Worldview 1959-07: Vol 2 Iss 7

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THE DUTY TO NEGOTIATE

The history of Western-Soviet relations is a his-
‘tory of frustration, and the foreign ministers’
conference in Geneva has added one more foot-
ote to it. The United States did not, of course,
bring to the meeting much more than a weary
expectation of inevitable deadlock, and neither,
probably, did the Soviet Union. But the Western
powers expected the Communists to pay at least
some token price for a summit conference, and
even this was not forthcoming. The ministers thus
tecessed with their last condition, to all appear-
ances, worse than their first.

This dashing of even our minimal hopes has
given new strength to those who see the present
world struggle as a clear-cut battle between Good
and Evil, in which no accommodation, no com-

mise will ever be possible. These people
Bi emce any attempt at negotiations with the
Communist powers as a moral betrayal, and the
“militant” anti-Communist press in this country,
which seems to take positive delight in the break-
down of diplomacy, is now hailing the stalemate
at Geneva as “proof” that further attempts at
Western-Soviet conciliation are folly.

The complexities of the Berlin problem—the
reasons why no real “progress” toward its solution
could be hoped for among the foreign ministers
have been fully, and diversely, explored by most
of the nation’s foreign policy analysts. What con-
cerns us here is the resurgence in this country of
the spirit of “no negotiations at all.” This spirit
in the long run could prove a greater danger for
the United States and for the world than any
number of Soviet ultimatums.

Both West and East are playing the most dan-
gerous game in history—the twentieth century
game of nuclear roulette. The only chance of
averting its consequences lies in the continuing
Tespites of negotiation and contacts, no matter

abortive these may seem.

The moral obligation to negotiate was recently

worldview

“A JOURNAL OF RELIGION AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

set forth by Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, Pro-
Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy
Office in the Vatican, during a visit to the United
States. The Cardinal's words are especially signi-
ficant since he is widely identified with the
“right-wing” or “conservative” faction in the Ro-
man Curia.

“Would it do any good for the free nations of
the world to isolate the Soviet Union?” Cardinal
Ottaviani was asked in a public interview. His
reply was unequivocal: “Absolutely not. Should
the world isolate the Soviet regime, then it would
consider itself under siege. The net effect of such
action would be to revive its revolutionary Com-
munist fervor.”

The West, the Cardinal insisted, “must continue
to negotiate,” and it must “leave the door open for
the Soviets to enter the polity of nations.” And
though the Western nations “must guard against
any compromise or concession that would en-
courage Soviet intransigence,” the most important
task they face “is to keep contact—not to close
the Soviet Union off.”

The Cardinal's statement is a strong rebuke to
those who too readily seize upon fresh evidence
of Soviet inflexibility as an excuse for ending all
attempts at accommodation, or who, callous to
the consequences for the human race, urge some
kind of “crusade” against the Soviet Union. Be-
cause the developments in modern technology
have left us with one overriding moral obliga-
tion, an obligation we owe to the past and to the
future as well as to ourselves—the obligation to
avert the catastrophe of nuclear war.

This obligation means that we must continue
to negotiate and to explore, even when negotia-
tion seems fruitless and exploration grows weari-
some beyond bearing. It means that we must
maintain and increase personal contacts, on the
highest level possible, between the Soviet Union
and the West, even when we find such contacts
personally objectionable. The issues here involved
far transcend matters of personal objection.

volume 2 number 7

in the magazines

“The problem of nuclear disarmament overshadows ‘

every other aspect of the Cold War,” writes Rein-
hold Niebuhr in the June 8 New Leader; “but its
importance does not guarantee a solution.” Dr.
Niebuhr reviews the record of fruitless East-West
attempts to come to terms over the matter of in-
spection, and concludes that Russian intransigence
is not entirely to blame. We must admit that “many
of our proposals were not meant to be accepted by
the Russians. Indeed, we would have been em-
barrassed if the proposals had been accepted... A
fool-proof inspection system is a very dubious pos-
sibility, even if ordinary good faith is presupposed.”
Further, history shows that disarmament “is not the
prelude but the consequence of relaxed international
tensions.” The distribution of power among nations,
Dr. Niebuhr suggests, is the real concern of a dis-

armament conference: “If the Western governments -

hold firm, and Moscow abandons its hope for an
agreement on easy terms, then a ban may be
achieved, provided it is felt to serve the interests
of the existing weapons balance.” Dr. Niebuhr does
not believe this will happen, but he does think there
are “small consolations . . . in this dark hour of
history,” not least among them the fact that we are
beginning to compete in terms of guided missiles,
rather than nuclear warheads, which at least removes
the threat to unborn generations.

The New York Times finds itself charged with
violating the “old high standards of fearless, inde-
pendent journalism.” The charge, made by Libera-
tion in its June issue, centered about the Times’
admission on March 19 of having withheld advance
information on Project Argus because “scientists
associated with the government said they feared that
prior announcements of the experiment might lead
to protests that would enforce its cancellation.”
Liberation accused the Times of concealing informa-
tion from the people “for the precise purpose of
keeping them from expressing their opinions on a
political question.” In the face of denials and counter-
accusations from Times editors, Liberation insists
that “it is clear that . . . they concealed this informa-
tion from the public apparently because they favored
the continuation and extension of nuclear test ex-
plosions.”

e

The unsolved problem of civil defense, according
to several recent articles on the subject, is an in-
creasingly crucial aspect of our nuclear policy.
Norma Krause Herzfeld, writing in America for June
18, draws together data that reveal the confusion,
ignorance and apathy surrounding the matter. Ap-

2

parently taking a cue from our official policy, which
continues to rely solely on the nuclear deterrent to
all-out attack, the prevailing sentiment of the civil
population is an “all-or-nothing fatalism.” The public
remains unaware, Mrs. Herzfeld writes, that “alter-
natives do exist between the placid assumption that
war is just too horrible to happen, and the fear that
if it just should happen everybody will be wiped
out.” She cites the RAND Corporation’s recent
Study of Non-military Defense, which stated that
adequate civil defense would itself be a deterrent
to enemy attack.

Mrs. Herzfeld notes further that, despite the
Gaither and Rockefeller Reports (which called for
the mass-scale construction of civilian shelters) and
despite the widespread recognition that evacuation
plans are now obsolete, the Government has failed
to initiate protective measures for the civilian popu-
lation—either by building public blast shelters or by
distributing information to individual citizens who
wished to build their own.

