FOREIGN RELATIONS, 19 5 0, VOLUME I


confront the Kremlin with greater strength could be assembled. It is
in this context that this Republic and its citizens in the ascendancy of
their strength stand in their deepest peril.
  The issues that face us are momentous, involving the fulfillment or
destruction not only of this Republic but of civilization itself. They
are issues which will not await our deliberations. With conscience and
resolution this Government and the people it represents must now take
new and fateful decisions.
          II. FUNDAMENTAL PURPOSE OF THE UNITED STATES
  The fundamental purpose of the United States is laid down in the
Preamble to the Constitution: ... to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common
defence, promote the general Wellfare, and secure the Blessings of
Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." In essence, the fundamental
purpose is to assure the integrity and vitality of our free society, which
is founded upon the dignity and worth of the individual.
  Three realities emerge as a consequence of this purpose: Our deter-
mination to maintain the essential elements of individual freedom, as
set forth in the Constitution and Bill of Rights; our determination to
create conditions under which our free and democratic system can live
and prosper; and our determination to fight if necessary to defend our
way of life, for which as in the Declaration of Independence, "with
a
firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually
pledge to each other our lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
             III. F UNDAMENTAL DESIGN" OF THE KREMLIN
   The fundamental design of those who control the Soviet Union and
the international communist movement 1is to retain and solidify their
absolute power, first in the Soviet Union and second in the areas now
under their control. In the minds of the Soviet leaders, however,
achievement of this design requires the dynamic extension of their
authority and the ultimate elimination of any effective opposition to
their authority.
   The design, therefore, calls for the complete subversion or forcible
 destruction of the machinery of government and structure of society in
 the countries of the non-Soviet world and their replacement by an
 apparatus and structure subservient to and controlled from the Krem-
 lin. To that end Soviet efforts are now directed toward the domination
 of the Eurasian land mass. The United States, as the principal center
 of power in: the non-Soviet world and the bulwark of opposition to
 Soviet expansion, is the principal enemy whose integrity and vitality
 must be subverted or destroyed by one means or another if the Kremlin
 is to achieve its fundamental design.


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