164 FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1950, VOLUME I

ties as a world power, and came to embrace all those things which
would have had to be done anyway—even in the absence of a commu-
nist threat—to assure the preservation and advance of civilization.
That Moscow might be refuted, it was necessary that something else
should succeed. Thus Moscow’s threat gave great urgency to the solu-
tion of all those bitter problems of adjustment which in any event
would have plagued and tested the countries of the non-communist
world in the wake of these two tremendous and destructive world con-
flicts. And it was not enough, in the face of this fact, to treat the com-
munist attack as purely an outside one, to be dealt with only by direct
counter-action. Such an approach was sometimes necessary; but pri-
marily communism had to be viewed as a crisis of our own civiliza-
tion, and the principal antidote lay in overcoming the Weaknesses of
our own. institutions.

The principal antidote, I repeat, not the only one. Since military.
intimidation was another of the cold war weapons used by the Kremlin,
direct action had to be taken to combat this, too. Hence our own armed
establishment, the Atlantic Pact and the Arms Program. These —
measures threw many people off. They were not part of a policy of
military containment; but they looked like it. They served their pur-
pose in Europe; but they misled many people there and here into a
false concept of what it was we were doing: into a tendency to view
the Russian threat as just a military problem rather than as a part
of a broad political offensive. (This error has had a great part in
producing the present restlessness with our policy; for through these
distorted lenses the atomic energy problems, and many other things,
take on quite misleading aspects. )

TIT
There 3 is no reason, to date, to doubt the validity of this approach.
In fact, any serious deviation from it could easily lead to most appal-
ling consequences. But if it be asked whether our present policies.
represent the most and the best we can do to implement it, I must say

that in my opinion they do not. The main deficiencies appear to me to
be these:

1. In the military sphere, we should act at once to get rid of our.
present dependence, in our war plans, on the atomic’ weapon, This is
necessary, first of all, in order that we may have a straightforward
stance toward the problems of international control. The H-bomb
discussion and other events having created such intensity of interest
in this subject, a confused and hesitant position on our part becomes
a dangerous matter, both domestically and internationally. Secondly,
it 1s necessary because the atomic weapons are already an infirm and
questionable element in our military posture, and likely to become.
more so as time passes. This is true both psychologically and in the
literal military sense. Finally, as the power of the mass destruction