The “do-it-yourself” method of home defense,
which may be our resort if, as Mrs. Herzfeld’s article
implies, there is to be no Federal program of civilian
protection, is outlined by Ralph E. Lapp in the May
issue of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Mr. Lapp
presents a good amount of technical information on
what we can expect (“megaton assumptions” is the
term) in the event of enemy attack. Mr. Lapp agrees
with the results of a public survey quoted by
Mrs. Herzfeld when he remarks that “only the rara
avis will go to the trouble and expense of building
a blast shelter.” Therefore he limits himself to the
steps the average citizen can take to protect himself
and his family against the fallout that occurs after
the primary impact of megaton weapons: “A tunnel
dug in the cellar wall would provide excellent pro-
tection. Stacking up bags of coal, sand, or containers
of water in a corner of the basement would also re-
duce the radiation dose.”

According to Mr. Lapp’s estimates, it would be
two or three days before survivors could “emerge
from cramped quarters and enjoy more freedom in
the basement”; one month before basement living
could be abandoned. But not until the second year
after attack would “return to ordinary life” be pos-
sible. And what about the consumption of food
grown on contaminated land? “Crop contamination,”
Mr. Lapp admits, “poses a serious long-term prob
lem and it is not clear whether a post-attack economy
could support the kind of agriculture which could
minimize the uptake of strontium-90 from the food
supply.”

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AFRICA IN TRANSITION

It Represents a Challenge to Western Resources and Western Security

William Persen

In the past decade Africa has exploded. Where the
next explosion will occur no one knows. It might
be riots in Nyasaland or Dahomey, demonstrations
in Brazzaville or Khartoum, assassination in Con-
stantine. The dead African past of tribal discipline
and subsistence-ignorance has been challenged by
a civilization immeasurably more productive in
satisfying the material and esthetic wants of its
populace. The answer to the challenge is diffuse and
uncontrolled. Like the expanding galaxies, the ideas
that result from the bomb that the West has triggered
in Africa are moving with tremendous speed in every
direction.

Ten years ago, it appeared that Africa, except
perhaps for its northern Arab tier, was still deeply
immersed in its ancient ways, that it would be many
years before the African peoples reacted to Western
nationalism with their own nationalism. Today, this
illusion has been smashed by the Africans’ search
for freedom, freedom to control their own destiny,
freedom to show that men of black skin are indeed
the equal of men of white skin.

Perhaps this psychological force, this insistence
by Africans that they can do a better job of deciding
what is best for themselves, is the greatest advantage
that African leadership has. The race that the white
man had used as his source of slaves and that he has
persecuted and still persecutes is determined to
show that it can labor and build, sacrifice and
create.

This psychological force may be greater than the
comparable ones of the less racialized nationalisms
of the peoples of Asia. This point is certainly argu-
able, but the Africans do have one tremendous
advantage over the Asiatic peoples—they do not
have to divest themselves of entrenched cultural
obstacles. They have had no ancient greatness with
which to mask their present inequality. The cultural
state of the Africans is so low that they are con-
siderably more adaptable to the challenge of Western
civilization than the Arab or the Indian. They do
not have to defend their past. Their past has meant
only the basic struggle with hunger, disease and the
burning sun.

Coupled with the psychological advantage—the
requirement to prove their capability and their

ee

Mr. Persen is the Asian-African Editor of Business
International.

humanity— the lack of the cultural drag of past
civilizations means that the African explosion will
continue to move with a speed that no Asian state
that has the slightest desire to maintain humanitarian
values can match,

But Africa is not a unity. It is a vast continent of
diverse linguistic groups, of religious and cultural
patterns, with three basic political-ethnic regions.
The northern third is Arab and Muslim. The central
band, usually called “Tropical Africa” is black, but
split by a multiplicity of racial and language groups.
It is partly Muslim, partly Christian, partly pagan.
The South has more linguistic and religious unity,
but not much more, and here the influence of the
European colonial has more deeply impressed it-
self. Here the European, by his very presence,
serves both as a greater challenge for African self-
improvement and greater hindrance to it because
of the inevitable years of political struggle that will
divert the drive for betterment into the drive for
independence.

Each of the three main African areas is in turn
split into differentiable areas. The Arab north has
eastern and western halves, The eastern looks toward
the other Arabic-speaking peoples of Southwest
Asia. The western half, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia
and Libya, is less tied to Arab nationalism and has
its own unity of purpose. A specific difference be-
tween the two regions is the attitude toward Israel:
violently inimical in the East, comparatively non-
commital in the West. Another is the attitude toward
Europe.

Tropical Africa is split into a patchwork of bud-
ding states, but the basic factor is the legacy of
the French versus the British or Belgian control.
The same thing is true in the South where several
varieties of British administration have tended to
amalgamate or separate areas that might or might
not have their present political form, if the British
government had pursued different policies. And then
there are the two huge Portuguese possessions:
Angola and Mozambique, where Africans are held
in virtual slavery.

Each of these differentiable areas of Africa is in
turn split deeply. The fact of a million Europeans
(the majority non-French) in Algeria is too obvious
for further comment. Even more serious are the

3

splits in Tropical African regions. When Ghana
became independent in 1957, the differences between
the northern and southern Ghanaian peoples and
aspirations caused violent outbreaks. These differ-
ences—linguistic, economic, political and religious—
are still, and will remain, a recurring problem of
major dimensions, even in such a comparatively
small country.

Nigeria will become independent a year from
this October, but the constitution of the Federation
of Nigeria is an almost inconceivable patchwork
attempting to maintain a unity of conflicting religions,
language and tribal groupings. If Nigeria, the most
populous country in Africa, can become a nation,
the British drafters of the Nigerian constitution will
have earned themselves a chapter in every future
textbook of comparative constitutional history.

