The Fin of the Shark

FOREIGN RELATIONS (See Cover)

The Great Debate rolled on, in the newspapers, on the radio, on streetcorners.

"All this started with us trying to run the world," complained a hops merchant in Yakima Valley. "We started out with loans to the British Isles, now we got loans out everywhere. And what do we bring home? We bring home corpses, and I'm damned mad." Axel Nielsen, a used-car dealer, canvassed southern Michigan with petitions to the President which said: "Bring our boys and war goods back to American soil and let the other countries, one & all, paddle their own canoe . . ." Housewife Kathleen McLeese of Kansas City said: "If I were a soldier, I'd rather fight in Korea than in Independence, Mo." Said a San Francisco businessman: "The way things are, we're in and yet we aren't. We fight one place and try diplomacy another . . . How the hell can you figure anything?"

In the U.S. Senate, the Great Debate simmered and boiled.

There was one notable absentee. Paul Douglas of Illinois kept his floor appearances to a minimum, closeted himself in his cluttered Senate office and worked late into the night. He gulped carbonated water, puffed at denicotinized cigarettes and riffled through a stack of history books and charts. Four stenographers worked in relays to help him. For a week he wrote and rewrote, revised and polished what he wanted to say.

Douglas had already made his views known in part in a series of speeches and radio debates (TIME, Dec. 18). Now he was reviewing and refining them, expanding his ideas into an exhaustive consideration of the alternatives the nation faced. At a critical moment in U.S. history, Paul Douglas had set himself the task of charting a course which sought self-preservation through world leadership.

No Bargain-Counter Security. While Douglas labored, the Senate debate continued. "If the members of Congress have a shred of courage and patriotism left," said Indiana's Isolationist William E. Jenner, "they will lay down an ultimatum to the President demanding either a declaration of war or the bringing back of American G.I.s to home shores." Cried Fellow Isolationist George Malone of Nevada: "We should withdraw General Eisenhower from his military headquarters in Europe."

There were other voices urging similar courses. But essentially, it was a week for answering Herbert Hoover, Robert Taft and the other pleaders for a defensive foreign policythe policy of retreat to what Hoover called a Western Gibraltar. Arizona's apple-cheeked Ernest McFarland, rising to his first test as a majority leader of the new Senate, gave the debate free rein: "It is this clash of honest judgment and conviction . . . which results in sounder policy," he said.

Texas' fiery Tom Connally charged into Bob Taft's economy proposals. "I do not believe in shopping for security at the bargain counter," he snorted. "We cannot seriously entertain a policy of limited, halfhearted participation in the defense of [Europe], even though it has the appeal of being economical." Taft had said there was no conclusive evidence that the Russians would attack. Replied Connally: their puppets were already killing Americans in Korea. "In Texas," he said, "we are strongly of the opinion that when a person shoots at you, he is being unfriendly."

One for Six. Some of Mr. Republican's ablest party colleagues also rose to dispute the Taft and Hoover logic. "It is hard to understand how anyone can contend that the development of a defensive holding force in Europe . . . could look like aggression to such realistic men as the rulers of the Kremlin," said Massachusetts' Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. "We have . . . to get the arrow point from West to East, not from East to West."

Said California's William Knowland: "If Communism is a global menace, which it is, then it must be met on a global basis. We cannot expect [Western Europe] to build an army that would make Europe impregnable to Communist aggression before we place an additional man or dollar on the Continent." Knowland had his own formula for U.S. participation in the North Atlantic armyone American division for every six European divisions, until there are 70 in all.

The most emphatic proposal of all came from New Hampshire's Styles Bridges. An internationalist who has sat in the Senate longer than any Republican save Michigan's ailing Arthur Vandenberg, Bridges believes that the U.S. is already waging World War IIIand losing it. Bridges called on the U.S. to recognize that it is in a state of war with Russia without formally declaring its existence. Except for his all-out attack on the Administration and the wavering conduct of its foreign policy, it was the polar opposite to the Hoover-Taft position. His specific proposals: a break of diplomatic relations with Russia and her Communist satellites; a U.S.-supported invasion of the Chinese mainland by Chiang Kaishek; a sea and air war on the Chinese Reds by U.S. forces; full-scale industrial mobilization and round-the-clock production.

What Will It Be Tomorrow? This week Paul Douglas, a burly man in a rumpled grey suit, stepped on to the Senate floor to speak his mind in the Great Debate. The Senate listened with respect. In his 58 years, Paul Douglas had been a college professor, a nationally known economist, a reforming member of Chicago's city council, a Quaker and pacifist. In 1942, at the age of 50, he had become a World War II marine. Now, after two years in the Senate, he had emerged as a leader of the little band of Administration Democrats who spoke more from conviction and a sense of duty than from considerations of partisan politics.

Standing tall (6 ft. 2 1/2 in.) at a Senate desk, his head thrust forward, he read from a fat, 55-page text before him.

"The manifestation of Communist aggression in Korea during these last six months," said Douglas, "is but the showing of the fin of the shark above the water. It is but a fraction of the striking power of the man-eater which lies beneath the surface. Day before yesterday it was Czechoslovakia; yesterday it was China; today it is Korea. What will it be tomorrow?"

