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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 27, 1951)
Page 4 THE BATTALION Tuesday, March 27, 1951 I I Re pe th' VI! “cj: so; pi; an tic ba *«vl al) co uc pa te A: te’ pc Ai tie bv R< ly pi tr Ci to How Can We Be So Stupid? (Continued From Page 3) the ^Chinese to find oiit, or Mr. Tito to find out.” Our policy was based on one as sumption, that the Soviet Union wants a good world, with better homes and better housing and greater democracy and freedom, and the end of all vices of the world. That’s the sales talk. How dumb can we be and how long, I pray ? There was another assumption that led to our trouble, and that was that Communism in Asia was just an agrarian reform; it was not in the least connected with the _ subversive interests of the Soviet Union. Let me run through a few things that show how smart people, enlightened people, educat ed people, emancipated people like Americans, in the United States—in the churches and everywhere—the idealistic people can be taken in by people who have no scruples and who play upon the desires of your heart. Look at the myths that were spread about the Chinese Commun ists, to make us forget our own in terests as we did. First of all, it was said they were doing most of their fighting against Japan—“We must arm them.” Stilwell fell for that. Then we heard that is was just a spontaneous, indigenous reform movement against landlordism, feudalism and militarism in China. Never until the President gave his “State of the Union” speech had the government ever admitted that war in China was ever anything but a complete civil war. In his address he discovered—if he understood what he read—that this was solely a Soviet-directed conspiracy to overthrow the Chinese government. That’s encouraging. He has joined us at last. I hope he’ll stay put, because maybe we can go some where if he wakes up to that fact, which the Chinese discovered long, long ago. Then they came along with an other one. They said, “Well, the people are better off under Com munism.” You’ve heard that one. It was said that the people had more calories, and were better off under Communism. Well, that was perfectly time in the country re gions, because in starting out to de stroy the government of China, the Communists wouldn’t let the farmers ship their grain into the cities. The city people, of course, cut off from their food supplies, grew restless and started crying, “Down with the government! We want food.” The Communists forced the farmers to keep their own grain, and so they had more to eat than they ever had before. The casual traveler going through the country would exclaim, “Look how well fed the people look! The Communist government must be good.” There were some who said that about Hitler, too, you know. The German people were better off un der Hitler for a time; that’s a hard fact. They had higher calories, bet ter medical care, they had the streets policed and cleaned up, and there were no beggars in the streets, and the trains were on time. Everything was orderly. They were busy people, efficient people. They fixed up the rest rooms in the factories so that they were nice and clean, sanitary and attractive. They gave pregnant mothers ma ternity benefits. They fixed up the spas and gave everybody a vaca tion at public expense. Wasn’t that good? Weren’t the people better off? No, indeed. They were not free. And yet a lot of people fell for that, too. Our Gullibility How many times have we fallen for that business—we who say we don’t believe in materialism, but actually are materialists, and judge things by material comforts? Je sus wrestled with that for foity days and foi'ty nights. He felt so intensely about the physical and material well-being of the. people that He wanted to use His super natural powers to give them bread. But He didn’t. In the end He let them go hungry rather than deny them the necessity of providing for themselves. Of course, there were certain occasions, certain emergencies dpring famine, flood, disaster, war, where some people got too far from their homes, when He fed them, but on a long term program—no, indeed. That wasn’t good; it was bad, although it look ed so good. And then there was another be lief: “Well, don’t worry about these people. They haven’t turned out the way we thought they would, but still they’re just country people.” One of the smartest men I know, sent over with the EGA to survey the situation, came back and said, “Don’t worry about those fellows. They won’t take the cities; they won’t have the run of the country.” I said, “What makes you think that?” he said, “They’re country people.” Well, why would they go to the third base and then forget to go home? Well, they took the cities, and that myth was gone, but it had done its damage for six months or so. They had another one—“They’re northerners; they won’t take South China. Let the Communists have North China, and the rest of the Chinese can have South China.” Well, they took North China, ami they took South China, too, to the Indo-China border. That wouldn’t work, so we got another one: “They can’t convert the Chinese to Communists.” I don’t know whether they can or not. I don’t think they can. That does n’t make any difference though because they haven’t converted any people to Cotnmunism, beginning with Russia. They don’t claim to OSE BATTALION CLASSIFIED ADS TO BUY, SELL, KENT OR TRADE. 