MINUTES THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 1953 UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, Washington, D.C. The committee met in executive session at 10:30 a.m. in the committee room. Present: Chairman Wiley, Senators Smith, Hickenlooper, Tobey, Green, Fulbright. The committee met informally with Jean Monnet, president of the High Authority of the Coal and Steel Community of Europe; Franz Etzel, vice president of the Community; and Dirk Spierenburg, the Dutch member of the Community. For record of proceedings, see printed hearing. The committee recessed at 12:30 p.m., to meet again at 2:30 p.m. in the committee room. (458) REPORT BY THE DIRECTOR, MUTUAL SECURITY AGENCY THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 1953 UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, Washington, D.C. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:55 p.m., in the Foreign Relations Committee room, U.S. Capitol, Senator Alexander Wiley (chairman), presiding. Present: Senators Wiley, Smith of New Jersey, Tobey, Langer, George, Green, Fulbright, and Sparkman. Also present: Dr. Wilcox, Dr. Kalijarvi, Mr. Marcy, and Mr. Holt, of the committee staff. The CHAIRMAN. The meeting will come to order. Will you have a chair, Governor. I suggest you sit right there so that we may hear you better. We are glad to see you back from Europe so chipper. I presume that you have a great deal of valuable information to give us, and we are just hungry for some real stuff, so carry on in your own way and tell us what's what. STATEMENT OF HAROLD E. STASSEN, DIRECTOR, MUTUAL SECURITY AGENCY Mr. STASSEN. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen of the committee, I am pleased to return and meet with the committee again. I might open up with a very concise presentation of some of the highlights of our observations, and then respond to your requests. I made the journey, as you know, with the Secretary of State, under his leadership, and particularly looked into the economic and defense support aspects and the relative fundamental facts, with the view to doing our part in the implementing of the foreign policy and the defense policy of the country under the leadership of the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs. My staff prepared a few charts which I think might first, very quickly, give some highlight facts that I find are of basic significance in any economic or defense or social aspects consideration of the whole area. I will step up to the charts. 1 To the Middle East. A LOW STANDARD OF LIVING IN THE AREA We all know that there is a very low standard of living in the area. I think it is well in any reanalysis to think of just how low it is and how it is relatively one group to the other. That whole Near East and Southwestern Asia area that we traveled through, the average standard of living is just a bit over $70 per year per capita, Israel being the highest with $368, Turkey $134, Lebanon, $125, Egypt $121, Pakistan $67, India about $ and the other Arab countries as a whole about $70. The CHAIRMAN. How do you arrive at that? Senator GREEN. What is the basic standard against which these are measured? Mr. STASSEN. It is an analysis which is made from all available statistics of the way in which the people live, the amount of turn over. Senator GREEN. I mean, is it in relation to our own standards? Mr. STASSEN. In relation to dollars per year. In comparison our own is $2,000 per capita per year, so that you have got that comparison, and of course, as many of you know from journeys out there, the overwhelming majority of the people are living in the most object poverty in these villages. THE ISRAELI CASE Senator Green. Is Israel that much ahead of all of the others! Mr. STASSEN. Yes, there is much more industrialization and mercantile activity in Israel than any of these other countries, in proportion. You have in mind you have less than 2 million population and a considerable activity that has been developed of an industrial and mercantile nature. Senator FULBRIGHT. A big investment of funds. Mr. STASSEN. A big investment of funds, that is right. Senator SMITH. Is that a study made by the United Nations of the area or something we have done? Mr. STASSEN. We have gone over the U.N. figures, but it checks with the U.N. statistics. Senator SMITH. It is a composite? Mr. STASSEN. Yes. Senator SMITH. Your Department has done that? Mr. STASSEN. Well, we draw of course from other sources like the U.N. sources, but every indication, while you can always argue about exchange rates and much of your statistics are rather unreliable in this part of the world, yet this as well as anything does give you a relative position. COMPARISONS WITH OTHER COUNTRIES Senator TOBEY. What is the comparative figure for the Soviets! Mr. STASSEN. Nobody has accurate statistics on the Soviet, of course, and one of your big questions there is how you count in all the slave labor. I think the best estimates that are made are something under 300 and something over 200 per capita per year. Senator TOBEY. And Italian? Mr. STASSEN. Italy is 575, as I recall it. Italy is the lowest