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East Germany, from which nuclear weapons would be barred. In February, 1958, the Soviet Union not only backed this proposal but offered to discuss reduction of foreign troops and conventional armaments in the zone. It agreed in principle to the idea of control and inspection in the zone. U.S. military leaders opposed the proposal because they felt U.S. troops and installations in Germany were the key to NATO and withdrawal from Germany would lead to abandonment of NATO and withdrawal from Europe.
If U.S. policy is indefinitely to be one of rearming West Germany and maintaining a military alliance with West Germany, then we should recognize that there is no hope of unification. This means either that we continue the present cold war with recurring crises over Germany or that we accept some stabilization of the post-war power situation. The apparent aims of Soviet policy now are to seek formal recognition by the U.S. of the Oder-Neisse line and of the East German state, and thus to acknowledge legally what already exists in fact. This seems to be the real object of the present Berlin crisis. Walter Lippman, after his interview with Khrushchev, stated that "More than anything else" Mr. Khrushchev "wants to give legal status to the East German state." Mr. Khrushchev's reason apparently is to get American and West German recognition of the status quo and current boundaries of Germany, Poland, and Russia in the hope that this will remove the danger of war to change these boundaries.
If we look only at the Berlin situation, we need to recognize the weaknesses as well as the strength of the Western right to be in Berlin. Legally none of the wartime or post-war agreements make West Berlin a part of West Germany, nor give the West the responsibility or right to supply the civilian population of West Berlin. We have only the right to maintain a garrison and have access to the city. We have, however, established the precedent for supplying West Berlin.
The Present Crisis
The Russian proposal to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany would inevitably either force the U.S. to deal with and hence recognize East Germany in order to be sure of access to Berlin, or else it would result in our ignoring East Germany on a diplomatic level and using military means if necessary to gain access to Berlin.
Insofar as the Russians are ready to ask for a unilateral peace treaty with East Germany, they are doing what the United States did in signing a separate peace treaty with Japan over Russian objections. The issue is therefore not a moral one in the sense that the Russians want to do something we haven't done or wouldn't do if it were to our advantage. The real issue is one of conflict of interests.
The present crisis arises not only from a renewed demand by the Russians for a settlement of the German problem but from the American response to that problem. This response has been essentially a military one, in which the Kennedy administration under strong Pentagon influence is either using a "brink of war" threat or actually plans to go to war. The ominous signs include the canvassing of allies about armed action, the unwillingness to come up with any reasonable alternative, the recent ascendancy in the White House of General Maxwell Taylor who was the first U. S. military commander in Berlin and who believes the Soviet Union can be fought on the ground in Europe, the decision by Republican Senators to avoid partisan comment, the Kennedy conflict with Under Secretary of State Bowles who in general is an advocate of a less militaristic policy, the plans for and talk of mobilization and declaration of a national emergency.
One difficulty in all of this is that each side expects the other to back down. We are, as C. L. Sulzberger of The New York Times put it, like two juveniles "driving two motor cars head on at each other to see which driver flinches first. . . This kind of strategy may be suitable to poker but it is scarcely wise. . . when the onrushing auto- mobiles are filled with H-bombs."
Other Factors Than The Crisis Itself
One little-noticed aspect of this crisis is the fact that it provides a convenient excuse for certain vested interests to achieve what would otherwise have been impossible. For example, the New York Times of June 10 reported that the Army would seek more men on active and reserve duty. "The Army thus placed itself in public opposition to the Defense Department and probably opened a fight within the Pentagon and Congress over Army manpower strength. Only this week Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell L. Gilpatric told a news conference that the Army would not need an increase in its present 875,000-man strength because of the increased mobilization readiness planned for its Reserve..."
But, on July 11, the New York Times reported that a Defense Department review was under way which could lead to further increase in the defense budget. On July 12, the New York Times announced that the Pentagon was weighing a call-up of Reserves.
On July 13, the New York Times reported that the Air Force was preparing a vigorous appeal to Congress for more bombers in spite of a previous decision by the Secretary of Defense advising against it.
Civil Defense is asking Congress for an increase from 100 million dollars to 300 million.
On July 17, the New York Times stated in a news report from Washington, which mentioned the reporter's conference with Pentagon officials, that "Any mobilization of reserves would be intended here as but one of a series of measures to alert the American people to the seriousness of international affairs. However, mobilization would have a practical purpose too."
In other words, the American people need to be "educated" by the military!
The military has certainly had a strong hand in shaping American response to the present crisis. The New York Times of July 12 reported that Deputy Secretary of Defense Gilpatric said that the President had received many proposals for dealing with the Berlin situation, including various ones from the Pentagon. "These proposals, he said, were narrowed down to certain specific possible courses of action at a week-end conference of the President, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Mr. McNamara (Secretary of Defense) and General Maxwell D. Taylor, the White House military representative.
"The Pentagon's assignment now, Mr. Gilpatric continued, is for the Joint Chiefs and the service secretaries to determine whether the existing force structure would permit adoption of favored plans; and what new demands, particularly in defense appropriations, must be made upon Congress."
In the press there has hardly been any mention of the impact of greater appropriations and a call-up of reserves on the present high level of unemployment which the present administration has been unable to solve by other means.
But the New York Times in its July 17 issue revealed that "the Department of Labor has carried out since the days of the Eisenhower Administration, a campaign to educate employers throughout the United States about the possibilities of a mobilization." Evidently the Kennedy Administration was thinking of possible military mobilization long before the present crisis developed.
Whether or not this crisis is an opportunity certain vested interests have been looking for, it does seem to this writer as if the current military aspect of the crisis has an artificial tone to it. Meanwhile American mobilization looks dangerous to the rest of the world, as if American military leaders may be eager for a showdown, even if it means nuclear holocaust. In any event, as the French have pointed out, "the use of an Allied armed convoy would be interpreted by the world as the first act of war..." (June 1, 1961, New York Times, James Reston column) In other words, it would be aggression by the West for invading East Germany.
Some Questions
Why does the United States persist in always letting the Russians seize the initiative? Why is our response always or chiefly the military one? If the present division of Germany is to our liking, why not accept de jure what we have accepted de facto? This in itself would solve much if not all of the present crisis. If we don't like the present division, why don't we propose our own solution, but one that might be acceptable to Russia and the two Germanies as well?
Until intelligent civil diplomacy supersedes military considerations in Washington it may be that our only hope of averting the logic of our military policy is to insist on placing the controversy in the lap of the United Nations and our hope for world peace in the hands of the nations not directly involved in Berlin.
In the meantime there are some forces in the Senate who thus far have seemed reluctant to write Kennedy and the Pentagon a blank check. Among these appear to be Senator William Fulbright, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Majority Leader Mike Mansfield; Wayne Morse; possibly Hubert Humphrey, as well as others. Their hands could be strengthened and some vocal leadership encouraged by a flood of mail to each Senator.
In any event the destruction of nuclear war would be so great and the likelihood of an initial limited war expanding into nuclear war so real that concerned Americans should not take a chance on the Russians backing down nor on America getting so far out on the limb that we can't adopt any other alternative than a course that might result in the destruction of Western Europe, Russia, and ourselves as well.
Dr. John Swomley, Jr. is Associate Professor of Social Ethics and Philosophy at the Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Mo. He is the author of several volumes, including "America, Russia and the Bomb" and "The Road to War."