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Official Notice Air Force ROTC students who will grad uate and be commissioned in June 1951 will be ordered to active military service within 90 days of their appointment. They may, if they so desire, apply Immediately for flying training or meteor ology training. Distinguished military students who have declined regular Air Force Commissions tendered them will also be ordered to ac tive service as reserve officers. Initial assignments for officers called to active duty will be in the United States. Deferments from Call to active duty may be requested by those officers who are qualified for and desire to take post grad uate work in courses of primary interest to the Air Force. These courses are professional and tech nical ones for which the Air Force has an outstanding requirement. Students affected by this new ruling should report to M/Sgt. Jose Hernandez, commissioning section, Ross Hall at once. Col. E. W. Napier PAS&T have more than 3 per cent of the Russians, 6 per cent of the Poles, 8 per cent of the Czechs. They don’t want 51 per cent of the people in their “democracy.” If they did, they’d have as much trouble as we Republicans and Democrats do, fighting among our selves all the time. They want the 3 per cent; if they get more than that, they purge them. They main tain the little iron core, you see. What difference does it make whether people believe it or not. They said, “You can’t make good soldiers out of the Chinese, you know.” Go ask the boys in Korea about that. Then there was one that said, “Well, after all, they won’t be able to solve the economic prob lems of China.” The answer is that, of course, they wouldn’t be able to do it anywhere else; they haven’t been able to solve the economic problems in any country, beginning with Russa. Does that suggest that they don’t have con trol of them and can’t use them to make trouble for us? There was another one that said, “Oh, they’ll be overcome. They’ll be absorbed, just like all of the previous conquerors of China.” One answer to that is that just because they overcame their pre vious conquerors doesn’t mean that they will absorb the Russians, any more than it follows that because a man overcame his previous dis ease, he’ll get over his present ill ness. He may have had scarlet fever, diphtheria, pneumonia and influenza, and overcome them, it doesn’t mean that he can overcome cancer. A lot of people die every day who never died before. This is a different disease—that’s the point. The fact that bronchitis and tuberculosis of the lung look alike —they both have fever, both show an inflamatory condition and both have a cough—doesn’t mean that you’ll get over tuberculosis because you get over bronchitis. This is a different disease, I’m telling you But we insist on nursing to our breast these illusions; wishful thinking, I fear, is our national vice. The Morass Theory RADIOS & REPAIRING Call For and Delivery STUDENT CO-OP Phone 4-4114 Secondly, they say the argument is this: Suppose the Chinese do eventually wear them out and over come them, absorb them. How long will that be ? It’s irrelevant as far as my country is concerned. We’re talking about the security of the United States. It took them 67 years to overcome the Manchu con querors. What if they do over come the Communists in the next three or four hundred years? Where will we be? I have no doubt Jesus believed in the ultimate triumph of right eousness. He certainly had no qualms, about believing that good ness and truth and righteousness and freedom would ultimately tri umph, but that didn’t keep Him from weeping bitter tears about the impending loss of His capital city. He knew that whatever God might do, ultimately Jerusalem was a goner, because she would not pay attention to the condi tions of her peace. Then there was another one who said, “Well, China will prove a morass for the Soviet Union.” I was on a radio program just two years ago with Owen Lattimore, and that was his thesis—“Stalin is dumb, but he is not dumb enough to get bogged down in this morass.” That was the morass theory. Sta lin doesn’t seem to be very bogged down; he seems to be doing right well. They never try to persuade us to adopt Communism. They just get us to ignore our own interests and not help the people who are fighting Communism, which means turning evei’ything over to Com munism without appearing to do so. Then there was another one that said, “Well, never mind, they’ll probably become members of the Communist Party, but if we’ll just help them, give them Formosa, for instance, and show them we’re good fellows, if we’ll help them succeed, that, somehow, will make them fail.” If you have difficulty with that one, the State Depart ment will explain it to you. I’m sick and tired of the people who are going to keep our country secure by weakening ourselves and “divvying up” to the other side. Some people have asked me, “Why did Chiang’s government lose out in China?” I said it had fought eight years of war and an invasion. How many governments in history have gone through that and pulled through ? Chiang could n’t pull through without vigorous assistance and moral support, any more than all those other countries could. China has nothing to be asham ed of. The scars of the Chinese are honorable. They saved tens of thousands of American lives by holding the line as they did, until we could build ourselves a navy and bring our superior power to bear upon Japan. We denounce them for weaknesses which are really the result of decisions we have made. I’d rather take our chances in history with them than Iwww ECONOMY! SAFE-T-WAY TAXI Phone 2-1400 See the 1951 Models . . Royal Portable Typewriters RENT A LATE MODEL TYPEWRITER Exclusive Authorized Distributor ROYAL TYPEWRITERS VICTOR ADDING MACHINES Appointed, Federal Government contract to service office machines in this territory. Bryan Business Machine Company Sales — Service — Rentals — Supplies 209 N. Main, Bryan L. H. ADAMS, Owner Dial 2-1328 with some of our statesmen, I’m sorry to say. Defeatist Attitude This is my quarrel with Mr. Acheson in the State Department. I have nothing against him pei*- sonally. I think the men in the State Department are high-minded men, but they always have a cer tain negativism about them, a de featism. They tell you that you can’t do this, you can’t do that. On the Chinese question during the War, three Generals—Stilwell, Marshall and Barr—said we could n’t do anything for them, but against them were scores of Gen erals, equally great men, and Ad mirals, who said it could be done. MacArthur and Chennault said it can and must be done. Wedemeyer went out and made a study of China and turned in a report which was a model of sobriety, urging that we help the Chinese, but that was pigeonholed. We had seven Ad mirals—Hart, Yarnell, Barbey, Leahy, Cooke, Kincaid, followed by Badger and then Radford—who said it can and must be done. Now, this is why I say these men who say nothing can be done, should be removed from office or take themselves out of this pre dicament where they have to strug gle with something they can’t suc ceed in doing. As long as there are people in charge to say it can’t be done, of course it can’t be done. Do you want a doctor who will tell you, before the operation, that you can never get well ? I wish that the President would promote those people, or send them to England or anywhere, but get them out of the situation, in any event, so that something can be done. Then they come along and say this government is so bad it doesn’t deserve our help—as if that had anything to do with it. No foreign country out of my own pocket, I’m entitled to do that, but I have no right to levy taxes to take money out of your pocket to take care of my charity. A government is not a humanitarian institution. Another Delusion It isn’t a question of whether the people deserve the help; it’s a question of whether your boy de serves to live or not. In order to live, he ought to have as many people on his side against the ene my as possible. Are we just going to reserve for Americans the right to die in these hellholes out there ? If this is an enemy dangerous enough to us that we fight and die against it, then we know that if we want to win, we want others fighting with us. We go over to Europe to try to bribe them to fight, and in Asia we won’t let them fight against the Commies; only your boys can be taken out of the Uni ted States, out of their homes, away from their families, and sent over there. It’s incredible. Now, one more. A lot of peo ple are still thinking that maybe we can buy them off by giving them what they say they want. That’s what we did at Tehran—we gave them what they wanted. At Potsdam is was the same; we gave them more of what they said they wanted. What they say they want is not what they want. The purpose Is conquest. There is no mystery, no enigma no conundrum as to the ob jectives of the Communist move ment—they have never changed by a hair’s breadth; their objective is world conquest; its strategy has never changed. Russian World Conquest Of course, their tactics change. They are differing in every coun try, depending upon the situations found in the various countries. Their purpose is to confuse and to weaken, to divide, inflame, and con quer. They wouldn’t have anything to shout about if they had them corrected. They want to divide us and make us lose faith in oursel ves. When will we learn the nature of the thing we’re dealing with ? Well, what can we do about this? The first thing we have to do is to recognize that the Soviet Union and its world conspiracy is at war with us. We are the target. We’re all that stands between them and world conquest. China was first base. Then they would go to South east Asia, which is second base, to Europe, which is third base, and we are home base. If we would rec ognize that, then certain things would follow. Ten years ago we had Pearl Harbor. We had some losses and some benefits. One benefit was to make us see that Japan was at war with us; it ended our delusion that we could make peace with them. Therefore, it gave us the unity and will to do the things necessary to pull through. Now we have some thing worse than Pearl Harbor, but we haven’t had brains enough to recognize it; we still think it’s a war with somebody else, and not with us, or we are still nurturing the delusion that if we give them space in Europe, if they get space in Asia, they can be satisfied. They could take 200 Russian divi sions and 150 Chinese divisions and you couldn’t possibly stand up to them in Europe then, or in Asia. You have to win in both Europe and in Asia. It isn’t because we want to scatter our shots or divert attention from Europe, it’s the only way in which we can save the patient; gangrene in any part of the body’s members will destroy it. Somebody says, “Well, we ought to avoid war.” Gentlemen, it isn’t a case of avoiding war, it’s how you will win the war, it’s how to stnke lirst. It’s too late to talk of avoiding a war; they have struck. 