Teach-in on Vietnam; Highlights, part twenty two

Now. I if I understood Dr. Fleming correctly I would take it that is shall we say not fully convinced yet that the U.S. government has been following a an especially wise or enlightened foreign policy for the last 20 years. The indictment I'm afraid is a bit too broad to come to grips with on an item by item basis. Indeed I. Thought for a moment that I hadn't been around for the past 20 years. I had certain impressions about the post-war world which apparently were illusory but under the circumstances I had nothing to do but to share with you a few of the illusions that I had suffered about the course of history and the post-war world. I did have the illusion that this

really world affairs really are and should not be viewed in the. Context of good guy and bad guy. Apparently we're the bad guys and I never thought the other fellows were all good guys. I never thought it was a case of choosing between a pure black and pure white. I had the impression though that we that they really quite a number of shades of gray and that there's quite a distinction to be made between them and that one can make a distinction between. I even had the impression that there's a certain distinction running through history through the history wars that there are two faces two wars that in most cases there's been an aggressor and a defender and that there's an important distinction made between them since the days when milk is the stood in the plane of

marathon and say Greek civilization and at the time we all stood up against Hitler and Tojo. And I would include Stalin. I thought that distinction could be made. Perhaps it was rather important to make. I've had I've also had certain other impressions. That there was in fact. A hostile power loose in this world that was rather an aggressive power. That is a matter of fundamental dogmatic faith and belief. It sought to destroy every institution and every value that I thought we were rather fond of in the western world. I had an impression that this power moves them forces into Iran in 1946 and then moves and forces down from both Gary on the Thracian border and exercise and divisions across the Turkish

border and made some claims and some Turkish provinces and that they were implicated in a revolution in Greece and provided sanctuary for some revolutionaries there and that they then mounted an aerial blockade of Berlin and might have had something to do with the invasion of South Korea back in 1950. These were some impressions I had had about the post-war world and they have enabled me. To make a certain choice. I thought that among the shades of gray. Perhaps the US was a little bit a little bit lighter in color perhaps than the other side. Now I've had some other impressions not related to confrontations to military movements. I sort of remember in my illusory life

that in 1948 somebody proposed a Marshall Plan which was. Described as the most generous act in history. And then there was something called the Point for program and that this was expanded into foreign aid programs all over the world that the one side proposed say the Atoms for Peace program and the Food for Peace program and the Alliance for Progress project. But well I had these impressions and I thought these were all you know rather favorable rather honorable rather respectable policies for the U.S. to be following. I have another impression. Indeed I have had the impression that for the past the recent years the United States has been working to try to help establish a decent

legal system of international order. And incidentally a workable one. I thought that the the US had been out front in forming the United Nations and that we had supported it perhaps as no other member has supported all their peacekeeping operations that we've in fact invented most of the specialized agencies that they're set up to conduct aid programs around the world. We've invented them. We supported them. So I thought we had. I had a feeling that we've been trying to build a system of water in which nations increasingly would settle there would maintain order with their own neighbors on a bilateral basis through treaties and joint ventures and things that were a cooperative and helpful to both sides. Indeed that's the way most of the world

has conducted relations but that doesn't keep the peace very well. So we've been working through regional organizations to help create peacekeeping machinery and not only that. But to build the institutions that make the peace worth keeping common markets common training institutions co-operative programs of all kinds. At least that was my impression. And so at these three levels of bilateral relationships and at regional levels and at the global level at the United Nations. I had the impression that the United States role its ins. Had been working rather hard to create a viable system of world order based not a toll on power but on consent. But I. Perhaps as I say have been under some illusion this is what's been going on for the past 20 years. I'd like to ask Mr. Deutsch to respond to

this in any way that he wishes. Mr.. I should like to plead to what was originally described. As the topic of our seminar. That is the political and moral consequences of the Cold War. Dr Fleming has dealt with that side of the problem and I would supplement or perhaps present my view from a somewhat different angle. I am I am surprise and a little worried to my dick. You can view that. Representative. Of the American administration takes of the repercussions of American policy in the