The Cameroons, split between the British and the
French after they had driven the Germans from it
during the first world war, will also receive its
independence in 1960. Like Nigeria, it also is split
into diverse regional and ethnic patterns. The savan-
nah North is populated by the Muslim Fulanis and
a multiplicity of pagan tribes. The people of the
forested South are predominantly of Bantu origin
and, in great part, are Christianized. The adminis-
trative system of the North is based on a series of
traditional sultanates, although these local sultans
have nowhere nearly as much power as the British
permitted to the emirs of Northern Nigeria. The
administrative system of the South is one based on
centralized rule, limited only by democratically
elected local councils. There are no political parties
which are organized nationally.

The internal diversity that is already straining
Ghanaian polity and that will place on an inexpe-
rienced leadership tremendous strains in Nigeria
and the Cameroons next year is the same in every
African state approaching independence. And as if
this were not enough to discourage the sympathetic
observer, as soon as independence is achieved a
second political tension immediately comes into ex-
istence—pan-Africanism. As in the Arab world, there
is growing in black Africa a movement to unite all
the continent south of the Sahara into a huge state
of almost two hundred million people. This move-
ment is opposed by all entrenched interests who
would lose power and wealth if its ends were ac-
complished. Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah of
Ghana has assumed the leadership of the unionist
movement in West Africa, largely because his state
was the first post-war African state south of the
Sahara to receive independence and because Ghana
is one of the richest states in Africa. But the leader-
ship of nationalist movements can be maintained
only if the leader can produce evidence that he can
lead. As long as the conflict was between Ghana and
French or British colonial administrations, Nkrumah

4

needed no greater successes than meetings in Accra
of independent African states or African nationalist
organizations, supporting slogans and plans.

In 1960, the area immediately to the west of
Ghana, Togo, will also receive its independence.
Nkrumah will be under tremendous pressure to
unite Ghana and Togo. The Togo leadership has
already expressed itself against such a union. The
alternatives to Nkrumah are three: fail to secure
union; conquer Togo through subversion or the use
of force; or establish a “union” like the one between
Ghana and Guinea, a word without substance that
will “never to heaven go.”

Each of these alternatives will involve other pow-
ers. The Nigerian leadership has not exactly shown
itself in favor of Nkrumah’s nationalism, partly on
personal grounds. The Nigerians will not support a
Ghana takeover in Togo. And neither will the
French. Will a patchwork of conflicting pan-African-
isms develop? Will this political conflict aid or injure
the need to devote every ounce of African energy

’ to education and economic improvement?

The French African states have just experienced
their third political change since the second world
war: union of all French West Africa under close
French control; division of the various regions but
still under Parisian control; and, now, autonomy of
the various areas in a “French Community”, which
in reality keeps the power in the hands of the
French government. But like the first two, the latest
model has established political tensions that have
resulted, or will result, in its change. French West
African leadership is split into two major groups:
one group led by Senghor of Senegal calls for the
federation of the various “Republics” into larger
political groupings that can better meet the chal-
lenges of French control on the one hand and
Nkrumah expansionism on the other; the second
group, led by Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast,
calls for balkanization of West Africa into a plethora
of semi-independent states, all closely tied to France.

When the French Community came into existence
this year, Senghor arranged a federation of four of
the new “Republics”—Senegal, French Sudan, Volta
and Dahomey. The powers of the federation, called
Mali after a great African confederation of the past,
were not defined. It crossed racial, religious and
linguistic lines. It was united more by the desire to
unite than anything else. The balkanizing leadership
of the Ivory Coast immediately went into operation;
Dahomey and Volta withdrew and decreed their
desire for independence from Senghor’s variety of
pan-Africanism. French West Africa is beset with
political cross-currents that will grow in the future,
particularly as these areas withdraw from the French
Community as Guinea has withdrawn.

Barring the development of forces not at present
visible, West Africa is headed for a long period in
which localism will struggle with pan-Africanism,
in which energies will be diverted from the more

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important development priorities, in which Com-
munist infiltration will be probing constantly for
openings.

The situation is the same in the rest of Africa.
Another example of rising political tension comes
from the eastern part of Tropical Africa. Somalia
will become independent next year. The United
Kingdom has announced that it is willing to permit
British Somaliland to join Somalia at some unspeci-
fied later date. This will lead to conflict between
Somalia and Ethiopia over the Ogaden province,
in which Ethiopia rules a practically pure Somali
people. This conflict will involve Sudan and Egypt
because both countries rely on Nile water, eighty-
five per cent of which comes from the Ethiopian
plateau, and because both desire to assure a weak
Ethiopia that will be unable to interfere with their
source of life, the Nile waters.

In sum, Tropical Africa, outwardly a unity, is
faced with a practically infinite list of political prob-
lems that are growing. The solution of one usually
creates another. These problems are a serious dis-
advantage to African development. Whether African
determination to bring political order out of the
chaos that imperialism has so ably assisted will be
sufficient to solve the many problems is questionable.

And political problems are not the only ones that
beset the leadership and peoples of Africa. While
the fact of cultural backwardness can be viewed as
an advantage in that there are fewer “bad” habits
for the African peoples to overcome before acquiring
the more productive aspects of Western civilization,
backwardness is so great that the problem of educa-
tion is tremendous. The cost of building schools, the
time and funds required to train teachers, the fact
that the concept of education is unknown to vast
numbers of Africans—all amount to an overwhelm-
ing problem, demanding the full energies of the
pitifully small educated elite that has already
developed.

But an even greater task will be that of economic
development, utilizing the available resources in
order to pay for their further utilization. Nowhere
in Tropical Africa is there a developed transporta-
tion and communication system. In relation to size,
Africa has the fewest ports and paved roads, the
least railroad mileage, and the shortest coastline.
And despite the fact that it has the greatest hydro-
electric possibilities in the world, there is not enough
power anywhere and what power there is, in most
cases, is much too expensive. There is also a serious
shortage of government services: statistical and
social information. Little capital is available for
investment in the necessary roads, railroads, ports,
bridges, power developments, and basic industries
such as textiles and food processing. There is, in
Many areas, a shortage of any kind of permanent
labor; in all areas, a major shortage of skilled labor.

These needs must be supplied, and the educational
and political problems solved, at the same time.

The situation is further complicated by the cutting
up of Africa into units by European powers on the
basis of who came first, rather than of economic
interest. The transportation facilities that do exist
are frequently—indeed, almost always—to be found
in places that are less economical than they would
be if the Europeans’ artificial borders had not been
drawn in the first place. The most economical port
to service the West African interior is Bathurst in
British-controlled Gambia. But because most of the
hinterland of Bathurst is controlled by the French,
an altogether artificial transportation structure based
on Dakar has been built.

