FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1950, VOLUME I


   The United States will be unrealistic if it expects all peoples and
 all nations outside the sphere of the Kremlin to respond in the same
 way and to the same extent to the stimuli of shared interests. Nations
 and peoples have interests additional to these shared with the United
 States; these will also shape their attitudes and govern their actions.
 Propaganda that fails to take account of this diversity in the world
 will not only misrepresent United States policy but over-reach itself.
 In some cases, political, economic, and military considerations will
 require that propaganda endeavor to bring about as full as possible
 correspondence between the commitments and the actions of another
 nation or people with the commitments and the actions taken by the
 United States. In others, the United States can afford to be satisfied
 if the other nation or people only decline to associate themselves with
 the Soviet Union.
   The peoples under the domination of the Soviet Union are potential
 allies whose hope for ultimate liberation should be nourished ....
 This is particularly true of intellectuals in governments and out, of
 m-ny in the armed services and of a large part of the peasantry. To
 the degree to which, while refraining from premature action, they
 identify their interests with those of the free world, the internal struc-
 ture of Soviet Communism will be weakened, its controls strained and
 its aggressive possibilities restricted. Combined with the knowledge
 that the United States and its associates are building military strength
 capable of defending the free world against Soviet aggression, the
 knowledge that the epeople of the USSR and its satellites are unreliable
 subjects might incline the Kremlin eventually to choose courses of
 accommodation that would avoid a war threatening its own power and
 the security of the motherland.
 4. The Development of a Sense of Urgency. In the situation that
 now exists, the development of psychological resistance must, to con-
 tribute effectively to defending wide areas of freedom against aggres-
 sion and !occupation, take place within a relatively short time. To
 accomplish this, information programs must expose land explain the
 relationship of Soviet military capabilities to the aggressive nature
 and intent of Soviet Communism. Careful consideration should be
 given to making public at an appropriate time the atomic capabilities
 of the USSR.
 5. The Development of Confidence and Hope. Effective psycho-
 logical resistance to Soviet Communism cannot, however, be expected
 to grow and to flourish as the result solely of arousing hiatred of its
 intentions and fear of its capabilities. Hatred jand fear alone may in-
 spire, not stubborn and active resistance, but a withdrawal into
"neutralism" and a resignation to despair. A hardy psychological
re-


454