ideals of democracy. Nobody consulted the Papuans, but West New Guinea was taken away from the Dutch and given first to the UN and then directly to Achmed S. Sukarno.
Oh, yes, there is somewhere the clause that the Papuans (now West Irianians) will have the right to vote about their desire for independence, in 1969! We can, of course, trust Achmed and the UN to take care of that. There have already been parades with transparents reading “We do not want any plebiscite,” carried by Sukarno’s stooges from Indonesia. “Anti-colonialist” colonialism is on the march!
Mr. John Davis Lodge, former congressman, governor, and ambassador, stated several months ago that this was turning Indonesia and West Irian into Communist bases. “Lodge said that the winning of bases of operations in the area was long an objective of Japan, an objective which Japan never reached because we went to war against its designs. Now, he added, we are handing the goal to Russia at the conference table” (Chicago Tribune, October 2, 1962).
Anybody asking any questions about our prestige in Indonesia? Or about how our treatment of West New Guinea (following in less than one year the treatment given to Katanga) is winning friends for the United States and influencing world public opinion in our favor?
Elsewhere In Asia
In Burma, General Ne Win, who once upon a time used to fight the Communists, is “realistically” drawing conclusions from the trend of events and turning toward Peking.
In Cambodia, Prince Norodom Suhanouk is practicing the most pro-communist neutralism in Asia. He sees no enemies in Moscow and Peking. He is afraid of Thailand, a country whose people and leaders show character and backbone in spite of all that their enemies and their friends are doing jointly against the cause of anti-Communism and real national independence in Asia and in the world.
In Pakistan, the same general process of erosion of faith in the United States is undoubtedly advancing. And some “realistic” trends toward “better understanding” with Red China are gaining ground.
As for Japan, the undercurrent which seems to be dominating the political thinking, and shaping Japan’s political philosophy as well as her practical policies, seems to be the consideration that in the propagandized chanceries of the mighty the great fear is still of Hitler and militaristic Japan — although Hitler has been dead and the military power of Japan broken for eighteen years — and not of Moscow and Peking which rule at least one-third of mankind. For that reason Japan is not a shaper of world events. She is being shaped.
The Philippines — maybe our finest friend in Asia and a young nation which has displayed a high degree of political maturity (Magsaysay, Garcia, Macapagal) — rates the poorest marks in the books of Senator Fulbright and assorted foreign policy experts. The unforgiveable crime of most Filipinos seems to be that they are more pro-American than some Americans.
As for India, its fate has been shaped by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who is undoubtedly Indian by birth, but politically a frenzied “socialist” anti-colonialist first and last. His invasion of Goa has shown his love for peace and non-violence. And his disgraceful lack of determination and courage during the Chinese aggression against India in October/November 1962 has revealed to what incredible extent he is a stranger to the soul of the Indian people. The Red Chinese aggression caught the Indians unprepared. This was not the fault of the people. It was the work of Nehru and Krishna Menon. But once confronted with the aggression, the Indian people displayed an impressive miliant spirit; which, instead of inspiring and encouraging Nehru or making him proud, disturbed and awed him for the obvious reason.
According to the Paris leftist magazine Express (November 29, 1962), Nehru stated that “this is not a border conflict, but what is at stake in this conflict is so nebulous, so enormous, so vague, so deep, so complex that it constitutes the gravest challenge with which we have ever been confronted.”
And there is no indication whatever that Nehru has changed, in the slightest, his policy of siding always with the Communists on all issues: Of course it is always in the name of freedom, democracy, love of peace, and non-violence.
In all this turmoil, there is the project for the creation of the new state of Malaysia, to be composed of Malaya, Sarawak, Borneo, and North Brunei. Whether this new federation, due to
come into being in August 1963, will materialize is another question. It is not only that Indonesia is strongly against it, with the unqualified backing of Moscow and Peking which are worried about “neocolonialism.” But the Malayan Premier Abdul Rahman seems to be a little too naive for the occasion. According to Time magazine (April 12, 1963), he said: “My ambition is not mighty Malaysia, but happy Malaysia.” If he really means it, then he would be better advised to go home and play golf. Because, dear Abdul, the Communist Criminals do not respect your right to happiness, but only your strength and might.
In August 1962, our Secretary of State, Mr. Dean Rusk, made it clear that we have a “win” policy: for the whole world. “Not victory of one nation over another or of one people over another, but a world-wide victory for freedom” (New York Times, August 14, 1962). And since this categorical policy statement of no-win for America is our official answer to the aggressive Communist drive for world conquest through the destruction of the United States of America and the demoralization of all freedom fighters in the world (free and enslaved) — who believe that the United States is their champion — the world and Asia are going toward defeat and slavery, not victory and freedom.
Freedom and national independence are losing in Asia, and Communism is gaining ground because the pro-Communist “winds of change” are being blown concertedly from Moscow and Peking — and by our foreign policy experts.