Similar artificial creations have been constructed
all over Africa. The result is extremely high trans-
port costs and exorbitant prices for goods at inland
points. And because of a perpetual shortage of port
facilities (in part due to the fact that politically-
motivated construction of unnatural ports is required
for each coastal area with a different flag), prices
are already much higher than they should be at the
coastal points. All these high prices have been eating
away at what little wealth has so far been developed.

Much of this basic development must be carried
out before the vast iron, copper, bauxite, and man-
ganese reserves can be brought into production.
Ghana faces this very problem now in the Volta
River Project. The suggestion that cheap power can
be produced by damming the Volta River has been
recently reiterated by a team of American engineers.
But the power would be cheap only if it were used.
Ghana has large bauxite reserves that, if developed,
would use enough of the electricity to make the dam
a worthwhile project. But the two projects must be
carried out simultaneously. One without the other
would be an impossible waste of capital resources.
The Ghanaian government can no doubt finance the
$300 million dam, but it cannot finance the alumi-
num smelter. So far, no Western aluminum producer
has shown a willingness to invest in the smelter. In
the economic field, as in the social and educational
areas, African leadership faces a formidable task.

Where does the United States fit into the picture
of a rapidly changing Africa? What should the
American policy be toward the political entangle-
ments of European powers with Africans, of Africans
with each other? Should the United States interject
American influence more forcefully in African eco-
nomic development?

These questions are easier to ask than to answer,
but there is one great compelling consideration
which requires that they be answered soon. Africa
is the only continent where, by and large, the United
States is not hated. Despite the dastardly history of
our treatment of the Negro, the African still looks to
the U.S. as his support against the continuance of

5

foreign imperial control. He looks upon the U.S. as
a bountiful helper in the war against disease, poverty
and backwardness. He does not suspect that Ameri-
can aid is merely a screen for economic imperialism,
as most Asiatics do, nor does he think it a payment
for political services rendered in the struggle against
Communism. Anti-American feelings are fashionable
so far only in the Arab north.

The challenge thus becomes centered in what can
be done by the United States government and by
private Americans to keep Africa on the side of
human rights and human dignity. Decisions must be
taken quickly because Africa is moving quickly. In
the area of politics, there are two questions: what
should be U.S. policy regarding the European pow-
ers and the African areas they control, and what
should be our policy in the face of inevitable con-
flicts among African peoples once they are free. In
the first area, there has been a good deal of consis-
tency: always support the status quo and oppose
self-determination. In the case of Algeria, the United
States has done nothing to help end the conflict.
NATO arms from American factories continue to
equip French divisions that fight in Algeria. But the
State Department plays the ostrich and pretends
that the continuation of the Algerian war—and it
will continue until the Algerian people are free—is
none of its business.

The continuation of the war inexorably pushes
the Algerians into Communist hands. It is amazing
that after five years of revolution the Communists
have not gained a more considerable foothold in the
revolutionary movement. If the war is prolonged,
the level of Communist influence in Algeria will
increase. When it finally achieves independence, the
Algerian government will be farther to the left than
it would be if the war could be ended now. The war
is also slowly but certainly alienating the black
leadership to the south. Most of the African leaders
consider the Algerian struggle no different from
their own; indeed, it is a test case.

The other political question that should concern
us is that of internal African politics: will the United
States do all in its power to help channel the force
of pan-Africanism into schemes for the development
of regional federations or unified states? The flow of
U.S. economic assistance to Africa, practically non-
existent except for rental payments to Morocco,
Tunisia and Libya for military bases, must be in-
creased. The numerous productive possibilities in
transportation and power generation must receive as
much assistance as possible. Because countries like
the Sudan, Libya, and Ghana have refused Commu-
nist assistance so far does not mean it will be refused
forever. The Volta Dam in Ghana, the Souapiti Dam
in Guinea, the Aswan Dam in Egypt (now in Com-

munist hands) are typical examples of projects that
should receive our greatest possible aid.

An instance of irreparable American behavior oc-
curred in our relations with Guinea. Two months
ago, it became known that this new state received
several thousand small arms for its police from
Czechoslovakia. The Guinean leader, Sekou Toure,
had previously asked the Liberian government
(since there were no diplomatic relations between
Washington and Conakry) to request such arms
from the United States. Washington did nothing.
The Communists offered arms and were accepted.

Guinea has been independent since September
1958. In May 1959 the United States finally named
an ambassador to Guinea. Why did it take so long?
Will the same mistake be repeated as each new
African state becomes independent and is deluged
with Soviet offers of assistance?

It is the policy of the United States government
to have no policy for any African area that is under

. the control of a European power. If this continues

to be our attitude, the West can look forward to

‘growing Communist influence in Africa. Take the

example of Kenya, a British-controlled region. It
has local autonomy: the legislature is partly elected
and partly nominated by the Governor, with the
country’s six million Africans electing the same
number of representatives as the sixty thousand
whites. Of the thirty-two nominated members, five
are Africans. Most of the fertile and well-watered
farmlands have been taken away from the African
farmers and reserved for white settlement. Because
there has developed considerable opposition to the
British regime, a “state of emergency” has been pro-
claimed, meaning that the Governor can do practi-
cally anything he wishes to maintain public order.
Members of three tribal groups are not permitted
to move out of their tribal areas without special
permission. Because these actions are carried out by
our ally, the United Kingdom, the U.S. sits idly by.
Such behavior, or lack of it, is the surest way to
turn pro-Americanism in Africa to anti-Americanism.

What has been said for Kenya can be said for
many other African regions. Tom Mboya, a young
Kenyan leader, recently visited the United States to
dramatize the plight of his country. In a speech in
Washington he declared that, “if men of good will
accept the inevitable and join with us to ease the
pangs of transition, then we may build the kind of
society in which violence is unnecessary and may
gradually become an outmoded method of achieving
objectives.” Mboya is one of the more important
leaders of the new Africa. If the United States turns
its back on moderate men of his thinking, there is
not much probability that the present opportunity
to aid and guide the future of the African continent
will ever return.

