90. Memorandum of a Conversation, Department of State, Washington, December 10, 19571
SUBJECT
- The Soviet Union
PARTICIPANTS
- Secretary Dulles
- Senator Fulbright
- Mr. Macomber
The Secretary alluded to the discussion he had with Senator Fulbright the previous Tuesday at the bipartisan meeting2 and said that he would like to explain his views regarding the Soviet Union in somewhat greater detail. The Secretary said he did not believe he would convert the Senator to his thinking but he hoped that as a result the Senator would have a better understanding of his viewpoint.
The Secretary said he thought we had a three-fold task in connection with meeting the threat of the Soviet Union. The Secretary did not for a minute underestimate the military strength of the Soviet Union. The first requirement was to have a military capability which would deter the Soviet Union from initiating a hot war. The [Page 188] second task was to be able to counter probing or “nibbling” operations by the Soviet Union in the form of small-scale aggressions around the periphery of the Sino-Soviet bloc The third task was to insure the economic progress of the underdeveloped areas in order to prevent the Soviets from taking over these areas by subversion.
The Secretary pointed out that the second and third tasks were heavily dependent on the Mutual Security Program.
The Secretary said that if we could succeed in these three objectives he believed that there eventually would be a change in the Soviet Union which would transform it into the kind of nation with whom we could have good relations in normal international society. He said he was not speaking of a revolution but of evolution. The Secretary said that it had been the experience of history that totalitarian regimes which existed on repressive measures in regard to its own people could only survive as long as they continued to achieve victories abroad. If they were denied such victories they were inevitably forced to release these repressive measures, become less authoritarian, and yield to the internal wishes of their people. The Secretary pointed out that when Khrushchev was asked why it took so long for the Soviets to do anything about the evils of Stalinism, the reply had been that it was impossible to do anything as long as Stalin was achieving great successes abroad. The Secretary thought that Khrushchev today needed these victories as much as Stalin had in the past. The Secretary pointed out that Khrushchev had many troubles at home. He alluded to the unrest in the satellites, the abandonment of the five-year plan, and the turnover in leadership. He thought the evolutionary process was even now beginning, pointing out that Russia was no longer ruled by one man or even by the Presidium but rather the locus of power appeared to be now in the larger Central Committee. (At this point Senator Fulbright interjected to say that it looked to him as though the power had descended for a time to the Central Committee but was rapidly ascending again to one man.)
The Secretary stressed that he could not determine whether the change he predicted in the Soviet Union would be in five, twenty-five or fifty years but he was convinced that if the Soviets could be denied external victories that the change would inevitably come.
Senator Fulbright said that he was less optimistic than the Secretary in his appraisal of the future course of the Soviet Union. He said that this evolutionary process might take place some day but he did not think it was enough of a certainty for us to base our policy upon it. He was, in fact, very discouraged about the possibilities of dislodging the Communist leadership from power in any foreseeable period of time. They had control of all the political, [Page 189] military, economic, and the police resources and he did not see how they could be pried loose from these.
Senator Fulbright said that he had been enormously impressed by the implication of recent Soviet accomplishments and attached much greater significance to them than did the Secretary. He said he thought he was more “scared” of the present hot war potential of the Soviet Union than the Secretary was.
Senator Fulbright asked the Secretary what the effect of the Sputnik was abroad. The Secretary said the Sputnik had less effect abroad than it had in the United States. The Senator asked about its effect in the neutral areas. The Secretary replied that he had not seen recent reports but it was his impression that in some ways it helped the neutral areas in that the Soviets were considered the chief war makers in the world rather than the United States. The Secretary asked Mr. Macomber whether he had seen any reports regarding the Sputnik abroad. The latter said it was his impression that the preliminary reports indicated a growing hesitancy on the part of the neutral areas who had tended to lean toward the West to commit themselves in our direction. They seemed more anxious than before to wait a little longer to see whether the West or the Soviet Union would come out on top. On the other hand, Sputnik had tended to draw the Western European nations closer together and to the United States.
Reverting to his earlier theme, the Secretary stressed the importance of having a policy which envisioned a successful conclusion to our efforts. He said that the only logical and sound policy, if we accepted the Senator’s reasoning, would be preventive war. The Senator’s comment on this point was that regardless of logic a country like the United States with democratic institutions was incapable of initiating a preventive war.
[Here follows discussion of the Mutual Security Program.]