cooperation in proposing to the world comprehensive universal disarmament under effective international control.

By all means we ought first to try to get rid of a stupendous military burden which crushes poverty-stricken peoples and in the process makes war more likely, in terms of one world. If that, after an effort such as we have not yet made, proves impossible, we ought to make our plans in terms of cooperation with nations that do want peace along lines that will not make their desire a mockery.

If your committee loves peace, you will give short shrift to this bill and you will take up such measures as the bill which I believe has already been committeed to you for American proposals for the universal abolition of peacetime military conscription.

Thank you.

Chairman EATON. Thank you, Mr. Thomas.

I see you are in your usual excellent form.

Mr. THOMAS. Praise from Sir Hubert.

Chairman EATON. Any questions you care to ask, Mr. Thomas will endeavor to answer.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. THOMAS. I would be very glad to be asked questions, because I believe this and some more, and I am prepared to back up what I say, too, but I do not want to take your time, unnecessarily.

Chairman EATON. We are very anxious to have a complete record here of all who are opposed to this legislation. That is why we had a suspicion that you were, and that is why we put you on first.

Mr. THOMAS. Your suspicions were well founded. I trust all your suspicious will be equally as correct.

Mr. FULTON. You had in your statements something against a Russian bloc which you said the Russian dictatorship has been building. You then base your statement on such assumption that Russia is building such a bloc?

Mr. THOMAS. I am glad to be asked that.

I personally believe that Russia is building in the east, and central part of Europe, a bloc, or has largely built it already. I am opposed to the existence of that bloc. I do not believe war is the answer, and I actually believe, and very intensely, that whatever may be the intent of many framers of this bill, the actual working of it will be a blessing to communism, and I speak with some experience when I say communism depends entirely on a kind of propaganda that, while it can rise out of imagination, makes very effective use of facts. I know enough about the propaganda business to believe that every intelligent Communist agent will chortle with joy if this bill is passed for the ammunition it will give him for anti-American work in Latin America, and in the world.

In the meanwhile, we shall scarcely get strength from Peru or Venezeula, to break down what is happening in eastern Europe. There, what hope there is, lies first in the Marshall plan. Chairman EATON. Thank you, sir.

I may say I have had the honor of a long acquaintance with this gentleman.

Chairman EATON. The next witness is Mr. Ernest Galarza, of the Friends. I am glad to welcome friends here today. We need them.

STATEMENT OF ERNEST GALARZA, MEMBER, FRIENDS COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL LEGISLATION, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. GALARZA. It is a pleasure to be called a friend by you, and since I do not have the privilege of being called a contemporary, I can at least acknowledge the courtesy of being allowed to sit next to an elder statesman.

Chairman EATON. Thank you.

Mr. GALARZA. Dr. Eaton, I have submitted a statement to your committee, in the first two or three paragraphs of which I identify myself, and I only want to repeat that, that I am a former official of the Pan American Union. I resigned as chief of the Division of Labor and Social Information last July to give my time to research, writing, and lecturing.

I am Mexican-born but a citizen of the United States. I have lived in this country most of my life.

During my work at the Pan American Union, I took a number of extensive trips throughout Latin America. Some of these lasted several months. I may say that my main preoccupation for the last 25 years in this field of inter-American affairs has been the effort to get the people of our countries understanding one another so that under stress, as well as under peace, we might actually live as one community of nations.

Dr. Eaton, I do not wish to use up unnecessarily the time of this committee by reading the statement which I have submitted for your consideration. I merely pass over that with a request that it be placed on the record if it meets your pleasure.

Chairman EATON. We will do that.

(The prepared statement of Mr. Galarza is as follows:)

STATEMENT OF ERNEST GALARZA, FRIENDS COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL LEGISLATION

I want to express my appreciation to the committee for the opportunity of presenting this statement on behalf of the Friends Committee on National Legislation. With your permission I want to identify myself in a few words.