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WAR AS A MORAL PROBLEM

Walter Millis

As one of a non-religious (some of my friends might
consider it an anti-religious) bent, it has always
seemed to me impossibly difficult to deal with ques-
tions of war and statecraft as moral problems. If
we are thinking of “war” in the abstract, we are
thinking of one of the ugly facts of life—an institu-
tion which has characterized human society from
time immemorial, and which, like many other ugly
facts of life, is in itself morally neutral. Like pain,
pestilence or natural disaster, it presents a problem
to the moralist; but the moralist can say nothing to
those involved in war’s agonies and cruel decisions.

If we are talking about war in this abstract sense,
it seems to me that only the absolute pacifists—those
whom Father Murray too harshly describes as har-
boring the “vulgar pacifism of sentimentalist and
materialist inspiration”—are entitled to introduce the
moral issue at all. It is their position that the organ-
ized taking of human life is in itself so great an
evil that no good which may be achieved by this
means can render it a moral action. They make a
moral issue of the institution of war itself (it must
be admitted that a vast amount of history which is
neither sentimental nor materialist tends to support
them); and it seems to me that those unwilling to
meet them on these high terms, those unable either
to accept or refute their contention that all war is
and of itself immoral, are forced to drop the whole
moral argument to a lower plane.

Unless we take our stand with the absolute paci-
fist, we are compelled to accept war in the abstract
as a fact of life. Confronting it, we can no longer
appeal to a set of moral absolutes. The whole argu-
ment shifts and tends to get lost in the sands and
shoals of particular wars, particular circumstances,
and the particular moral responsibilities carried by
the individual in each of the many ways in which
he is related to the social enterprise. It is clear that
the aviators who dropped the atomic bomb on the
defenseless women and children of Hiroshima, the
statesmen who gave the orders that they should do
it, and the publicists and politicians who created the
“climate” in which the statesmen’s decision was
made inevitable, all occupied different ethical posi-

Mr. Millis is the author of Arms and Men and co-
author of Arms and the State.

tions and confronted different moral problems. If
one accepts war of some kind, in some circum-
stances, waged in some degree of savagery, as a
moral enterprise, then one is involved in these com-
plexities of individual moral responsibility. One
cannot make the same answer to the individual con-
scientious objector, taught to believe that the taking
of life is inherently wrong, as one makes to the
statesman, taught to believe that his highest duty is
the conservation of the safety and interest of the
people to whom he is responsible, or to the publicist
who advocates war or warlike courses (in which it
is improbable that he will either have to kill others
or risk being killed himself) because he believes
that war will serve some higher end of freedom or
justice.

From these difficulties, which confront those who
reject the position of the absolute pacifists, those
who might be described as absolute bellicists offer
a logical, if unattractive, way out. If the cause is
just, war is not only licit but morally required; one
not only may but must fight for the right, and it
follows that any kind of horror or violence that
carries some reasonable chance of victory and will
more quickly terminate the struggle is morally ac-
ceptable. This is the logic of the greater good. It
was the logic of those who supported war against
what seemed the positive evil of Nazi, Fascist and
Japanese aggression; it was also the logic which led
such patently ethical men as Truman, Stimson and
their advisers to incinerate the innocent non-combat-
ants of Hiroshima in the nuclear fires. As John
Cogley observes, most of us still feel that the war
on Nazism was a morally justified enterprise—it was
better to have fought that evil, even at the price
of a slaughter, than to have acquiesced in it. But
many of us still feel qualms about the Hiroshima
and Nagasaki bombs, and, indeed, about the equally
terrible and indiscriminate Tokyo and Hamburg fire-
raids.

We recoil from such consequences of the bellicist
theory of the greater good, logical though they may
be. And we recoil the more because all experience
has taught us that no man (or nation) can be trusted
unilaterally to determine what is the greater good;
no man can be judge in his own cause; no nation in
defending its right can be sure that it is not unjustly
trampling upon the rights of others; in fighting for
what is right against what is evil it cannot know
that its values are universal values. It cannot even
be sure that military victory will conserve even its
own concept of the right—and a great deal of history
suggests that this is seldom the actual result. In
the absence of a supra-national or super-human

7

authority which can not only ascertain but unam-
biguously declare what is right and just in the affairs
of nation-states, the bellicist theory (and I hope it
is clear that I am thinking of bellicism in a just
cause) offers us no exit from such contrasting dif-
ficulties as those of Hiroshima or of our acceptance
of war against Germany and Japan.

For those unable to condemn organized war as
always and in itself immoral, there is only one solu-
tion. It is the solution adopted by Father Murray
which, as Rabbi Schwarzschild points out, is no
different in essence from that adopted by the ancient
Jews and by all later heirs of the Judeo-Christian
ethic. War is morally acceptable only under certain
rigid limits—limits as to purpose, ends and means.
Pope Pius XII (and Father Murray, who so tightly
expounds his teaching) discerns limitations different
from those which surrounded war in ancient Pale-
stine, but the principle is the same. The case can be
put by saying that the politician and publicist are
justified in advocating war, the statesman is justified
in accepting and waging war, and the soldier is justi-
fied in the killing necessary to success, if the origins
and conduct of the war fulfill certain conditions.

The conditions are that it must be a just war, by
the best lights available to those who participate in
it. It must in addition be a defensive war; however
just one’s claims against others, they are not to be
asserted by an organized military effort to establish
them; a defensive war to repress injustice is permis-
sible, but an offensive war for the same purpose is
not. (This seems to rule out a military effort by the
West in support of the Hungarian revolution.) The
defense must be efficacious, “undertaken with hope
of success.” This limitation, particularly salient in
the nuclear age, rules out suicidal last stands; but
the application of this latter principle to nuclear
weaponry, which appears to offer no hope of defen-
sive success, only of revenge, is obscure. After these
limitations on the purposes and ends of legitimate
war, one comes to the crucial question of means.
Father Murray offers the “principle of proportion.”
Even grave injustices may not be repressed by dis-
proportionate military means—by means, that is,
which would do greater damage than the continua-
tion of the injustice.