of the European nations, and the United Kingdom and France get up around 1,300; not quite as high as 1,300. That is the highest of the European countries. Senator LANGER. What is West Germany? Mr. STASSEN. West Germany, as I recall, has climbed up pretty close to 1,000 now. It has been coming up quite rapidly. ARMED FORCES The men under arms is the next significant fact to take a broad look at. These, of course, include what we would call essentially in many instances internal security forces. Many of them are armed with very obsolete arms and they are not well armed, but this gives some sense of the defense effort of these countries. India, with that huge population, has the largest number, about 448,000 men under arms." Turkey is the next largest number, but in relationship to population, of course, the greatest defense effort, 442,000; and Pakistan has a very substantial defense effort with their resources, 354,000; Iran, 153,000; Egypt, 86,000; Israel, 60,000; Iraq, 56,000; Syria, 42.000; Jordan, 22,000. That gives you some relative position of their approach to defense, men under arms in thousands. FRONTIERS WITH THE U.S.S.R. AND CHINA Here is the next significant fact, I think, from our standpoint, to this area-is their frontier with the U.S.S.R. and China. You have involved from the Dardanelles on down through East Pakistan to Burma, 5,000 miles of frontier with the Soviet Union and Communist China. Turkey, with 1,000 miles, including the Caspian Sea; Iran with 1,300 miles; Afghanistan, 900; West Pakistan, 50; Kashmir, 600; India, 800; Nepal, 500. The great share, of course, of this, is natural barriers, with mountains, the Himalayas and other mountains. Senator GREEN. Is Iran there? Oh, yes. Mr. STASSEN. Iran is right here, 1,300 miles. It is a very important border area, and of course, part of it is open to the sea. Part of this is quite open. In Iran you have got the heavy mountain passes down through here between Teheran and the oil area, that oil area being down in here, from a defensive standpoint. Of course, this northern area as far as natural barriers are concerned can be run over quite easily, but this fact of this tremendous frontier with the Soviet, you have in mind, of course, this is the Tibet area in here; this is Sinkiang and this is the more or less central area of Russia, with the Urals up in here, Moscow up over here. That is an important fact to keep in mind in this part of the world. RELIGIOUS MAKEUP The next important thing, never to lose sight of, is what is the religious background of these over a half billion of peoples in this part of the world. Hindu is the major group, 284 million in India, of course, with Moslems very substantial, 200 million, and of those, 44 million are Arabs. We sometimes tend to forget that the Moslems as a whole are much larger in number than the Arab component of the Moslems. but the Arabs, of course, are living predominantly in this very sensitive oil region where such a tremendous oil resource is found. In the whole area there are about 8 million Christians, 5 million Buddhists, 4 million Sikhs, 2 million of the Jewish people, almost entirely now in Israel, and about 41 of Jaines, Parsees and all other religions, but we bring this fact in because everything economic, defense, social, is affected by these religious backgrounds of these people. It is on the one hand a tremendous bulwark against infiltration and subservience to Communism, and on the other hand it leads to many of these very bitter situations between countries. COLONIAL HISTORY The other broad fact in our own plans and moves which we have in mind is the former jurisdictions of these peoples which affect so much of the present controversy. This is a former British-French jurisdiction in the area. The reddish color is former British. The earliest country to come out from under that in that respect is Egypt, February 28, 1922. It came out from under British juris diction. The next is Iraq, 1932. Then you have India and Pakistan, August 15, 1947. You have Ceylon, 1948; Israel, May 15, 1948. Then you have the two French former mandates and jurisdiction. Lebanon and Syria. Of course, you have the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with certain Sheikdoms in British jurisdictions along the fringe here which are not defined, Persia with its earlier independent Kingdom, Afghanistan. Senator TOBEY. Governor, what is the feminine of Sheik? Mr. STASSEN. I do not believe that they are presented, so I don't know that they give them title. Usually where there is a Sheik there is not any great public recognition of women. Senator TOBEY. Those charts are well done. Mr. STASSEN. Thank you. My staff desires the credit for them. STRONG AND WEAK POINTS I think, as the Secretary of State emphasizes, that from our mutual security approach in the area, Turkey has made tremendous progress. Their economic buildup is coming forward. Their defense forces are being well trained and armed with increasingly modern weapons. There is quite a strong and determined position there. You know the internal controversy, the weaknesses through here. You know of the Iran-U.K. position. |