802 the people of Greece to decide for themselves whether they want a king or a president. Such a policy would by now have strangled the Franco regime and would have allowed the Spaniards to set up their own republic. Such a policy would allow Indonesia to be controlled by the Indonesians. Such is the policy which the people of China have taken into their own hands. In so doing, they prove that the greater the amount of money we spend for armaments to influence their politics, the greater their determination and ability to manage their own affairs. The history of the United States from its inception, through the War for Independence, the War of 1812, and the American Civil War, is living proof that the aspirations of any people determined to make their own destiny cannot be diverted by bullets. The news of the lifting of the Berlin blockade and of the impending conference of the Big Four Foreign Ministers has raised the hopes of satesmen and citizens that the cold war is on the verge of being melted away. I cannot believe that anyone who wishes peace would want to predoom that conference to disaster. And yet, that is just what any definitive action taken between now and the time of the Paris meeting would do. STRENGTHENING THE UNITED NATIONS This conception that freemen will fight against tyranny helped found the United Nations, which grew out of the victorious fight against a fascism which believed guns and airplanes and concentration camps could mold the world to its desires. The establishment of the United Nations based on the concept of unanimity and the recognition of the rights of sovereignty, laid the groundwork for mutual assistance and the domination of no country by another. The perversion of this policy in the hands of our present administration is rapidly disorganizing the functions of the United Nations and its ability to maintain the peace. The North Atlantic Pact supersedes the United Nations by a military council. It places force above reason and peaceful negotiation; paves the way for war, not peace. it It is for these reasons that we ask this body-the Senate of the United States-not to ratify the pact. implore the use of negotiation through such peaceful means as the It is for these reasons that we forthcoming Ministers' Conference; it is for these reasons that we must have a truly strong United Nations which, supported in true harmony by the principal nations, can guarantee the peaceful economic and political development of the peoples of the world. The CHAIRMAN. You want to strengthen the United Nations? The CHAIRMAN. Do you think that 30 Russian vetoes on important matters since the beginning of the Charter has tended to strengthen it? Professor WARNE. I have no brief whatever The CHAIRMAN. I did not ask you about brief. I asked you that plain question. Professor WARNE. I do not think that indiscriminate use of the veto by any nation strengthens the United Nations. The CHAIRMAN. Why are you dodging Russia? She is the one that has imposed the 30 vetoes, and I asked you that plain question. Then you shot off on a general statement, because you are afraid someone will think you are in sympathy with Russia. I do not charge you with being in sympathy with Russia. I just asked you if 30 vetoes by Russia tended to strengthen the United Nations. Professor WARNE. I think the answer given earlier this afternoon was very appropriate, and that is, it is a question of what they veto and the question of a majority versus a minority in an organization. I do not think that has a strict bearing upon this immediate issue. The CHAIRMAN. In other words, you refuse to answer the question? That is what you do? Professor WARNE. NO. The CHAIRMAN. Do you think 30 vetoes strengthened the United Nations? Professor WARNE. I do not. The CHAIRMAN. Or weakened the United Nations? Professor WARNE. I think the tendency to overuse the veto definitely weakens the United Nations. The CHAIRMAN. Why did you not state that instead of making a sermon on the subject? Professor WARNE. I stated it in the beginning. The CHAIRMAN. You were against the Greek proposition, the Greek assistance. Professor WARNE. I am against our policies in Greece. The CHAIRMAN. You are against giving them any money, giving them any armaments, giving them anything? Professor WARNE. I would give relief to Greece through the United Nations. The CHAIRMAN. The United Nations has no relief funds. Professor WARNE. It does not, and that is where the trouble begins. The CHAIRMAN. Exactly. It has none, so you want to have it done through the United Nations when they have no relief funds. You were against the Turkey bill, of course, against the aid to Turkey? Professor WARNE. Of course. Professor WARNE. I am against the use of Marshall plan funds in the way in which they are used, rather than through the United Nations. I am not against the use of it. The CHAIRMAN. You are against all these plans because you want to do them some other way. Is that it? You have got a plan of your own? REGIONALISM AND THE UNITED NATIONS Professor WARNE. I am against our policy of regionalism associated with the employment of countries and political governments as instruments of a political policy. The CHAIRMAN. Do you not know that in the charter of the United Nations, it provides for regional arrangements? Answer that, please. I am not going to ask you any more questions unless you can answer them. You are not fooling anybody. You are smart enough to know what we ask you. You are a professor of what? Frofessor WARNE. Economics. The CHAIRMAN. Economics. Well, economics, I thought, taught something about the plainness of a thing. You know what I am asking you. I do not care to ask you any more questions if you are going to dodge them all. Is that all? Professor WARNE. That is all I have. The CHAIRMAN. All right. We thank you very much. Professor WARNE. You are welcome. The CHAIRMAN. You never did answer my question whether you recognized in the United Nations Charter regional arrangements. Professor WARNE. I did; I said "Yes." The CHAIRMAN. You were talking about the United Nations. Why do you not approve of that? Professor WARNE. I very thoroughly approve of the United Nations. The CHAIRMAN. I know, but of that clause about regional action? Professor WARNE. I think there is an appropriate scope for regional action, and that scope does not involve international relief commitments in the military field, which commitments must always under the charter be subject to the scrutiny of the United Nations. The CHAIRMAN. Are you the president of this National Council of Arts, Sciences, and Professions? Professor WARNE. I am not. Harlow Shapley is the president. I am merely a representative. The CHAIRMAN. You were merely delegated to come down here? Professor WARNE. That is right. The CHAIRMAN. All right. That is all. Thank you very much. Mr. Morford. STATEMENT OF RICHARD MORFORD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF AMERICAN-SOVIET FRIENDSHIP Mr. MORFORD. I am Richard Morford, executive director of the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship since January of 1946. The CHAIRMAN. Before that, what were you? Mr. MORFORD. I am a Presbyterian clergyman; and I was the executive of the United Christian Council for Democracy before that. Before that, I was minister of the House of Friendship in Albany, and secretary of the Federation of Churches. Before that, I was a Presbyterian minister in Morristown, N. J. The CHAIRMAN. Have you abandoned the pulpit for this organization of Soviet Friendship? Mr. MORFORD. No, sir, I count this a part of my ministry still. I am not an active minister in a church at this point, but I hold regular standing as a clergyman. The CHAIRMAN. All right, go right ahead. Mr. MORFORD. I think that we have reached a turning point in American foreign policy in the consideration of the North Atlantic Pact. The United States Senate is required to make a decision determining the life and destiny of the American people for years to come. Not only the people of America, but the people of the Soviet Union and of the entire world will learn whether we place major reliance on peaceful negotiations to settle world problems or are determined to employ the threat of war and preparation for war as an instrument of national policy. We are about to declare either that we want to live in the one world with our differences but in peace, or that we choose to divide the world into two armed camps awaiting the call to war. THREAT OF WAR AS AN INSTRUMENT OF NATIONAL POLICY The CHAIRMAN. May I interrupt you right there. Do you think that the Congress or the President or anybody else is determined to employ the threat of war and preparations for war as an instrument of our national policy? Mr. MORFORD. In the attempt to prepare for the resistance to an armed attack, this indicates a threat of war in conditions which we decide are not met. I do not see how you could call it other, sir, than a threat of war. The CHAIRMAN. In other words, if we do not lie down and just let them walk over us, we are employing threats of war and preparation for war? Mr. MORFORD. No; that I did not say. The CHAIRMAN. You did not say it, but that is what you meant, was it not? Mr. MORFORD. There is a choice of major reliance whether upon a peaceful negotiation or whether we want to build up a defense, as we indicate, against armed attack, which has behind it the threat of war and is supported by armaments. This is a part of the implementation. The CHAIRMAN. You think that a nation which acts in defense of its soil and its territory and its people, if it resists an armed attack, is the one that is guilty by having determined to employ the threat of war and preparation for war? Is that your attitude? Mr. MORFORD. No. My attitude would be that I think in the implications of this pact and building up resistance for attack, we will in effect be establishing a very tangible threat of war by the rearmament of Europe; and that in itself constitutes an aggressive act. The CHAIRMAN. What would you do in case of an armed attack? What would you have the nation do? Just sit down and do nothing, let their armed attackers run over them? Mr. MORFORD. No, that is exactly the practical problem, sir, that I find reflected by the American people, wondering what actually would constitute an adequate defense; and these practical considerations I would like to have an opportunity to present here. The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead. I will not interrupt you any more. I have long since learned that when a fellow has an obsession, there is no use to interfere with him. Mr. MORFORD. It is the conviction of the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, which I represent, that ratification of the North Atlantic Defense Pact would be a gigantic leap in the direction of total and disastrous hot war. And we are convinced that a leap backward later even to our present untenable cold war position would be all but impossible. This military alliance is called a defense pact. But it is a war pact directed toward the Soviet Union as the alleged aggressor nation. We believe, however, that the nation most ravaged by World War II -both its people and its Government-fervently desires peace. It is not accidental that Dr. Warne and others turned to Mr. John Foster Dulles in his statement to the American churchmen in Cleveland, and I have repeated it here, that no responsible official in our own or in any other government believes that the Soviet Union plans military aggression. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. John Foster Dulles testified here before this committee that he is for ratification of this pact. Mr. MORFORD. That is quite true, sir. But you see, what Mr. Dulles went on to say that I have here quoted was, that it was in his judgment quite unwise at this time to rearm Europe and to continue to establish bases in Europe for these could hardly be regarded by the other side as an act of aggression; and it would be too much to ask, said Mr. Dulles, that they restrain themselves in the event of such a situation. The CHAIRMAN. Well, the last time Mr. Dulles spoke on this thing he said he was for the pact. Mr. MORFORD. That is correct, sir. But he is afraid of the armament that goes with it, and this is the thing I want to attest to here. Yet it is proposed that 12 nations, including the United States, shall band together for the primary purpose of preparing for war against the Soviet Union and any friendly countries which may choose to cast their lot with the Soviet Union. Other leaders who have spoken before me in this room and many other Americans in wider public forums have said that to create such an alliance is to sacrifice the future of the United Nations by undermining it now. Others have pointed out that under pact provisions the traditional and exclusive right of our Congress to decide upon war as set forth in our Constitution is taken away. Others have expressed the belief that this country becomes automatically involved in war the day an attack breaks out at any point in the world where a signatory power may allege that aggression has taken place. If this is not so by literal interpretation of the pact, it should be so practically, said Mr. Walter Lippmann in his Herald Tribune column on May 4. With these interpretations of the implications of the pact, barring Mr. Lippmann's cynical wish, the National Council has publicly expressed its agreement before this time. DANGER OF ARMAMENT RACE But in addition to these points, we believe that it is important to emphasize before this committee again today our conviction that to undertake to fulfill the obligations of this pact is to initiate a worldwide armament race. Whatever arms and men for Europe are required in the first year of operation is one question. The first staggering stories we were told by military spokesmen have been put on the shelf, and a modest appropriation of $1,000,000,000 plus for arms for Europe for the initial period is now proposed. The CHAIRMAN. Pardon me. Let me interrupt you. Do you know how big an army Russia has now? Mr. MORFORD. I do not, sir. |