However tight and sound the principles, they do
not seem to help us much in our problem. The Pope
was willing to consider the liceity of megaton war-
fare “in the case in which it must be judged indis-
pensable for self-defense.” But on the other hand, he
rejected as “immoral” the use of megaton and bac-
teriological warfare where it “entails such an exten-
sion of the evil that it entirely escapes from the

8

control of man.” We are faced with a situation in __

which any war seems likely to escape entirely from
the control of man (and I believe that we have in
fact been faced with this situation since 1914) and
one in which the resort to nuclear weapons can
never be “indispensable to self-defense”, since, so far
as we know now, resort to the weapons can never
promote defense. Maintaining them may do so, but
using them can apparently promote nothing but a
barren revenge and destruction.

It is this paradox of the modern weapons which I
feel Father Murray avoids. I am quite willing to
accept the traditional position that war waged for
righteous ends, with limited purposes and by limited
means, with its unavoidable slaughter adjusted in
correct proportion to the good which will be achieved
by success, is a moral activity. Some of the terms
are here rather hard to fill, but the rules or limits

_ as defined seem to me acceptable, and I am not

prepared to condemn the soldiers and sailors of,
say, the eighteenth century, who did their bloody
duty in an age in which this kind of rule and limit
was both applicable and observed, as wicked or im-
moral men. My difficulty is that the rules are no
longer applicable. Neither Pope Pius XII nor Father
Murray supplies me with an answer to the one
rather stark question: Was it right or wrong to in-
cinerate sixty thousand non-combatant men, women
and children at Hiroshima? Was President Truman
(who bore the ultimate responsibility) a wicked
man; was he a good man mistakenly adopting a
wicked course, or was he a good man adopting a
course which was good, under all the circumstances?
Father Murray’s argument does not tell me. His
quotations from Pope Pius XII do not tell me; and
if my conscience required me (as it does not) to
accept the Pope as a final authority on morals, I still
think I would be left in a situation of considerable
bafflement. This is what I meant by saying at the
outset that it has always been difficult for me to deal
with issues of statecraft and war as moral issues.
My own belief is that the issues which modern war
raises before us will be settled on practical rather
than moralistic terms. John Cogley has suggested
that we are in fact facing the prospect of a world
without war, and we will slowly adjust ourselves
to a situation (it will by no means be an easy one)
derived from pragmatic and not moralistic considera-
tions. With this I agree, as it seems to me the only
outcome short of total catastrophe. But if this is the
outcome, it will be the moralists who will have to
bring their views into accord with it. It will not
come through the great society bringing its actions
into accord with the teachings of the moralists.

ESaAae Dearne OBETARSOTAS MPRAEE AE AA

1

Oo

BA2sSeewr-BaeaR ke ko

Nyack, New York
Sir: Worldview is fond of the word “ambiguity” in
international affairs. Unless I am mistaken, it seems
to afford for you a moral blank check as an alterna-
tive to the too rigorous absolutes of the Christian
Gospel.

But what about the intra-national ambiguities
within countries where tyranny rules? Surely there
is no reason to soften our criticism of the lack of
civil liberty in the Communist countries. But we
should recognize two things. First, the fact that no
matter how “hard” or “soft” the Soviet leaders may
be at a given time, the people of the USSR are not
now and never have been our enemies. Yet U.S.
policy has never been directed toward means of
removing or annihilating the leaders only; it has
consistently developed methods for annihilating the
very people we would rescue from the dictators.

Second, the “softening” or liberalization of Soviet
life during the past six years must be kept constantly
in view. We must not lose our perspective. There is
no reason for not applauding a man like Boris Paster-
nak and protesting any censure of him by the Soviet
State; indeed I have so applauded and protested. But
in the same context we should note with gratitude

“LIBERTY

New York, N.Y.
Sir: I see that the Committee for Constitutional
Government wants Worldview to apologize to Con-
gress, on pain of being “indefinitely suspected of
treason.” I couldn’t sleep last night for wondering
what you are going to say in your letter of apology.
(I assume you do not want to spend the rest of
your life under suspicion of having some reserva-
tions about letting everybody in the U.S. be killed
for the sake of saving the U.S.)

On the technicalities: I guess you would address
identical letters to the Speaker of the House and the
President of the Senate. And you would ask that the
letters be entered in the Congressional Record. The
letter could end with “Abjectly yours.” Now, with
respect to what you would put between the opening
and ending, I tried a couple of drafts but could
not seem to make the sentences sound sufficiently
humiliated and abject. This may be because I am
an American citizen and a Christian, and those

“ON ABSOLUTE MORALITY”

the mildness of the censure and compare it with the
fate of men like Meyerhold and Babel. Likewise we
should consider, for example, the fact that medical
care is supplied free to everyone in the USSR, and
that the USSR is training at least twice as many
M.D.’s as is the U.S.

You tend, I fear, to see Communism as so black
that you can weigh it against nuclear annihilation.
Even if we had to deal with the blackest of Soviet
tyranny at its Stalinist nadir, there would at least
remain some glimmer of a redemptive posssibility.
A war with ABC weapons would extinguish that pos-
sibility entirely.

To be sure, there are penultimate choices to be
made. But if the ultimate choice is between treason
to the United States and treason to humanity before
Almighty God, there may be some (count me among
them!) who would choose treason to their nation-
hood. Do you think you will be forgiven for slaying
Russian children in their beds for the sake of Ameri-
can liberties? Do you even think that those liberties
could be preserved in any meaningful way in the
nuclear holocaust?

WILLIAM ROBERT MILLER

OR DEATH”

annoying documents, the New Testament and the
U.S. Constitution, always insinuated themselves into
my mind, just when I thought I had a good ringing
sentence. Recalling Mayor La Guardia’s classic state-
ment, I had as my opening sentence: “When World-
view makes a mistake it’s a beaut.”

On second thought, you might well ask Mr. Will-
ford I. King to compose a letter for you. His letter
should describe what the Congress did, what you
said, and the reasons for believing you made an awful
mistake. This would make interesting reading.

On third thought, you could send a copy of the
Bible and a copy of the Constitution to both houses
of Congress, with a covering letter saying that these
constitute your apology. But, on further thought,
this does not seem adequate.

I am going to stay awake one more night trying to
help you and if a good letter does not form itself in
my mind, I am going to forget the whole thing.

HERMAN F. REISSIG

9

books

The Devil’s Repertoire by Victor
Gollancz. Doubleday. 192 pp.
$2.50.

