NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY


weapons grows, public opinion will ill support the prospect of a war
conducted with such agencies and will tend to lose its sense of per-
spective and to entertain wild schemes for the settlement of political
conflict. The removal of our dependence on the weapon will not alone
alleviate this unhealthy preoccupation; but it is a first step toward it.
As long as we are determined to use the weapons willy-nilly, the con-
duct of warfare on that basis ils inevitable. Only if we ourselves would
be prepared, as a starter, to refrain from their use on a basis of mutu-
ality, could there even be any chance of avoiding atomic warfare in the
event of hostilities.
   Now it is admittedly a tremendous undertaking on our part to dis-
pense with this dependence on the atomic weapon. I should think it
entirely possible that this would require a state of semi-mobilization,
involving some form of compulsory military service and drastic meas-
ures to reduce the exorbitant costs of national defense. In particular,
we must labandon the idea that the armed establishment can and
should compete with the civilian economy in pay scales and amenities:
that it should operate, in other words, as a function of the civilian
economy. That concept rests on a great delusion, and spells impotence.
  2. We must face up at once to the dollar gap problem, particularly
with relation to the financial situation in the U.K. and sterling area,
but also with an eye to our problems with respect to Canada and to
Germany and Japan. The British situation is urgent, and will prob-
ably be back in our laps in an aggravated form within a year, even
if the Congress accedes in full to executive recommendations for
ERP aid. A British bankruptcy will have extremely dangerous con-
sequences throughout the entire non-communist world.
  We cannot do everything ourselves; but the removal of our tariffs
and subsidies would relieve at least a portion of the dollar shortage,
and-more important still-would create a sort of clarity which
nothing else could create as to the real measure of foreign responsi-
bility for the dollar gap problem.
  'The situation demands, therefore, a courageous 'and unhesitating
attack on this problem by the executive branch of government, mak-
ing plain the facts and outlining the course of action to be followed.
We should aim at a program of gradual adjustment, perhaps over a
period of years and with the Federal Government stepping in to
mitigate hardships and injustices to private interests. The end of
this period of adjustment should 'be a complete absence of tariffs and
subsidies, except where genuine security considerations intervene;
and even in these cases we should treat other members of the Atlantic
Pact group as allies rather than potential enemies, and try to spare
them from being the victims of security considerations.
  3. With respect to the problem of our relations to underdeveloped
areas, generally thought of in connection with Point IV, I would
say the following.
  II think we should fight the assumption that these relations cannot
be normal and satisfactory ones unless we are extending some sort
of unrequited assistance to the respective peoples.
  I think we must also beware of the assumption that it is invariably
helpful and desirable that such people should be assisted to a higher
stage of technological development. Technology is not a good in itself.
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