"I welcome this debate," said Douglas. "I am confident that it will result in reaffirming the principle of collective security. But the debate, if we carry it out quickly and in good temper, will be a gain to the country. It will clear the air and minds of all of us . . . Let us weigh the relative values of the different alternatives and decide . . . Where, then, do we begin?"

When, Why, Where? Douglas began with an essential pointone sometimes obscured by the smoke of the oratory. The whole U.S. was agreed "on the basic ends we seek, namely, to protect our country from Communist aggression . . . The differences are merely on means and methods . . . When, at what points, how, and with whom should we prepare to defend ourselves?"

Douglas addressed himself to the main alternatives proposed so far:

The Administration Policy. In theory, at least, the Administration plan is to meet points of Communist strength with points of Western strength, in the hope that it may persuade Russia to check her aggression and perhaps to come to a peace settlement. In Europe, it is based on the Atlantic pact, and a commitment to place six to ten U.S. divisions in Europe as the West Europeans build up their own forces. In Asia, there is no clear policy.

The Gibraltar Policy. Herbert Hoover would pull out of Korea, send no more U.S. forces overseas except to a limited cordon of Pacific and Atlantic bases, build the Western Hemisphere into "the Gibraltar of Western Civilization" and wait the Russians out. Senator Taft would include several more bases than Hoover (e.g., North Africa, perhaps Malaya and Spain), and honor the U.S. commitment to fight if a North Atlantic ally is attacked. But he would fight by sea and air, not on land.

Would either accomplish the job that had to be done: drive the shark back to deep water, or shoot it? Douglas was convinced that neither could. The end of Gibraltarism would be the feast of the shark on all Asia and Europe, he argued. U.S. forces, he said, are the key to West Europe's resistance. "If we refuse [to help], they . . . may indeed throw in the sponge."

How About Europe? Point by point, Douglas met the Hoover-Taft thesis. Sea and air power are not enough to defend Europe, he declared. "The experience of World War II and the experience of Korea have surely taught us that air attacks will not stop land armies . . . Infantry and artillery are still needed, as Korea has shown, and all the scientific push buttons and military gadgets have not made them obsolete."

Taft had argued that if Russia swept to the Channel, the U.S. could bomb Western Europe's industrial facilities into uselessness. Douglas' answer: "The Europeans cannot be thrilled with joy by the fact that Mr. Taft first offers them aerial aid which he admits will be ineffective, and then promises them that after this has failed, he will destroy their industrial plants and possibly their cities by attacks from the air. This is hardly the way to win friends and influence people, and, in fact, almost no better way than this could be devised to develop anti-American and pro-Russian sentiment on the continent of Europe."

"Now," he went on, "suppose we were to adopt Mr. Taft's policy of refusing to support Western Europe with ground troops and offering air and sea power only. It would, in effect, withdraw our strength from, continental western Europe and create a power vacuum which the Communists would inevitably fill." It would also deprive the U.S. of Europe's tremendous industrial production. "Since steel is the strongest material component of our defense and the base of all other industry, we should not lightly give it up to the enemy or accept its destruction at our own hands. We in the free nations need that 65 million tons of steel a year on our side."

How could Taft argue on the one hand that a few U.S. divisions would not be enough to help much in Europe and on the other that they might be formidable enough to be provocation for war? "Senator Taft's evident belief . . . is equivalent to saying that the weak must not strengthen themselves relative to the strong lest the strong should take alarm. But this condemns the weak to continue in a state of inferiority to the strong and means that they exist only on the sufferance of the powerful."

Said Douglas: "Let us frankly face the fact that the allied armies which are to be raised under the Brussels agreement may be overpowered and defeated. We may be driven into the sea. Our losses may be heavy. No one can take this possibility lightly . . . But what Senator Taft and Mr. Hoover seem to insist upon is that we should not use land troops on the Continent unless we are certain to win ... If we only try to resist the Communists when it is a sure thing that we will win, the Communists will conquer the world."

How about Asia? Douglas turned to the other alternative. He called it the "Protect Europe but Not Asia" position, and he attributed its strength to "the councils of the executive Government and a number of able publicists." This school, he said, would let the shark gobble Asia and, with it, the Middle East and Africa. "They are resigned to this because they believe that we and Western Europe do not have the strength to defend both Asia and Western Europe . . . For Western Europe, it is said, is the vital seat of power and the only permanent head for the Russian serpent, which has its coils in so many satellite states of Europe and Asia."

Douglas noted that this was precisely the policy urged by Great Britain. "This comparison may shock our British friends," said he. "It is nevertheless true that their reluctance to back us up in the Far East is very similar to Mr. Hoover's reluctance to back them up in Europe.

"The British are at present, therefore, largely isolationist in their attitudes toward the Far East. They apparently do not want to use any more of their strength to help defend the principle of collective security in areas such as Korea and China where their own national and material interests are not involved, although they probably would feel differently were Malaya, Singapore and India to be directly and immediately threatened . . .

