Stop Being Afraid

by HENRY CABOT LODGE, JR.

THIS is the first time that I have ever served as a representative to the United Nations, and I want, first of all, to say how honored I am to bo son ing here in this assemblage of distinguished men from all over the world. Perhaps because this is my first time, my impressions may be typical of those of the everyday citizen. It is certainly as an everyday citizen and not as an expert that I speak.

Of course, you can understand that during the past years I have read carefully the accounts of previous sessions, and I expected, therefore, when I came here, to hear my country accused of being a capitalist-dominated, crude, and illegal gang of warmongers. But to expect to hear these things and to have read them in print is one thing, and actually to sil here and hear these things said is a very different thing.

I have spent substantially all of my life in the United States. 1 have traveled some. T have been overseas during the war. Hut for twenty-live years 1 have been active in journalism and in American polities, and all I can say is that the things I have heard said here today and during the Iasi few days about the United States are just completely belied by my own experience.

Let me give examples of a few statements which struck me. I heard the representative of the Soviet Union (Mr. \ ishinsky) say this was three or four days ago—that he wants peace and understanding with the United States. Hut when you think, if only for one minute, of the insults which he saw fit to heap on the l nited States and the way in which he impugns and questions our motives, you cannot honestly believe that his speech was the speech of a man who realty wanted peace. No one who really wants peace with someone else begins by insulting him.

Then he said — and I think I am quoting him accurately — that “force is the foundation of the American foreign policy. Yet he knows perfectly well that the United Stale’s at the end of hostilities in 1945 not merely demobilized but actually disintegrated its armed forces (and you all know that), thereby, incidentally, facilitating the territorial expansion of the Soviet Union, which is without precedent in all our human history. That is just as clear as the blue in the United Nations flag.

He spoke today of the use of Japanese troops in Korea, which I sincerely believe to be without any foundation whatever. I do not think he can produce proof of it.

Then I heard ihe representative of the Soviet Union and his colleague from Poland — Mr. Wierblowski — speak with a lump in their collective throats of the horror of the atomic bomb — which is certainly very true and very real — without ever uttering a word about the horrors of being stuck in the stomach with a bayonet or of being shot by a rifle bullet, or by an artillery shell, or of being overrun by a tank. I heard not a word about the horrors of drowning because your ship had been torpedoed by a submarine. Not even a syllable was uttered about the terrors of the concentration camp and the unspeakable shivery of a police state.

I also heard some interesting figures about the United Status preparedness effort. We have a saying in the United States that there are lies and lies and statistics, and you can prove almost anything you want to by figures. If you want to take United States appropriations for military purposes as a percentage of the federal budget, you can make it. look very big. I think that if you take the percentage which the United States preparedness effort is of the per capita income of the everyday citizen, which is what he lives by, you will find that that is a much smaller percentage than is the case in the Soviet Union. I am quoting from memory now, but I think I could prove it accurately and shall be glad to do so later: that about 5 per cent of the per capita income of l nited States citizens goes into military expenses, and I think the corresponding figure is about 14 per cent in the case of the Soviet Union.

But let us forget about those statistics because they are not what matters when one considers military affairs. What matters, of course, is not the dollars or the rubles: it is the military power. And everyone in this room knows that even if this preparedness effort that the free nations are engaged in attains its maximum potential way beyond what is planned that even then it could never have any offensive capabilities against the Soviet Union. Every child knows that.

I heard the Soviet Union representative say that the Berlin railway strike of May and June, 1949, was inspired by the United States, I understand that this strike was inspired by nobody other than the 16,000 strikers themselves, who had a legitimate wage grievance. They were workers who lived in the Western sector of Berlin but who were paid in East German marks. This currency was no good to them in West Berlin, and they asked to have their wages paid to them in West Berlin marks. The Berlin railway system, as you know, is controlled from the Soviet sector of the city. From what I am told, the Soviet Union authorities refused this demand of the workers, and the workers went out on strike. I do not suppose it is surprising that those who come from countries which do not permit workers to strike should blame the United States for starting a legitimate wage dispute. The fact is that the strike was eventually settled on tin* basis of a United States formula which guaranteed the workers payment in West German marks. That is just an illustration of what I mean by accuracy.

Then, I heard both the Soviet Union and the Polish representative speak of America as monopolistic, when act ually, one of t he great basic economic facts about America and that is something which you can all verify for yourselves is that it is a competitive country in which monopoly is actually against the law. If I were to choose one word with which to describe our American economy, I would use “competitive” rather than “capitalistic.”I do not deny that occasionally Americans, like all human beings, seek to prevent competition; but in this country, when you try to prevent competition, you know you are doing something illegal and will be punished if caught.

Now I know that we in the United States are not perfect. Perhaps I can tell the representatives of the Soviet Union and Poland things that are right in the United States and more things that are wrong than they know about. But in this country we are working all the time to improve conditions, and I know we have made progress.