The Fearful Choice: A Debate on Nu-
Clear Policy conducted by Philip
Toynbee. Wayne State University
Press. 112 pp. $2.50.

Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare by
Bertrand Russell. Simon and
Schuster. 92 pp. $2.50.

by Daniel M. Friedenberg

Three books have recently ap-
peared dealing with the possible
ultimate consequences of nuclear
warfare. All three are written by
distinguished Englishmen who
have been identified with left or
liberal movements for most of
their adult life and profess a
united disdain for Communist
ideology. The three authors are
strongly affected by the knowl-
edge that England, a small and
heavily populated island, would
suffer frightful damage in atomic
warfare and the three again tend
to equate the fate of their island
with the fate of all civilized man-
kind. As a consequence, though
the authors have widely differing
intellectual and religious atti-
tudes, the books are united in a
desire to negotiate disarmament
to a much greater degree than
any American writer of non-
Communist sympathies would
express.

Starting with the book of least
worth, The Devil's Repertoire by
Victor Gollancz, we are con-
fronted with a badly-written but
passionate plea for pacifism, a
pacifism induced by the brooding
over what nuclear warfare would
mean. The basis of Mr. Gollancz’s
pacifism is theologic and, as such,
beyond the scope of this review.
In the practice of his convictions,
the author suggests that England
(and he hopes for the United
Mr. Friedenberg writes on po-
litical and cultural affairs for
The New Republic, The Com-
monweal, and other journals.

10

Britain and the Bomb

States as well) should give up its
H-bombs and reject their use un-
der any circumstances. He makes
this suggestion with the full
knowledge that Russia may take
over the world as a result. Mr.
Gollancz feels that life under
Russia would be better than a
nuclear war which he considers
inevitable, thus rejecting the
thesis that war can be avoided.
“Under a Soviet occupation there
would be life: a nuclear war
would mean death: and the man
who chooses death rather than life
is a blasphemer.”

Indeed, Mr. Gollancz goes so
far as to indicate a justification
for the occupation, since the Rus-
sian gauleiters would learn Chris-
tian brotherhood from the Eng-
lish. “But under an occupation,
which would require a large per-
sonnel, we should be at personal
grips with them: and, if we used
the spiritual weapons of patience
and courage and _ harmlessness
and forgiveness and even love,
we might find the enemy becom-
ing a neighbor.” Presumably Mr.
Gollancz draws his information
from some slave camps in Siberia
the rest of us are not familiar
with.

It is to the credit of Victor
Gollancz that he follows to its
ultimate conclusion the internal
logic of his own position. For he
affirms that any tyranny in peace
is better than nuclear war. Going
beyond that, he even questions
whether the war against Hitler
was justifiable, a war he defines
solely as “six years of unspeakable
devastation that brought death,
mutilation, agony, madness, ha-
tred, and corruption to million up-
on million in a despairing world.”
It is hard to believe that a man
who escaped Belsen by accident of
family emigration could thus and
merely sum up World War II. It
is equally difficult to believe that
Hitler could have been won over
to the Sermon on the Mount any
more than Genghis Khan. For

readers interested in an analysis
of present world tensions, The
Devil's Repertoire is worthless
other than as an outstanding ex-
ample of how the modern situa-
tion can make a sensitive man re-
nounce everything worthwhile in
the face of a possible overwhelm-
ing danger.

The Fearful Choice consists of
a thesis raised by Philip Toynbee
followed by the comments of well-
known Englishmen. Although Mr.
Toynbee rejects the absolute
pacifism of Victor Gollancz, his
position in the practical sense is
barely distinguishable.

The debate is centered on Mr.
Toynbee’s conviction that it is a
“statistical certainty” that a mis-
take will be made, if the present
situation continues, and that mu-
tual fear must lead to an acciden-
tal war in the near future. “It
would be wicked and pointless to
launch a nuclear attack on Russia
before we have been attacked;
it would also be wicked and point-
less to reciprocate after attack
because only childish revenge
would make millions of innocent
Russians suffer the agony which
Englishmen have already suf-
fered.” We must therefore yield
to the Russians.

The logic employed by Philip
Toynbee is similar to the old
adage that heads I win and tails
you lose. Russia is stronger in
technical development and will
remain stronger, we are informed
ex cathedra. But if by the “mirac-
ulous” the West becomes strong-
er, this would be worse since the
Russians are most intransigent
when weak. Compounding this
curious argument, we are in-
formed that if we negotiate on
their terms the Russians will not
try to take advantage of us. If
they do, he continues, better
Soviet domination than inevitable
nuclear warfare.

That wisest and slyest of mor-
tals, Bertrand Russell, has written
the most intelligent analysis. In

7 — Be —)

C-
ig
he
nt

on
10t

ter
le

or-
fen

Common Sense and Nuclear
Warfare, Lord Russell attempts
to find grounds of appeal to all
sides, “on the analogy of sanitary
measures against epidemics.” I]-
lustrating the tremendous de-
struction bound to occur by
means of testimony in the United
States, he searches for motives
appealing to the common inter-
ests of the rival parties.

From this, he projects a pro-
gram that may safely initiate
moves toward concrete peace in
“a number of stages.” The cessa-
tion of mutual vituperation has
already begun in his opinion;
and, though not quoted, the pres-
ent exchange of ballet companies
and symphonic orchestras is in-
deed a hopeful sign. The aboli-
tion of nuclear testing would be
the next step since both sides
share equal concern in the poi-
soning of the earth’s atmosphere.
As Bertrand Russell points out,
this would have collateral bene-
fits, since “any agreement be-
tween East and West about any-
thing is to the good”, the prob-
lem being to a large extent psy-
chological. Following this, every
endeavor would be made to agree
that no nuclear weapons should
be manufactured, a measure
which could be enforced by in-
spection without very great diffi-
culty.

Up to this stage, Lord Russell
feels agreement might well lie
within the reach of possibility.
The next giant step, destruction
of the existing stocks of H-bombs,
would then tell the story, because
there could be no mutual agree-
ment without an accompanying
reduction of conventional forces.
For, as the author states, “I doubt
whether an agreement to this ef-
fect will be concluded until there
is a genuine readiness on both
sides to renounce war as an in-
strument of policy.” The ultimate
thereafter, of course, would be an
International Authority with the
military power to enforce its de-
cisions.

