established beyond that allowed the United States to supply her outposts that were accessible only by roads through Soviet-occupied territory.

JAPAN

In the terms of the Potsdam Declaration,' defining the conditions for the Japanese surrender, Japanese military forces, after being completely disarmed, were to be permitted to return to their homes, "with [the] opportunity to lead peaceful [and] productive lives." On December 8, 1949, the U. S. S. R. signed the Geneva Prisoners of War Convention, setting forth the rights and obligations of countries holding prisoners of war.2

TASS, the official Soviet news agency, on May 20, 1949, declared that there were 95,000 Japanese prisoners of war in Soviet-held territory still awaiting repatriation. According to Japanese figures, an additional 376,929 Japanese were then still under Soviet control. The discrepancy is explicable either by continued detention of Japanese prisoners or an abnormally high death rate. The U. S. S. R. refuses to give any information on the matter and has walked out of Control Council meetings in which the problem was broached.

3. DEFENDING THE PEACE FROM SOVIET THRUSTS: Address by the Secretary of State, April 30, 1951 3

The common interest around which your organization is built is one which goes right to the heart of what we are trying to achieve in the world through our foreign policy.

Your organization is one of the major expressions of America's great productive power, and, though there may be differences of opinion about many things, I think all of us will agree that this great productive power of ours is one of the key factors, and perhaps the most important single factor, on which the peace of the world today depends.

Although we are blessed with the greatest productive capacity in all the world, we dare not forget that there are other important concentrations of industrial production in the world. Fortunately, most of the other important concentrations are in the hands of those who share our basic purposes. This means that a preponderance of industrial power is in the hands of nations who are trying to build, rather than destroy, international relationships based on the principles of the United Nations.

Now, your Government is asking you to devote a substantial share, and an increasing share, of this great productive capacity to turning

1 See A Decade of American Foreign Policy, pp. 49–50.

2 See Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, for the Protection of War Victims (Department of State publication 3938; 1950), pp. 84–161.

3 Delivered before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Washington, D.C.; Department of State Bulletin, May 14, 1951, pp. 766–770.

out items that contribute to the defensive strength of this and other free nations.

All of us wish that it were not necessary to do this. We would all much rather be turning out things that are creative and constructive, things that make life better for people, rather than weapons of war. And, we all wish that we could devote a larger portion of our energies to our great constructive programs to assist other free peoples to move toward better standards of living. This is the kind of thing we Americans traditionally prefer to do.

But instead, we are called upon to devote some 15 to 20 percent of our national output to the urgent necessities of military defense.

What I would like to discuss with you today is why this has become necessary and what it is this nation is seeking to do with this strength you are helping to build.

MENACE OF SOVIET THRUSTS

In the 51⁄2 years that have passed since the end of the war, the men who control the destinies of the Soviet Union have continued to press forward not only with the traditional territorial aspirations of Old Russia but also with the revolutionary aims for world rule of the Bolshevik conspiracy.

This is the threat which requires the rest of the world to build defensive strength.

By a combination of a ruthless control system over their own people and false promises to the discontented in many other lands, the men who run this vast conspiracy have been reaching out for more power. And, what is most important for us to understand is that they are reaching out for those critical centers of power which will give them leverage over all the rest.

The object of the Soviet reach for power in this period is to bring within the Soviet sphere of control two critical areas. One of these contains the great industrial capacity of Europe. The other is Asia with its resources, including the present and, more important, the potential industrial capacity of Japan.

With these areas under their control, the Soviet rulers believe that they could dominate the world. They would not only be in a strong position in the event of war but what also is just as important, they would be in a strong position to impose their will on the other parts of the world without having to fire a shot.

It is immediately clear that this would be a very dangerous condition for us and for all free people.

Now, even if we were to leave aside all the considerations of our friendship and concern for the people who would be enslaved in this expansion of Soviet power and were to take the narrowest view of our own national security, we would still be faced with that fact that these two thrusts by the Soviet power system would not be compatible with our national security. It is, therefore, the essential task of our defense program in the present period to prevent the Soviet system from adding the resources and the productive concentrations in Western Europe and in Asia to its own war-making machine. This is not

all that our defense program has to do, but it is, in broad strategic terms, the major task now required of it.

Let us now take a closer look at what we are doing, with the strength which you are helping to build, to meet these two major Soviet thrusts in Europe and in Asia.

MEETING THE THRUST IN EUROPE

One arm of our security effort is seeking to meet the Soviet thrust against Europe.

I am not going to review with you here all the details of the progress we are making under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the setting up of General Eisenhower's headquarters and staff, and the operation of our military and economic aid program, and the steps which show the growing cohesion and strength of the European nations. I know that these are familiar to you and that your organization has been following these programs closely.

What I do want to do is to step back and look at these efforts in the large, to see this European effort in great block poster colors, so that we can come away with a feeling for the whole pattern of what it is we are trying to do there.

In the large, the people of Europe, with our help, are trying to harness their growing economic strength to the urgent need for an effective defense system, so that they and their resources and their skills and their industrial plants will not, either through attack or through subversion, fall into the hands of the Soviet rulers.

Germany, as I indicated a moment ago, occupies a place of particular significance in this effort, because Soviet control over the Ruhr would put the Soviet rulers in a strong position to reach out for the rest of Europe.

