The CHAIRMAN. How many years were you in the House?

Mr. FISH. Twenty-four years. I served with you on the Foreign Affairs Committee a quarter of a century ago.

The CHAIRMAN. That is right. I remember very much our association in the House. I am glad to have you, Mr. Fish.

STATEMENT OF HAMILTON FISH, FORMER MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Mr. FISH. At the outset of my remarks I desire to congratulate Chairman Connally for urging full diplomatic recognition of Spain. It is sheer humbug to maintain an American Ambassador in Soviet Russia, the most despotic and tyrannical government in the world, and refuse to send an Ambassador to Spain. What is sauce for the Communist goose is sauce for the Fascist gander.

COMMUNIST AIMS

While Soviet Russia is conducting a cold war against us and directing Communist expansion by propaganda, revolution, and force throughout the world, Spain is on our side against world communism, the most evil force in the world, but is powerless to promote fascism beyond its borders. How long will Secretary Acheson abuse the patience of American people in relation to China and Spain? As a result of our ignoring of the Wedemeyer report, China is being turned over to world communism and the rest of Asia will fall like a ripe plum. Within the next decade, when Soviet Russia is prepared and has a supply of atomic bombs, I predict she will start world war III and unleash at least 2,000,000 highly trained Chinese soldiers for marching on the Suez Canal and to fight at Armageddon.

Attainment of world-wide communism is still the guiding policy of the Red plotters in the Kremlin at Moscow. The Communists throughout the world have never deviated since 1917 from their fundamental objective of achieving world communism. I quote from the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, which is the bible of all Communists [reading]:

In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. In all these movements they bring to the front as the leading question in each case the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time. The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to gain.

To that extent, Mr. Chairman, I admire the Communists, because throughout the world, whether in London, New York, Peking, or Tokyo, all have the same ultimate objective of bringing about world communism.

The CHAIRMAN. You do not mean you favor it; you just admire their methods.

Mr. FISH. I admire them because they are consistent in their views, far more consistent than Republicans or Democrats, who make their party platform one day and begin to forget about it the next. Every Communist believes in world revolution.

I have not the time, Mr. Chairman, to go back to the report we made when I was chairman of the Committee of the House to Investigate Communist Activities and Propaganda. When Mr. Foster, then and still the head of the Communist Party, came before the committee he admitted, under affirmation or oath, that they were in favor of bringing about a world revolution, that they were against our republican form of government, that they did not believe in the American flag but in the Red flag, and owed allegiance to Soviet Russia. It is all in this book that I gave you.

SUPPORT FOR TREATY

As a former noninterventionist leader in Congress, and proud of it, as every statement we made has been vindicated many times over by time and events, I find myself now compelled, because of the rotten mess we made of it in Europe, to urge our joining the North Atlantic Pact as a peace measure in defense of the remaining free nations of Europe against Soviet aggression. Having helped to wreck and ruin half of Europe we have certain moral obligations toward the nations of western Europe, including Germany, not to let them be swallowed up, one by one, by the Red octopus. In addition, our own national security is involved with half the world already Communist. The place to stop the Red armies is at the Elbe, and the time is now. May I pause and digress there a moment to commend and congratulate Senator Vandenberg for calling attention not only of Europe but of the American people to the fact that this pact does not necessarily safeguard a large part of western Europe from invasion. It is merely a step in the direction that makes defense possible, and probably for the time being will hold up any attack by the Russian armed forces.

Of course, although the Elbe may be, theoretically speaking, our first line of defense, everyone knows that the Russian Army, if they did attack, would easily overrun the Elbe and our first line of defense would be the Rhine, and they might overrun that. That is why I am so anxious that we should fully recognize Spain and have Spain, if not a partner, a direct partner, in the pact, at least a silent partner or one that would cooperate with the purpose of the pact, because the Pyrenees may become a rampart of defense for western Europe.

NEED FOR A DEFENSIVE ALLIANCE

Let us be realistic. The Russian Communists have a definite plan of world revolution and armed conquest. The Marshall plan is merely a relief and rehabilitation measure providing food and equipment for Europe. It does not protect or defend the free nations of Europe from Soviet armed aggression. It does not achieve security for ourselves or any other nation. Without the North Atlantic Pact our foreign policy is useless and bankrupt. The Marshall plan is nothing more than a paper blockade, and as ineffectual. It opposes a paper curtain to the iron curtain. It neither frightens, checks, or defeats the Communist plan for world revolution and conquest. It assumes that the nations receiving our gifts automatically increase production and acquire moral force and physical power to withstand the Communist collossus. No nation ever restored its stability and strength by

depending on hand-outs. That can only be done by their own efforts and hard labor, but even then a defensive military alliance is neces

sary.

The Communist aggressors fear and respect only military might. We should immediately reinforce the Marshall plan by the North Atlantic Pact together with Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Norway, and Denmark. If I had my way Spain would also be included. It should be done at once so that there will be no doubt of a united military front of all western democratic nations and Spain to oppose and crush any attempt by the Red army to violate the peace of the world by overt acts of aggression in western Europe.

It is their only chance to survive as free nations. Let them pool their armed forces under a single general staff. Once the Communist armies overrun Europe it will be the end of Great Britain and we will be confronted with an aggressive and militant Communist Europe and Asia. The Communists are on the march in China and will probably overrun all Asia within a few years. Our own security is at stake and if western Europe falls before the Communist juggernaut it would leave us almost alone to wage an irrepressible war with world communism.

Although world communism is on the march in Europe and Asia, it is not inevitable here. It must be stopped. It can be stopped.

The words of Patrick Henry apply today more than ever before: Is life so dear, or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?