For 25 years I have been a student of inter-American relations and LatinAmerican affairs. From 1936 to 1946 I served as a research assistant and Chief of the Division of Labor Information of the Pan American Union. During the past 10 years my duties and interest in this field have taken me to Latin America on several extended trips. I have here, for the use of the commitee if it is interested, copies of some of the reports I have prepared in past years for the Pan American Union.

I was born in Mexico but have spent most of my life in the United States and am a citizen of this country.

What I have to say falls under six major headings: (1) Some probable effects of the proposed plan on the inter-American system; (2) effects on internal political conditions in the various Latin-American Republics; (3) cost of the plan; (4) relation of the standardization of armaments to the basic pattern of hemispheric coordination; (5) opposition to the proposal in Latin America; and (6) the basis of genuine security in the Western Hemisphere.

The first major question that arises in connection with this scheme has to do with its probable effects on the present alinement of national power in the Americas. If the plan is approved and put into operation, it will inevitably speed up changes in that alinement. There are great differences in the national income and financial resources of the 20 Latin-American nations. These differences in wealth are reflected in the disparity between the arms equipment which those countries now have. The poorer countries will not be able to finance the maintenance and auxiliary services that modern sea and land arms require. The more wealthy countries will become stronger; the poor ones weaker, relatively.

The only counter weight to this tendency would be outright subsidies or gifts to the republics least able to keep in the competition.

Like the existing differences in national wealth, the contrasts in industrial potential are great. As industrialization develops, in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Peru, these contrasts will be intensified. It is to these countries that increasing military importance will be attached, for the relation between industrial and military potential is now a commonplace both in economics and military science. Hence, we may expect that, industrially, certain Latin-American countries will be regarded as “key” areas to which preferential attention in the provision of arms must be given. In this respect, the disparity between Peru and Ecuador, for example, may be expected to grow, because, to cite one reason only, Peru has a growing coal industry and Ecuador has not.

Moreover, different countries play more or less important strategic roles for reasons other than those I have just cited. The Inter-American Defense Commission recognizes this fact; and it must assign, for instance, a preponderant role to Argentina over Bolivia or Uruguay. This means that the continent is subdivided into four or five regional groups, within each one of which a dominant role is allotted to the most powerful nation. In South America, the components of one such group are clear-Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia, with Argentina playing the leading role. This fact having been recognized by military strategists, the conclusion is inescapable: A hemispheric armaments program must assign, for industrial and geographic reasons, an increasingly dominant role to a few "key" nations.

When the Department of State pledges itself, therefore, to exercise great care "to avoid * * the establishment of a balance of power, political, military or otherwise" (New York Times, June 24, 1947) the fact is neglected that a marked disequilibrium exists as between the few large nations and the many smaller ones. This unbalance will be emphasized both by economic and military technical advancement.

President Peron has publicly recognized the relationship of industrial to military power. In his 5-year plan, Peron has stated that Argentina will rely for its army's equipment on its own national industry. "The combat effectiveness of our forces," he has said, "should depend primarily on our own industrial capacity."

The combat effectiveness of the Argentine Army, like that of the Brazilian Army, or the Mexican Army, will depend first, on the kind and quantity of arms we sell them; and, second, on their own industrial plant. As this effectiveness is increased, by both factors, will it make inter-American relations more, or less stable? It will almost certainly make them more unstable. For bigger and better armaments, whether domestic or imported, are not a soothing ointment on the friction spots of Latin America. Too many Pan American Day speeches have lulled us into a comfortable belief that such spots do not exist. Unfortunately, they are grave realities. As example, there is Paraguay, where the northward expansion of Argentina and the westward expansion of Brazil intersect; the Chaco, which holds bitter memories for Paraguayans and Bolivians; the persistent goal of a seaport for Bolivia; Ecuador, a buffer state between Peru and Colombia.

The people of Latin America want peace; but the traditional sore spots can be fanned into national indignation. And this indignation will strike sparks more quickly from a submachine gun than from a muzzle-loader. The slightest apparent favoritism in the sale of arms to any Latin-American country causes an immediate sensation. The sale of naval craft to Argentina will have to be nicely balanced by the sale of similar craft to Brazil, which will feel its vital coastwise life lines threatened. Ecuador remembers bitterly the Peruvian occupation of one of its provinces. The Peruvians cried out just the other day when they found out that we have sold some combat planes to Colombia; so we sold others to Peru.