To the American reviewer,
sharing the American illusion of

safety accorded by distance,
much of the discussion in these
books seems to border on hys-
teria. But Englishmen, only three
hours from Moscow by jet, un-
doubtedly sense an — urgency
which makes this reading salutary
if only because it brings an
awareness if Europe’s mood. Cer-
tain omissions and confusions,
however, should be corrected in
order to bring the discussion into
clearer focus.

One cannot escape notice of
the strong parochial feeling exist-
ing throughout the three. books.
It is accepted almost without ex-
ception that England is the center
of the universe and that Western
society is identical with all civ-
ilization. Only Joseph Grimond,
M. P. avoids this egocentrism
when stating in wry words: “The
present situation is only thought
‘unique’ because it is ‘God’s
children’, the British, that are
threatened . . . Nuclear war might
finish mankind but it might just
finish the British, Americans, and
half the Russians. The Indians,
Chinese, Africans, South Ameri-
cans might be left—and left freed
from Western madness.”

This in turn involves another
curious oversight, the place of
China in the modern world. Lord
Russell alone approaches this mo-
mentous issue. It is implicit in any
agreement to suspend nuclear
testing that China should be a
party. Not only could China de-
velop her own bomb, free of all
control, but Russia could use
Chinese territory for testing. This
seemingly obvious fact has been
bypassed in all discussion in the
same way American officials ju-
ridically ignore the actual physical
existence of China.

The salient point is that the
technical information to make nu-
clear bombs is now known to the
entire world. The United States
had them in 1945, Russia in 1950,
England in 1952, and France and
China are rushing to join the Nu-
clear Club. Within twenty years,
countries like Egypt and Argen-
tina will likewise manufacture

them. Furthermore, countries go-
ing through the first virulent
stages of nationalism will be less
inclined to weigh consequences
to the same extent as more ma-
ture nations. It is an axiom ‘of
power politics that only equality
produces respect, a condition
reached by the United States and
Russia. It may still be that Rus-
sia could restrain China, as
America might France; but once
the many little nations possess
nuclear weapons, the task of seri-
ous negotiation will be very much
more difficult. ;'

Insofar as the immediate future
is concerned, it seems to me that
Messrs, Gollancz and Toynbee
share a degree of intellectual ab-
straction akin to that state of in-
sanity known as disassociation.
We should never lose sight of the
fact that the Russians exhibit our
same anxieties and, due to their
recent war experiences, probably
to a larger extent. A principal rea-
son why we have not yet had
war, and it is unlikely we will, is
that Russia and America, because
of their mutual anxieties, under-
stand and respect each other's
paramount zones of influence.
Our action in Guatemala, our
lack of action in Hungary and
Suez clarified the world situation
to a large extent. In effect, we
chalked off East Europe in not
supporting the Hungarian revolt
and the Middle East in rejecting
the Suez invasion. The Russians
likewise know that we will not
tolerate their action in West Eu-
rope and the Americas. If we can
clarify the remaining twilight
zones. by patient negotiation
(leaving both Germany and For-
mosa independent—the American
aim; but incapable of offensive
warfare—the Russian aim), there
is sound reason to believe nuclear
disarmament would very soon re-
sult. Patient, ever-careful patient
negotiation, not abstract appeals
to morality, religion and pacifism,
is the only realistic road to that
success which every moral, re-
ligious and pacific man so ar-
dently desires.

11

Dream and Reality: Aspects of American Foreign Policy
by Louis J. Halle. Harper. 327 pp. $5.00.

A foremost interpreter of American foreign policy here takes
the long view that American policy is inseparable from Ameri-
can history, both as it reflects the structure of our national
experience and as it illustrates the common historical fate of
mankind—the eternal conflict between illusory hope and factual
reality.

The Prerequisites for Peace
by Norman Thomas. W. W. Norton. 189 pp. $2.95.

Disengagement, disarmament, and the establishment of world
order through the UN are not only necessary but possible,
Mr. Thomas believes, and he presents a detailed outline of
how we may achieve these ends on the basis of a "mutuality
of interests" among the great powers.

Protracted Conflict

by Robert Strausz-Hupé, William R. Kintner, James E. Dougherty,
Alvin J. Cottrell. Harper, 203 pp. $3.95.

“The significance of Communism as a doctrine and a tech-
nique of conflict" is revealed and explained by four members
of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. The authors analyze
the purposes and principles that lie behind Communist strategy,
its chief targets in the Cold War, and its methods of operation.

The West in Crisis
by James P. Warburg. Doubleday. 192 pp. $3.50.

The crisis of the Western world, as Mr. Warburg sees if,
derives not from the external threat of Communist imperialism 4
but from the failures and weaknesses of Western policy which
have rendered us so vulnerable to that threat: “not the enemy
without, but the enemy within." :

The Ecumenical Era in Church and Society
Edited by Edward J. Jurji. Macmillan. 238 pp. $5.00.

A symposium in honor of Dr. John A. Mackay, pioneer in the
ecumenical movement, this volume brings together a number
of essays by distinguished spokesmen of world Christianity
on aspects of in relation to contemporary issues.

- Foundations of the Responsible Society

by Walter G. Muelder. Abingdon Press. 304 pp. $6.00.

In the course of this investigation of Christian social ethics |
in the various spheres of the law, the state, economic life, |
work and vocation, the family, social welfare, and the world |
community, Dr. Muelder analyzes some of the most profound |
problems and tensions of modern society.

worldview

A JOURNAL OF RELIGION AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
volume 2,no.7 / July 1959

WORLDVIEW is published monthly by The Church Peace Union.
Subscription: $2.00 per year.
Address: 170 East 64th Street,

New York 21, N. Y.

EDITORIAL BOARD
William Clancy, Editor

A. William Loos John R. Inman William J. Cook

&
Editorial Assistant, Arlene Croce

CONTENTS
Editorial Comment
In the Magazines
Africa in Transition
William Persen

War as a Moral Problem
Walter Millis

BOOKS
Britain and the Bomb by Daniel M. Friedenberg.. 10
Current Reading

Opinions expressed in WORLDVIEW are those of the authors, and
not necessarily of The Church Peace Union.

Worldview
170 East 64th Street
New York 21, N. Y.