I have cited just a few examples of some of the statements which have been made in this committee. The men who made these statements appear to be normal men who obviously must know that these particular statements to which I have just referred are absurd. It would be easy and perhaps natural, therefore, for me to dismiss these speeches as merely a cynical and insincere collection of deliberate lies. But I do not do that.

The strange thing is that I think the spokesmen of the Soviet Union and Poland and the Ukrainian S.S.R. (Mr. Baranovsky) actually believe parts of that strange grab bag of news clippings about the United States from which they quote so constantly.

I saw the Polish representative waving a copy of an American magazine here a few days ago which contained an article which happened to suit the argument that he was making at that time, lie did so with an expression of triumph on his face. I think his sensation of triumph was genuine and real, for i the simple reason that he does not understand what it is like to live in a country where there is free speech. If that magazine had appeared in his country, I suppose its statements would have had the consent of the government. But in our country the magazine simply represents the editor’s opinion, and most Americans take full advantage of the privilege of disagreeing with the editor. In fact, the editor very often disagrees with the owner, and the man who wrote the article disagrees with the editor, and the reader disagrees with the man who wrote the article.

That is the way it is over here. We are a talkative people. We talk all the time. Perhaps we talk too much for our own good. But to pick out something which someone has said in Tampa, Florida, or out in Iowa, or anywhere else, and to say lhat that represents the United States of America is just fanciful.

I think that some of you representatives from the Soviet Union and Poland and the Ukrainian S.S.R. reallv believe that we are monopolistic. You believe it because you come from the world’s greatest monopoly, and you just cannot imagine anything else. You also have a Politburo in which power is concentrated in just a dozen men, and you just cannot believe that power is so diffused in this country as it actually is. I believe that the ridiculous fairy tales about domination spring from the simple fact that you live in a dominated society and therefore cannot conceive of a society which is not dominated by somebody. You keep looking around all the time to see who is dominating this country. Well, there is no one.

You have made me wonder — and I say this in all sincerity — during the last few days whether you are not really frightened. Maybe you are frightened of us. May be you are frightened of ihe plain people in your own country. But I know that a frightened man can be dangerous. I am sorry there is fright, and I hope and believe that the time will come when fear will disappear and that that time will not be far off.

I read recently in former Prime Minister Churchill’s memoirs that when Mr. Molotov came to stay at Mr. Churchill’s official residence during the war he had a pistol beside his bed at all times. Well, there is a certain amount of fear in all countries and in most individuals; but in many nations represented here—notably those nations composed of people who value their freedom— fear is not the prime motive of those who hold responsible positions.

Obviously the policies which you advocate here would be very bad for the world if it should happen to adopt them. But I cannot see how, in the long run, these policies will help the people in your own countries. The people of your countries need friends; every man needs friends. They need friends in the outside world, just as the people of our country and of all countries need friends. Now, I have been here since September 18, and I have talked with many earnest, idealistic, and sincere men and women — some of them in this room —who represent many different countries and who would sincerely like to have an efficient working arrangement, with the Russian people. But you have rebuffed them; you have turned them down; you have made it impossible for people who would like to do so to cooperate with you. Your policies are certainly unpredictable, and there may be some tactical advantage in that fact, but I cannot think that the alienation of friends throughout the world is intelligent.

You may be here as members of the United Nations in a purely cynical spirit, so that you can destroy it from within and thus promote your own form of world government. I get the extraordinary impression, however, of a mixture of the conspiratorial and the childish.

As to whether all this helps your own ruling class, I cannot judge. I believe it is unquestionably bad for the long-range interests of the everyday men, women, and children of the Soviet Union, Poland, and ot her countries which are now in similar circumstances.

I am confident that the condition which exists in the world is not going to last much longer, because the people of the free world whom you have finally aroused will, in a completely peaceful and orderly way, and within a very few years, create a quiet and peaceful world in which disputes will be settled by negotiation and other peaceful methods set forth in the Charter, rather than by the threat or use of force. I think that time is coming.

We hope the day will come when the oppression of religion in the Soviet Union will stop; when the creative energies of t hat brilliant and gifted Russian people will be released; when the Russian people will be able to mingle freely with people of other lands; and when the people of the rest of Europe will no longer live in terror of the Red army.

My advice is: Stop being afraid.

There has been some talk here of the great powers versus the small powers. We Americans are not a great power in the sense that we like power or that we have sought it. We are essentially little people whose ancestors came here from countries where they had been oppressed, so that they could get away from power polities and live quiet lives of their own. We are becoming powerful, but we are not going to use that power as some others have used it in the past. We will use it, with the other peaceloving nations, to create permanent peace, and, whether the dictators like it or not, that will be a blessing to all of suffering humanity, both in and out of the free world.