It is in this context that we must view the Communist propaganda drive for a permanent ban on the testing of nuclear weapons, and the inclination of our own leaders to go along with the proposal. There are two preliminary reasons why such proposals ought to be firmly rejected. First, there is no reliable means of preventing the Communists from secretly breaking such an agreement. Our most recent tests demonstrated that underground atomic explosions can be set off without detection. Secondly, we cannot hope to maintain even an effective strategic deterrent unless we keep our present nuclear arsenal up to date; this requires testing. But the main point I want to make is that tests are needed to develop tactical nuclear weapons for possible use in limited wars. Our military experts have long recognized that for limited warfare purposes we must have a weapons superiority to offset the Communists’ manpower superiority. This means we must develop and perfect a variety of small, clean nuclear weapons; and this in turn means: testing. The development of such a weapons system is the only way in which America will be able to fight itself out of the dilemma—one horn of which is superior Communist manpower, the other, the impending neutralization of strategic nuclear weapons.
Our government was originally pushed into suspending tests by Communist-induced hysteria on the subject of radio-active fallout. However one may rate that danger, it simply has no bearing on the problem at hand. The facts are that there is practically no fallout from tests conducted above the earth’s atmosphere, and none at all from underground tests. Therefore, the only excuse for suspending tests is that our forbearance somehow contributes to peace. And my answer is that I am unable to see how peace is brought any nearer by a policy that may reduce our relative military strength. Such a policy makes sense only under the assumption that Communist leaders have given up their plan for world revolution and will settle for peaceful coexistence—an assumption we make at the risk of losing our national life.
If our objective is victory over Communism, we must achieve superiority in all of the weapons—military, as well as political and economic—that may be useful in reaching that goal. Such a program costs money, but so long as the money is spent wisely and efficiently, I would spend it. I am not in favor of “economizing” on the nation’s safety. As a Conservative, I deplore the huge tax levy that is needed to finance the world’s number-one military establishment. But even more do I deplore the prospect of a foreign conquest, which the absence of that establishment would quickly accomplish.
UNITED NATIONS
Support of the United Nations, our leaders earnestly proclaim, is one of the cornerstones of American foreign policy. I confess to being more interested in whether American foreign policy has the support of the United Nations.
Here, again, it seems to me that our approach to foreign affairs suffers from a confusion in objectives. Is the perpetuation of an international debating forum, for its own sake, the primary objective of American policy? If so, there is much to be said for our past record of subordinating our national interest to that of the United Nations. If, on the other hand, our primary objective is victory over Communism, we will, as a matter of course, view such organizations as the UN as a possible means to that end. Once the question is asked—Does America’s participation in the United Nations help or hinder her struggle against world Communism?—it becomes clear that our present commitment to the UN deserves re-examination.
The United Nations, we must remember, is in part a Communist organization. The Communists always have at least one seat in its major policy-making body, the Security Council; and the Soviet Union’s permanent veto power in that body allows the Kremlin to block any action, on a substantial issue, that is contrary to its interests. The Communists also have a sizeable membership in the UN’s other policy-making body, the General Assembly. Moreover, the UN’s working staff, the Secretariat, is manned by hundreds of Communist agents who are frequently in a position to sabotage those few UN policies that are contrary to Communist interests. Finally, a great number of non-Communist United Nations are sympathetic to Soviet aims—or, at best, are unsympathetic to ours.
We therefore should not be surprised that many of the policies that emerge from the deliberations of the United Nations are not policies that are in the best interest of the United States. United Nations policy is, necessarily, the product of many different views—some of them friendly, some of them indifferent to our interests, some of them mortally hostile. And the result is that our national interests usually suffer when we subordinate our own policy to the UN’s. In nearly every case in which we have called upon the United Nations to do our thinking for us, and to make our policy for us—whether during the Korean War, or in the Suez crisis, or following the revolution in Iraq—we have been a less effective foe of Communism than we otherwise might have been.
Unlike America, the Communists do not respect the UN and do not permit their policies to be affected by it. If the “opinion of mankind,” as reflected by a UN resolution, goes against them, they—in effect—tell mankind to go fly a kite. Not so with us; we would rather be approved than succeed, and so are likely to adjust our own views to conform with a United Nations majority. This is not the way to win the Cold War. I repeat: Communism will not be beaten by a policy that is the common denominator of the foreign policies of 80-odd nations, some of which are our enemies, nearly all of which are less determined than we to save the world from Communist domination. Let us, then, have done with submitting major policy decisions to a forum where the opinions of the Sultan of Yeman count equally with ours; where the vote of the United States can be cancelled out by the likes of “Byelorussia.”
I am troubled by several other aspects of our UN commitment. First—and here again our Cold War interests are damaged—the United Nations provides a unique forum for Communist propaganda. We too, of course, can voice our views at the UN; but the Communists’ special advantage is that their lies and misrepresentations are elevated to the level of serious international debate. By recognizing the right of Communist regimes to participate in the UN as equals, and by officially acknowledging them as “peace-loving,” we grant Communist propaganda a presumption of reasonableness and plausibility it otherwise would not have.