The Soviet rulers have long understood this simple strategic fact. The whole point of the Soviet tactics in the talks among the deputy Foreign Ministers at Paris' has been to retard, and if possible to prevent, the strengthening of the Western European defense system. To do this, they have been trying to drive a wedge between the Allies by portraying themselves as the put-upon lovers of peace and by characterizing our defense measures as aggressive. În particular, they have been seeking to prevent the participation of Western Germany in the Western European defense system.

The increased shrillness of the Soviet representative in the Paris talks, Mr. Gromyko, is in a sense the measure of the progress of our defensive effort.

If we weren't getting anywhere with the European defense program, the Soviet representatives wouldn't be making a great noise about it. But as we make progress, as we eliminate the possibilities for easy conquest, we must be prepared for these propaganda blasts, for a war of nerves, for fake peace offensives.

It is one of the inescapable features of this situation that, as we

1 See joint declaration of June 21, 1951, by the American, British, and French Deputies; supra, p. 1793.

eliminate the weaknesses which invite aggression, the tensions and the dangers of the immediate period may increase.

Since the only alternative to this course would be to remain at a disadvantage and ultimately lose all, we have no choice but to plug ahead, building our combined strength as steadily and as rapidly as we can. That is the only way to work our way through this period of danger.

We have repeatedly said-and our record in these Paris discussions and on many previous occasions makes it clear that we mean what we say-that we are ready to negotiate in good faith now or at any time. But until we are met with equal good faith, and so long as this threat hangs over us, we cannot relax our efforts to build our common strength.

One advantage that the people of Europe start with in building this defensive strength is the remarkable rate of economic recovery they have achieved from the destruction of the war. Great credit is due the people of Europe for this achievement. It does not in any way diminish from the luster of their accomplishment for us to acknowledge the part our aid program has played in that recovery.

Our economic aid program, which was carried forward, appropriately under the name of the Marshall Plan, has been a tremendous success. Make no mistake about that. The evidence of Europe's mounting productive output is not only a testimony to our enlightened and unprecedented effort to assist the people of Europe in rebuilding their war-shattered economy but it is also, even from a narrow interpretation of our own self-interest, a good return on our investment in bolstering our national security.

The urgent problem that remains is to translate an adequate part of this economic potential into the tanks and the planes and the guns needed for defense.

A good start has been made in this direction. But the Soviet military preparations have been going on steadily since the war, and Soviet satellite forces are being built up rapidly, to add to the Soviet capability for intimidation and attack.

The best military minds of this country and of our European allies have been working to devise defense plans and create a defense program which will be adequate to the threat.

It is our goal to build a defense system which will inspire confidence among the people of Europe that they can prevent their homelands from being overrun. It is also our goal to attain a level of defense which will, together with our power, be sufficient to discourage the appetite for aggression altogether.

It will take time and great effort on the part of all of us to bring this European defense system to a level which approaches these necessary goals.

I would like to say a word here on the cost of our assistance to our allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in answer to suggestions I have heard that this aid is an extravagance which should be discontinued.

Purely in terms of the hard-headed question: How much security

will a dollar buy? It is evident that the aid we are furnishing our allies so multiplies our common security that it is in fact an economical use of resources.

Our aid is not only an addition to the billions of dollars now in the military budgets of the European countries-but it is often a multiplying factor. To take one example, 55 thousand dollars worth of copper and zinc supplied by us made possible the manufacture of 3.6 million dollars worth of antitank mines in Britain.

Or, in another case, 300 thousand dollars worth of machine tools made it possible for France to produce almost 14 million dollars worth of air frames.

Reduced to its simplest terms, our aid to Western Europe produces more security per dollar, faster, than we could possibly achieve ourselves. And, it is security which is vital both to us and to our European allies.

We are well aware that the rapid fulfillment of our common defense program is certain to affect the civilian life, not only of our own people but of all the people with whom we are allied.

Wherever careful planning and cooperation can moderate or equalize these burdens, we are endeavoring to bring this about.

This is all part of the complex but essential process by which the combined defense system is now taking shape.

Our progress up to this point has been sufficient, I believe, to justify our confidence that, with time and with effort, we can build the strength of this European defense system sufficiently to prevent the Soviet thrust in this direction from achieving its aim. To do so is necessary to peace and to our security.

THE PATTERN IN ASIA

Now, let us look at the other major Soviet thrust and at what we are doing about it.

The purpose of this thrust is to put the Soviet empire in a position to dominate all Asia, including control over Japan, with its already large production and its larger potentialities, with its skilled population and its strategic position. By linking the production of Japan to the manpower of China and the resources of Asia, the Soviet rulers would be in a strong position to redouble their pressure on the rest of the world.

To understand this purpose helps to make clear the meaning of the attack on Korea.

This attack, carried forward by satellite troops, was designed in the first instance to extend Communist control over the entire Korean peninsula.

To achieve this, they were willing to flout the authority of the United Nations, and they sought, in so doing, to weaken the political and moral position of the United Nations and of all the nations that are standing in the way of the Soviet ambitions.

Another purpose of this attack, which has made itself apparent, is to divert our attention from Europe by occupying us as fully as possible in Asia before our strength-in-being has been further built up.