Finally, the proposed plan, if approved, would strengthen one of the most aggressive forces that is today dislocating the alinement of national powers in South America-Argentine expansion. Argentina, dominated by Peron, is now a major exporter. It is exporting capital, it is exporting manufactured goods, and it is exporting totalitarian doctrines. Fanning out over South America, with Buenos Aires as the hub, are the iron spokes of Argentine domination. They point like spears at Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Peru, and Equador. On June 11 the Foreign Minister of Argentina had to give assurances to the Foreign Minister of Brazil that Peron has no aggressive designs.

In the meantime, may I call your attention to the adroitness with which eron turns our inter-American defense schemes to good account. His governent has stated that many of the important measures which have been taken in Argentina to perfect the totalitarian state fit neatly into the broad, over-all emisphere-defense program. Here we meet an instance of the way in which Latin-American dictators justify, on the ground of international cooperation, the very measures they take to destroy the institutions which such cooperation is supposed to protect.

Coming to the second point, I would like to deal for a moment with the possible effects of the proposed plan on the internal political conditions of those countries. The fact of the matter is that this plan, if approved, would begin operating at a time when democracy is at low tide and dictators and totalitarians are riding the crest. Democracy was one of the casualties of World War II in many parts of Latin America. We have to recognize that we shall be arming, as indeed we have been arming, the antidemocrats of the hemisphere. I give you as a case the present Bolivian regime. This regime is led by men who came to power in July 1946 by way of a lynching party, to which some of our diplomats gave moral support. And who are the men of this regime? They are the same ones who enacted into law, in 1941, forced labor in the tin mines of Bolivia, justifying it then, as Peron does now, on the grounds of "international commitments." They are the men who carried out the massacre of miners at Cetavi in 1942. They are the same men who gained power last July, and then repaid American help by raising the price of tin to the United States 10 cents a pound. Now they are systematically battering down the wages of men who earn as little at 40 cents a day, working at 14,000 feet above sea level. It is to these men that we will give better weapons-to the same men who said, at the height of the last war, that it was a good time to make the United States pay dearly for badly needed metals. There is also the closer example of Somoza. Gen. Anastasio Somoza, who climbed to power in Nicaragua as chief of the National Guard, organized and armed by this country. General Somoza stood before the Senate of the United States on May 8, 1939, and spoke in glowing terms of our "democratic republican form of government as being the most adequate to insure the well-being and prosperity of free peoples." On May 28, 1947, this man deposed the elected President of Nicaragua and, acting in the best tradition of Mussolini, made himself Minister of War, Navy, and Air.

Then there is Trujillo of Santo Domingo, also a graduate of the school for dictators: To Somoza, Trujillo, Herzog, Carias Andino, Morimigo, Peron, and the more polite totalitarians of Brazil this bill would give the sharper weapons they need-"to maintain democratic institutions."

This committee should bear in mind that the Latin-American armies are also the domestic police force of those nations. Latin-American military officers and politicians have repeatedly pointed this out. Thus, for instance, according to a Dominican officer, “the army has also police functions, and is, therefore, charged with the maintenance of public law and tranquillity." Another example of this is the control of the civilian port police by the Cuban Navy.

It is misleading, therefore, to regard the proposed plan as purely and simply a means of arming forces that will be used only against an external enemy. They will be used, and they have been so used, against unarmed citizens of the Americas. They have been used, and will be used more efficiently, by Somoza, Trujillo, Carias, Peron, Dutra, and others to subvert and destroy the very democratic liberities that hemispheric security is intended to protect.