world. It is not I suggest a question of President to the world in terms. Of. A guru the guy guy and the bad guy. Not at all. Although. In human character that exists a curious compound some times of the go bad guy namely Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And I suggest to you that the world outside. Sometimes I see America in puzzlement and what what is a compound crocodile not a bad guy but the curious mixture of Jekyll and Hyde. We observe in the outside world the struggle

the path of war of rationality and irrationality in American policy and we are very often made by the power and the strength of the Russian element and by its calm sometimes calm. The complete coming to the top. Of course. The world is full of compound characters and Russia especially Stalinist Russia and post-communist Russia and Russia today also presents a kind of a Jekyll and Hyde. But it is a fact. That in large parts of the world we have the impression that the change in Russia is one of the reassertion. Of Jackyl that is of the reassertion. Of the essentials A

healthy. And promising idealistic element of the Russian revolution against the Stalinist high that was so long gone. On top of the Soviet Union and I'm afraid to say anti-icing you said and that's. That we very often have the impression in the outside world. That in America. The traditional Jeckell varnishes more and more of and high is on top of. It. If your friends give you in the State Department your foreign friends give you a different impression of what is going on in the world than I am afraid they are misleading you. They are creating for you what kind of a fool's paradise. And which

you believe yourself to be loved. By the outside world order and the right to vote the world's gratitude. And I think it would be safe for from your point that you should realize the true state of feeding. Now I spoke about this struggle between rationality and rationality in the American political mentality as we see it at least in Western Europe. I must say that when Professor Fleming spoke of Fortress America I couldn't help thinking of those US. When the world placed so much hope on America us. Ending its

isolationism and on America. The United States embracing an internationalist point of view. I did not belong to those who had very many very high hopes or evolutions on this account. But I think I am right in saying that we have to let the whole thing good up in 1945 and in the years after all prolate. For one thing. And then I see the hope you would hope I include. Even studying the Soviet Union one prayed for one thing that America should be progressive internationalist not isolationist. What has happened since. Is a process of tremendous Luzhin man with what passes. As American International

because what passes what do you think is American internationalism. Appeals to so many non Americans. I said this notion and a culture of internationalism. Well. I am sorry to have to say this as a foreigner speaking but all too often the world gains the image of America. As. The great power all with the big stick. And the big stick is after all not an invention of an empty American bought the car was coined by an American president. That America is owed all of the great power with the big stick and talking loudly against the advice of an

American president. I think that it is true to say that Western Europe and America very rapidly losing a common language. A common language because we are realizing more and more clearly that American intervention and intervention takes various forms economic political ideological and in the last instance military that American intervention takes more and more of the form of dictates and dictates which aim at boosting bolstering up of all conservative elements in the world of all reactionary elements in the world that American policy is committed to the

preservation of the social status quo even to have that status quo does not desire to survive 24 hours. We Europeans like to think in terms of our own European history and we see an analogy between NATO and between the role that America is playing and the talk and the holy alliance of the 19th century and to hold alliance of the 19th century that destroyed Napoleon and wanted under the ruin of the Napoleonic empire to restore the old pre-Revolutionary all and to keep in being the feudal old old old war. The rest of Europe. I think that all too often we see in this

American Statesman the modern matter of weeks matter because you remember was that great. Great Austrian statesman whose name symbolized the whole conservatism and the reactionary conduct of the talk of the 19th century. I think. That it isn't a matter of chance. That General de Gaulle in France. Voices the anti-American sentiment. I am no admirer of the Gold who's to me Dick a dictator. But General de Gaulle. No. What evokes. An echoing response in the hearts of millions of Frenchmen. He is after you. And unfortunately it is

true that for a variety of reasons his anti-American line. Gave. Him. An enormous response among the French nation and yet not so long ago the French will come American help. We're delighted to receive Marshall Aid but very soon they discovered that unfortunately that generosity was not above suspicion. With the aid went all sorts of political strings beginning with the first string that the Communist Party must be ostracized and ejected from the government politicians in which to marshal aid groups. Right from the beginning that America is using its economic power to dictate political terms and to dictate them in a manner