"This isolationism is the most charitable explanation why the British early recognized the Chinese Communists; why, after open and bare-faced aggression by these Communists, they are still opposed to having the United Nations or ourselves brand [the Chinese Reds] as such; why they are opposed to having the United Nations or ourselves invoke economic sanctions against the Communists; and why they want the Communists seated in the United Nations itself.

"It is not because I underestimate the vital importance of Europe that I disagree with those who . . . would largely restrict our commitments to that area," Douglas went on. "I go the whole way with them as to the vital importance of Europe. But they do not go the whole way with us. The American defenders of this idea would defend Japan, Formosa, the Ryukyus, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand, I am sure. But that is about as far as they would go."

An Engraved Invitation. Douglas thought the West could no more afford to lose the Asian mainland than Western Europe. Yet: "IndoChina is now in grave danger of falling to the Communists . . . If this happens, Burma, Thailand, Malaya and Indonesia will be sitting ducks . . . Ceylon will then be in great danger . . . India, already facing the Russian Communists from the northwest, will find herself suddenly faced with terrific pressure from the east. To the west of India are only the weak, semi-neutral countries of Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia. With India gone, the countries of the Middle East, lacking our help, will also go . . . Then Africa, and so on."

With all this, the U.S. and what was left of its allies would loseand Russia would getmost of the world's natural rubber supply, nearly two-thirds of its tin supply, the precious oil of the Middle East (42% of world reserves), a great supply of manganese and, when Africa fell, the vital uranium deposits of the Belgian Congo.

To Douglas, the answer was obvious. The U.S. could not abandon either Europe or Asia without a fight. To meet the fight, if it must come, the U.S. had to mobilize faster; it could not measure out its effort in dollar signs. "Our answer should not be a quavering retreat and abandonment of our allies," he cried. " . . . [It] would provide the Russians with an engraved invitation to take over the world."

A Third Way. But there was a third alternative. Douglas called it the "Protect Freedom Everywhere We Can" position. "[This] school . . . believes that the United States must strive to help put down aggression everywhereprovided, however, that other nations will adequately join us in the attempt, and that the places in which the aggression occurs, or threatens to occur, are accessible . . . We do not believe in this policy in order to be aggressive ourselves, nor from any desire to throw our weight around."

In a measured voice, Douglas laid his proposals before the Senate. They were not easily arrived at nor lightly offered, he said. They involved some grave risks. But they recognized that a greater danger lay in losing all initiative for the sake of avoiding all risk. The Douglas proposals: P: Pass a congressional resolution approving the Brussels agreement for a North Atlantic army. Contribute American divisions to it on a proportionate basisabout one for every 3 1/2 European divisions. (If the Administration did not seek congressional approval in a few days, said Douglas, he would bring the issue to a showdown vote himself.) P: Press for U.N. condemnation of China as an aggressor. P: Begin a naval blockade of the Chinese coast. P: "Make no deal in Korea in order to get out . . . If we leave, let it be an honorable withdrawal under gunfire because of overwhelming odds." P: "Try to promote democracy, land reform and an increase in production and living standards in all non-Communist countries, especially those threatened by Communist aggression." P: Stand by to help with air and naval forces if the Communists strike in Indo-China, the Malay Peninsula or the Near East. Get Britain and France to make the preponderant contributions of land forces for those areas "to compensate for their relative failure to help in the Korean struggle." P: Take all the allies to be found, including Tito, Franco and Chiang Kaishek. "They are not Democrats, but they are anti-Communists . . . Have no squeamishness from now on in taking associates whose records may be somewhat soiled." P: Tell the world our aims and intentions. "They are honorable and we should make them known." P: Step up mobilization at homemobilize 6,000,000 men into the armed forces, increase the budget to $100 billion, stretch the work week to 44 or 48 hours.

Then Douglas recommended the final step which gave his proposal the force of an Abomb: the U.S. should serve notice on Russia and the world that the next act of Communist aggression means war.

The Ice Cap. "The Russians would like to bleed us white by a series of such moves by satellites, for which they will deny responsibility," Douglas declared. "If we and the rest of the world allow ourselves to be sucked in by this, it will be fatal. Instead of fighting off only the tentacles of the octopus, let us recognize that these tentacles are directed by a central intelligence.

"Let us serve notice, therefore, that at the next act of aggression by a satellite, we will reserve the right to strike at the eye of the octopus itself." This, thought Douglas, might be the deterrent that was needed to head off war.

Douglas saw only one choice for the U.S., the Protect Freedom choice. No longer, said he, could the U.S. choose between simple self-preservation or world leadership; they had become entwined. "We have not sought world leadership. It has been thrust upon us . . . It would be far more comfortable if it had never come. But it has. We cannot escape it.

"Let us determine that our civilization is not to fall, and that the ice cap of the police state shall not descend upon either us or Western culture. Even if open struggle comes, if we are determined to preserve the faith by which we live, we can rebuild much of the damage done and free ourselves and others from the fear of tyranny . . . Let us resolve to win. Let us have faith and in that faith let us act."

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