611.00/2–951
The Secretary of State to Senator Tom Connally 1
Dear Senator Connally: Your letter of February 9, 1951,2 gives me opportunity to endorse explicitly and emphatically the [Page 1561] McMahon-Ribicoff resolution reaffirming the abiding friendship of the American people for all other peoples, including the peoples of the Soviet Union.
I wish to commend the legislative initiative in this vital matter. I hope that it will prove possible to have favorable action completed by the Congress in the near future. I am sending a similar letter2 to the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives.
Three aspects of the resolution impress me particularly.
The first is the voicing of the American people’s fervent, profound desire for peace. The resolution well expresses this as our goal now and ever. After taking note of the “terrible danger to all free peoples” as the circumstance compelling us reluctantly to rearm, the resolution affirms that we “desire neither war with the Soviet Union nor the terrible consequences of such a war”. It notes our preference “to devote our energies to peaceful pursuits”. It finds cogent support of this in our willingness “to share all that is good in atomic energy, asking in return only safeguards against the evil in the atom.”
I note that the resolution proclaims our aim not simply in the word “peace” but as “just and lasting peace”. It links this with “the dignity of man” and “the moral principles which alone lend meaning to his existence”. This concept is echoed in a reference to our determination to defend freedom.
It is well that the resolution makes clear that while we covet peace, we will not sell our souls for it. The peace we seek is not simply the absence of war but a sound and free collaboration among nations in a pattern of responsibility based on mutual respect. Peace in the first sense might be obtained by moral capitulation. Peace in the sense of our seeking can be achieved and held only by long, hard effort. We and our allies with us are determined to create that kind of peace. The goal would be brought incalculably nearer with help rather than hindrance from the Soviet Union.
[Page 1562]That brings me to the second point of special significance. It is well that in affirming our friendship for all peoples the resolution specifies the peoples of the Soviet Union. That special concern to express our friendship extends, I am sure, to all other peoples in Europe and Asia, including China, now suffering the tragedy of life behind the iron curtain. The great structure of peace which the United States and its allies are building will never be complete until all the peoples now under domination by the Kremlin participate in full partnership. Here, however, we speak specifically of the peoples within the Soviet Union proper.
Were the truth available to them and were they free to speak their minds and register their will, I am sure they would answer us in the same spirit.
They are capable and hard working peoples who love their homeland. We recall with fresh admiration their sacrifice and courage under the ordeals of the Nazi invasion. We are in constant awareness of their gifts to civilization and of their potential for still further gifts to enrich other cultures. The wall which the Soviet rulers, impelled by inward fears, maintain around their dominion represents tragedy for those within it. To those outside it represents real and deep deprivation.
It will be well if the peoples within can be caused to know that those beyond regard them, not with hostility as represented to them by their rulers, but with an inherent friendliness. It will be well for them to know that we understand the heavy burdens they bear, particularly in the circumstance that the course determined upon by the group in control bars them from the fruits of the secure and steady peace which they have so greatly earned.
As the third point of special significance, I refer to the closing lines of the resolution expressing the idea
“That the Congress request the President of the United States to call upon the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to acquaint the people of the Soviet Union with the contents of this resolution”
These words point to the opportunity which the men of the Kremlin have for setting affairs on a better course. No others are in such a position to say the words and perform the acts which can either strengthen or confound men’s hopes.
In a curious way they mirror themselves in their interpretation of the outside world. As monopolists of power, they profess to see in other governments the evil of monopoly. Dominated by hostility toward all contrasting systems, they profess to see that characteristic reflected in the systems they fear and hate. Maintaining in readiness armaments of such excess as to be explained not on a [Page 1563] basis of defense but only by the desire to intimidate others, they pretend to regard other nations as bent upon aggression.
If the men of the Kremlin could but conquer their inward fears and resolve their contradictions, if they could but bring themselves to the comity which is the foundation of peace, great burdens would be lifted from the shoulders of peoples everywhere.
A start could be made by letting the truth flow freely into and within the Soviet Union. This would mean an end to the practice of systematically distorting to the peoples of the Soviet Union the policies and intentions of governments free of its domination and the conditions of life beyond the Soviet orbit. It would reduce the dangerous disparity of public information now obtaining as within and beyond the span of Kremlin control.
In our own country, for example, the press, radio and television are free to present all sides of every issue. The Soviet case is fully reported. Attitudes and pronouncements originating in the capitals of the Soviet system are made freely available to our people, who are left free to resolve their wills on the basis of full possession of essential facts. In contrast, the monopolistic system of information within the Soviet area makes available only the ruling group’s side of every issue. There truth is made the servant of policy rather than policy the servant of truth.
It is significant, for illustration, that the plan for international control of atomic energy, approved in the United Nations General Assembly in the fall of 1948 by a vote of 40 to 6,3 was never imparted to the peoples who got their information through the Soviet monopoly. This plan for placing atomic energy under international control, limiting its uses to peaceful purposes and establishing an adequate system of inspection and control to neutralize its constructive potential, was opposed by the governments of the Soviet system. This fact has been withheld from the peoples within that system.
The same occurred with respect to the General Assembly Resolution on the Essentials of Peace, reaffirming the principles of the Charter and endorsed in 1949 by a unanimous vote of all nations other than those within the Soviet orbit.4 Its principles and the implications of the clear division on them have never been explained to the peoples behind the iron curtain.
The same applies to the action of the General Assembly last fall in support of the Resolution on Uniting for Peace. This plan for [Page 1564] strengthening the General Assembly with respect to security matters, supported by 52 nations, drew implacable hostility from the Kremlin and the governments under its control.5 The facts and their enormous implications have not been imparted by the Kremlin to the peoples whom it professes to represent.
These three examples chosen from many instances illustrate that the walls impeding the flow of information are also obstacles of crucial importance in the course to a sound and lasting peace.
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Addressed to Senator Connally in his capacity as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
Senator McMahon and Representative Ribicoff called on Secretary Acheson and Assistant Secretary McFall on March 15 to discuss the proposed content of the letter to be sent by the Secretary to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee regarding the position of the Department of State on the McMahon-Ribicoff Resolution (S. Con. Res. 11 and H. Con. Res. 57) expressing the friendship of the people of the United States for the people of the Soviet Union. Two draft letters prepared in the Department were discussed, and both McMahon and Ribicoff agreed on the desirability of the longer, more informal draft. McFall was given the responsibility of redrafting the letter in terms suitable to McMahon and Ribicoff. (Memorandum of conversation by Acheson, March 15, 611.61/3–1551)
The text of the letter printed here was released to the press on March 21 and was printed in Department of State Bulletin, April 2, 1951, pp. 556–557 together with the text of the proposed McMahon-Ribicoff Resolution.
For the text of the resolution as approved by both the Senate and the House of Representatives in June, see Document 786.
↩ - Not printed.↩
- Not printed.↩
- The reference is to the Resolution of the U.N. General Assembly of November 4, 1948.↩
- The reference is to the Resolution of the U.N. General Assembly of December 1, 1949.↩
- The reference is to the Resolution adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on November 3, 1950.↩