That is the paramount issue in the world today-freedom and democracy, or slavery and totalitarianism. There can be no compromise between freedom and slavery, nor between communism and fascism.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity of coming here. The CHAIRMAN. We are very glad indeed to have you, sir.

Mr. FISH. I am happy to be here, and want to congratulate you on your efforts to put through the North Atlantic Pact as a peace measure in defense of the security of the free nations of Europe and of our own national security.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Vandenberg?

Senator VANDENBERG. No questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Donnell?

Senator DONNELL. No questions.

The CHAIRMAN. We thank you very much, Mr. Fish. We greatly appreciate your coming here, in view of your background and experience in Congress and in public affairs.

Mr. FISH. If I might add, Senator, not many years ago, when I was chairman of the Committee to Investigate Communist Activities, and even since then, I was denounced as a Red baiter and a witch burner for telling the American people that the Communists throughout the world had only one main objective, and that was world revolution by conquest, beginning with propaganda and following it up by infiltration and then force and violence, and that has been true since 1917. It was true in 1930 and it is just as true today. The CHAIRMAN. We thank you very much.

Mr. Ely Culbertson is not here. We will pass him over.

Mr. Donald Henderson, of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers Union.

STATEMENT OF DONALD HENDERSON, PRESIDENT, FOOD, TOBACCO, AGRICULTURAL, AND ALLIED WORKERS UNION, CIO

Mr. HENDERSON. My name is Donald Henderson. I am president of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers Union of America, CIO.

My union has sent me here to oppose ratification of the Atlantic Pact, on the ground that it is a real and present threat to peace.

The CHAIRMAN. You say your union has sent you here. You don't mean the whole membership. You mean the officials?

Mr. HENDERSON. The international executive board of my union. The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead. All right.

Mr. HENDERSON. I have just returned from a month in France, where I had the honor of being one of the principal spokesmen for the American delegation at the World Peace Congress in Paris.

While in France I met with workers and spoke at several workers® meetings. These were rank-and-file workers, not just top leaders.

Without exception they told me that the working people of Europe will not take part in an aggressive war. They will not tamely submit to such a war being fought on their soil. They will resist such a war with every means at their command, including armed resistance.

PROVOCATIVENESS OF THE TREATY

A war of aggression will bring civil war to all Europe.

This was told me by workers regardless of their political party affiliation or lack of it. It is not a question of sympathy to the Soviet Union or the United States. The people of Europe have had enough war and they are determined to have no more.

The Atlantic Pact, especially when backed up by a huge programı of arming reactionary European governments, will go far toward bringing about such a war. This is the opinion of not only the workers of Europe, but also of the plain rank and file of worker in America, too. Unfortunately, he is seldom consulted on such matters, but the American worker, like his European brother, does not want war, and fears that war will come.

The people of Europe see the world already divided into two armed camps. They feel convinced that certain groups in the United States are trying to provoke a war. They do not think that the Soviet Union is trying to provoke war. They feel that the common people of all Europe and of the United States as well want peace.

The Atlantic Pact does nothing to break down this feeling. On the contrary, the signing of the pact and its consideration now by the Senate confirm the feeling that war is the objective of certain very powerful groups in this country and their junior partners in certain governments abroad.

I speak at some length about these matters because I learned them at first hand during my stay in France. My stay was admittedly brief, but I did have the advantage of meeting and talking with the rank and file while I was there. This is an advantage not always granted to officials of the State Department.

The newspapers here did not adequately report the meeting of the World Peace Congress, They did not mention a meeting of the World Federation of Trade Unions which I also attended.

The CHAIRMAN. The CIO is now not a member of and is opposed to the WFTU.

Mr. HENDERSON. That is not quite correct. It is true the secretarytreasurer of the CIO, James Carey, walked out of the last executive meeting of the World Federation of Trade Unions, but there has been no official action taken by the CIO on its affiliation as yet. That matter has to come before the next national executive committee meeting of the CIO, which takes place next week. At that meeting next week I assume they will take some action one way or the other. These two meetings I attended represented a total of something like one billion people, including some of the peoples of Asia and Africa.

WORLD PEACE CONFERENCE IN PARIS

For the first time in my life, I saw 500,000 people trying to get into a mass meeting of the Peace Congress. The stadium in Paris held 130,000. The half million came from all over Europe, by train, by bus, by caravans, on bicycles, on foot.

Every one of these people came to Paris with one single thought in mind-there shall be no more war. They will resist a new war with every means at their command, up to and including civil war.

Any responsible observer will tell you the same facts. They will also tell you that the Atlantic Pact is regarded by all except certain government officials in western Europe as the most serious danger to peace since Munich.

So much for the feeling of the people in Europe. Since this is an international treaty affecting them as well as ourselves, we cannot afford to shrug it off as the opinion of foreigners.

I told the World Peace Congress delegates that, I quote, "The American workers will not easily be drawn into an aggressive war." That statement stands. Yet there is great fear in our country, fear that war may come despite protestations of our policymakers.

The present easing-off in the German situation has dispelled some of that fear, but it remains.

ATLANTIC PACT AND FEAR OF WAR

The Atlantic Pact nourishes that fear. The huge arms outlay that follows such a pact adds not only to the fear but also to a sense of insecurity, especially among workers.

They see the staggering cost of arming Europe taken out of their living standards. They see the cost of living shooting up as more and more of the Nation's wealth is put into arms production. They see the inevitable result of posing guns against butter-which is plenty of guns, little butter and the probability of a big depression, if not a shooting war, as the inevitable result.

REARMAMENT AND DEPRESSION

The American people are sincerely devoted to peace. This is not just a matter of sentiment. It is a matter of hard, pork chop facts. War brings not only death and destruction to its immediate victims. It also brings unemployment, lower living standards, chaos and misery to the common people. No one can be deceived for very long by the