1 he question is how, when, and where we will strike hack, if we could survive. Somebody says, “You musn’t start a preventive war.” Well, it’s too late for that; the war has been started. If we win the one we re in, I don’t think we’ll have any division of our people, but it we don’t, then we will. What To Do Now, what are the things that follow ? First, we decide to use our forces where they can be used to the greatest advantage, and not to the advantage of the others, that certainly doesn’t mean that you’re going to have American ground troops in Asia, because we’re fighting then where they are strongest and we are weakest. I tought against sending ground troops into Koi’ea. However, I think you ought to hold on there, short of a massacre. I don’t think you have had too great a cost. We ought to hold on there for three reasons. One, for the morale ef- iect. If you abandon Korea to the Russians, Asia will be like a house of cards; you can kiss it goodbye. Secondly, here were twenty mil lion Koreans who stood on our side. If the “Voice of America” had the slightest bit of imagina tion, it could just do wonders in Asia with this: Where did the people of Asia go when they had a chance. From South to North? Did the Koreans go from South to North? No, they moved by the mil lions from North to South. Where did the common people go? They fled to the South. Tell Nehru that; he’ll discover it. Tell these other people that. They call us imperialists. Suppose we ask what the common people—who had their noses rubbed in it—what they think about it. Don’t toss that card away. Thirdly, if you can hold a beach head in Korea, you tie down the best Communist forces where they have typhus and various other things, and thereby, perhaps, you can save Indo-China, and I’m sure there is no other way to save it. If they liquidate in Korea, they’ll go on to Indo-China. If you send white boys in there in physical combat, driving bayonets through Asiatics, the political losses will outweigh any military advantages you gain, even if you win. Moral Support Now, once you have decided when and how we’re going to use our resources to the greatest ad vantage—we are strongest in the air and one set, now with land forces—then we have to build up and support the areas in Asia still free, Japan, Formosa and the Phil ippines, particularly. It would be criminal if they take these Japan ese who put their faith in us and disarm them and do not give them a chance to defend themselves and then throw them to the wolves. They’ll defend themselves if you give them a chance. You have to either defend them with your boys or desert them and nobody will tioist you again, or you have to help them get on their feet to that ex tent. In Formosa they don’t need more aid but the proper aid, the kind we gave Greece—moral support. Secondly, we should send them ad visers, smart fellows who can^go in and help them with the prob lem, and not American combat soldiers. You can’t liberate them, but you can help them so they can liberate themselves; at least there is some hope thei’e. The third thing is that you have to work with the resistance move ments on the mainland. Somebody says you can’t do anything about China; you must recognize that fact. China is friendly, but she is not mighty. If Europe is important because of industral capacity, then you can’t say China is strong be cause she hasn’t industrial capacity. You can’t have it both ways. They aren’t mighty. Mainland China is the weakest spot in the whole world conspiracy of the Soviet Union. There is where we could deal the most deadly blow with the least cost of ourselves. Why not turn loose—not in mass- invasion style, such as we had at Normandy — selected groups to smuggle in and set up a “Depart ment of Dirty Tricks,” if you wish, behind the Communist line ? If you can prevent their consolidating Chi na, if you can make them fail in their great promises, you can break the Communist movement in the Orient and if you do, Stalin is go ing to think a long, long time be fore starting trouble in Europe. We must try, at least. We can’t guarantee that you will succeed, but you won’t succeed if you don’t try. Selling Freedom To The World Therefore, we have to get our policies into the hands of men who are positive. Then, in addition, wo have to have something to sell. The Communists go to the people and say they haVe the answers. Well, if they don’t have anybody competing for their hearts, thoy’il do as they are told. It might be a fraud, but why don’t we go to the people and tell them we have the answers to their problems? Let’s tell them we want them to become free and want to help them build their government from the bottom up. Let’s tell them, “We’ll work * with you. We’ll not do it for, but will help you to do this.” Why don’t we believe in our selves? 1 can’t figure it out. What are we ashamed of? Jesus didn’t say, “The truth shall make ye free.” He said, “Ye shall know it.” But you do have to tell the truth. There are only two things I’m afraid of. One is that we will con tinue to day-dream and underesti mate or fail to understand the thing that is against us. 1 don’t think we’re going to do that. I am less anxious now about that than I have been at any time since I talked to you before. We’re wak ing up, I believe. I hope it’s not too late.The other thing I’m afraid of is that we will fail to understand our own system, that we will un- derstimate its strength, its appeal, its attraction to the oppressed peo ples of the World. It has widespread strength, even behind the Iron Curtain, and if we don’t under- 4 stand it and contagiously believe in and spread our own system, the world will go by default. We’re living in tough times; sure. The world is sick. It has to have hard-headed doctors, but there is no teason to despair, if you have what Lincoln prayed for—“Under God a new birth of freedom, a new* understanding, a new dedication.” DYERS'FUR STORAGE HATTERS XRoncan. 2-l564m Loupot’s Trading Post—Agents ■ ' , Uri < / .iWVv . ' : ' - v.;.;.;. (xer mm tr (tmg/ THOUSANDS of students all over the country are making this test—proving for themselves Chesterfield smells milder, smokes milder than any other cigarette. THEY KNOW TOO ... 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