calculated to restore capitalism in Europe. In. Italy. Of course the Italian government. Has expressed only quite recently its endorsement of many can. But if I suggest to you Mr. Wilson that if American representative in Italy I have just come from Italy now. If American representatives in Italy are reposted as I hope they do in Paris gently concerning the state of mind of the talian people they would report to Washington that that is a very wide discrepancy between what foreign ministers

on that visits to the Capitals say are in diplomatic language and what the great mass of the talian people feel about the crisis in Vietnam about America's role in the whole history of the Cold War. That is. Teaching. People. Western Europe is sick of the Cold War and because they're afraid that American statesmanship consists in prescribing all the time the same medicine that produces this. Extraordinary sickness. I think in Eastern Europe also. In the study also. Where. The

disillusionment with Stalinism. Was and still is. So Sylvia. Where did people's rights. Even the successors of studying. What they distrust even more. Because of course they also represented a distorted form of socialism. In the east. Probably the pro-American feeling is much stronger than in Western Europe. And. Eastern European Jews are terrified of what American diplomacy does. They are terrified. To see. That. United States consider us a conservative western Germany and Western Germany of the magnates of the rule of the crops and the.

West Germany that once used Naziism. The heavy industrial east of the world that day that the United States considers then as its allies as its most reliable allies in the world and that once again the military power of Germany is rising from the ashes being resurrected by America and that German military is once again dreaming dreams and reaching out for nuclear weapons. Do you. Can you imagine that would work know Eastern European and Eastern Europeans always Europeans including the damn communists which works and

they watch. This development. What they think what they feel about America America's role in this politics. They feel that the United States is letting them down in the most horrible and terrifying manner. So. I I'm speaking too long. I just want to talk only one problem and that is the impact of Viet Nam and the impact of American policy on the Raso on the Rastle controversy. I already spoke in the morning that their reckless attempt to drive a wedge wedge between Russia and China is already producing and in fact contrary to that intended by American diplomacy may I

say now. In illustration of this statement. I think that the first crises in the Bay of Tonkin took place the first. American intervention spring spectacular American intervention took place last August. If I'm not mistaken only two months later Khrushchev fell. And I wonder Mr. Wilson whether your colleagues and superiors in the state department and in the White House are aware of this what contribution your hopes your advocates of policy have made two steps over step one of the reasons for steps overthrown was the crises in Vietnam. First off the man who preached a rapprochement with America

through stuff the Mac was Mallat said to him its most important critique and antagonised. Discredited stuff advertised in the communist world. The good sense. Of American policy. The rush the existence operation element in American policy and on the rational element in American policy. And there came the punching crisis to disprove him to peddle old communists and to tell him to evil steps only colleagues in Moscow that it is the Russian element in American policy that is gaining the upper hand. And I think that you are underrating now in America the extent to which your so called for war policy in Vietnam has already been tried. The Russians. And the Chinese into

each other. Of course there is friction among them. They still quarrel but they try to keep them from because they feel that for the time being they feel that they must send out their own hawks. To meet the American hopes that American policy must be met by a communist. See that is the result. I think in a lot of the latest American war on this and I want to say. That. Sometimes. Threats are old terminated in American official pronouncements. I should not quote the pronouncement each of you know which which statement I am referring to. American threats are all permeated with American offers of aid

and but they are all telling me that in such a way that reminds one of our famous German points that was on the still to my brew design. Gosh. Dear shade line which in a free English translation you would be and if you don't want to be my brother and how I'm going to smash your skull. This is this. This is what some of the office of aid as an alternative to bombs. In any case I think that the world is more or more fees that their current pensions crisis

of the Cold War and the threats of a nuclear are on the collations so far the all of mankind are perhaps too high a price to pay even for the most generous economic aid from the United States. That statement was by Isaac Deutscher of London England. You have been listening to a portion of the national teaching on Vietnam Eldin Washington DC on Saturday May 15th 1965. The teaching was conducted by the university committee for a public hearing on Vietnam. It was structured as the confrontation between academic critics of current U.S. policies in Vietnam and supporters of those policies. This program was prepared by WMU F.M. the American University in Washington D.C.. This is the national educational radio network