FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1950, VOLUME I


the preparation of our allies and other "fringe" countries as a
first
priority? Do we move ahead building forces in allied countries with-
out regard to their ability to maintain them on a continuing basis,
thus requiring our assistance indefinitely?
  4. If our danger is from Soviet influence on vulnerable segments
of society-generally large masses of subjugated, uneducated peoples-
what is our program to reach these masses and prevent Soviet in-
fluence? How do you promise them and insure for them a chance for
freedom and improvement?
  Our policies in the past have armed our enemies. How do we insure
against this in the future ?
                 2. POLITICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL
  a. NSC 68 emphasizes "the present polarization of power" to an
extent which underemphasizes the fact that, while the two "poles"
(U.S. and U.S.S.R.) are each possessed of great power, each is dan-
gerous to the other only to the extent that it can attract and keep
allies.
  Would not an all-out program for civil defense and military defense
of this country with all that it entails in stirring up public opinion
and support tend to defeat our objectives with our allies?
  This would appear to be an important weakness of NSC 68.
  b. Throughout NSC 68 appear such statements as "The idea of free-
dom is the most contagious idea in history, more contagious than the
idea of submission to authority."; "The greatest vulnerability
of the
Kremlin lies in the basic nature of its relations with the Soviet
people."; and "The Kremlin's relations with its satellites and
their
peoples is likewise a vulnerability."
  These statements reach toward the core of the problem dealt with
by NSC 68, yet reference to policies and programs in the ideological
war or war for men's minds are subordinated to programs of material
strength; in fact, the only program dealt with in any detail is the
military program.
  NSC 68 deals with this problem as being one involving "the free
world" and "the slave world". While it is true that the USSR
and its
satellites constitutesomething properly called a slave world, it is not
true that the U.S. and its friends constitute a free world. Are the
Jndo-Chinese free? Can the peoples of the Philippines be said to be
free under the corrupt Quirino government? Moreover, what of the
vast number of peoples who are in neither the U.S. nor the USSR
camp, and for whom we are contesting? By and large, by our stand-
ards, they are not free. This free world .vs. slave world treatment
obscures one of the most difficult problems we face-the fact that many
peoples are attracted to Communism because their governments are


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