I can cite only a few examples of what is actually happening. In the last Nicaraguan elections Somoza used the National Guard to "persuade" citizens to vote for his man. In Argentina last year the miners of Piriquitas were forced to work covered by machine guns. In Paraguay last December the Government settled a wage demand and a strike at bayonet point. In Chile the army was used to break a bus strike and the navy to load ships. In Brazil troops broke up union headquarters and forced stevedores to return to work. In Guatemala the Government has announced that it will suppress strikes by armed force. In Colombia, last May, the national organization of unions was suspended and its strike broken by the army. In Mexico, a month ago, the army was ordered to take over an important railway as a means of "negotiating" with the workers. In Argentina, Peron has announced that he will keep young men in the army at his pleasure. Peron has used troops to silence political opponents. So common has become this abuse, even by governments with a "liberal" reputation, that the Director General of the Pan-American Union, Dr. Alberto 63902-47- -8

Lleras Camargo, had this to say about it on June 24, 1947, in a speech before the Inter-American Defense Board: "It is a well-founded fear, therefore, that assails men of good will when they are not sure that the powerful weapons of the present day, which make almost impossible the defense of the rights of a helpless people, are in the possession of states without a solid, well-known, and predictable contitutional organization."

One of the most dangerous byproducts of this situation is the way in which the United States is made to bear the onus of such violations of democratic rights and fundamental civil liberties. When the Bolivian Government forced miners to work at gun point, this was justified on the ground that "international commitments" with the United States and its allies had to be met. When the Brazilian Government ran the textile mills under martial law during the war, such repression was just fied by "international commitments." When Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and Bolivia jointly deprived a citizen of Bolivia of the right to be tried by a jury on charges, such denial was based on "international com mitments."

By the use of our arms, therefore, we are helping those who violate what President Truman called "the privilege to select the sort of political and social and economic order of society which seems best suited" to the will and desire of the people.

As for the cost of the program, it has been stated that the plan would reduce the financial burden of armaments to the Latin-American people. That burden is today, indeed, heavy. Bolivia spends from 20 to 25 percent of its national budget on its armed forces; Brazil, about 40 percent; Argentina, between 30 and 35 percent; Mexico, about 20 percent. That this burden should be reduced drastically no one would question. But the assumption that the proposed plan will help to accomplish this is a large one. It does not take into account the fact that military regimes, like those in power in several Latin-American countries, will not willingly reduce their percentage of the national income. It also fails to consider the important fact that the Western Hemisphere is now in the grip of a Communist panic, which is being widely used as a reason for increasing expenditures for the army and the security police. Witness the statement of President Trujillo of last May, in which he offers to rescue the Americas from the menace of communism. Now that Peron is ready to assume the role of savior of democracy in South America, it is not likely that he will reduce his arms expenditures, or, indeed, that his friends will expect him to do so.

Since President Truman first publicly endorsed this proposal, it has been argued that the savings accomplished by reducing arms expenditures would be used in improving social services. Mr. Acheson made this point in a recent statement. The proposed plan does not in any way obligate the Latin Americans to make such reductions.

If arms and equipment are sold at cost, does this mean "cost plus"? Do the costs of training include expenditures for the services of United States personnel to train civilian intelligence and secret police, which are so closely tied to the Army and Navy?

Latin America has had a long and hard experience with the "dumping" of equipment, which is regarded as obsolete in the United States. From experience we know that they will resist taking out-dated material; and the larger countries especially may be expected to avoid getting into a position where they have to take material that is less than new.

In brief, the savings which are expected to be achieved and to be spent on better housing, health services, and general civilian welfare, are fond hopes. They run contrary to the trends of the immediate past. Only by formal agreement between countries could we expect such reductions to be actively sought. The hemisphere arms plan imposes no such obligations.

The uncertainties that surround the probable cost of the proposal become more understandable when we consider the relation of the standardization of arms in the Americas to the over-all program of hemispheric coordination.

We are not dealing with an isolated proposal, the cost of which in dollars to Latin America and to this country can be accurately forecast. We are dealing with but one phase of a broad and comprehensive mobilization of the total natural, technological, and human resources of the Western Hemisphere. This type of mobilization is in keeping with the idea expressed by General Eisenhower with respect to national defense when he said that we should be able to rapidly “transform (our) moral, mental, and material strength into a machine that can meet the requirements of modern conflict." General Somervell expressed the same idea when he called for "total mobilization of our economy."