ustxtxb_obs_1963_03_07_50_00009-00000_000.pdf

a normal part of any study of war, Congress passed a law against them doing it. Congress has set up an agency for disarmament, but has given it little money; there are many who do not want it to act. With 10 to 12% of our gross national product spent yearly directly in military affairs and almost 50% of our economy indirectly dependent on our military efforts, we are fast approaching the point beyond which we cannot turn back the forces for war in this countryif we have not already passed it. The damaging “expose” done on Ambassador Stevenson in the aftermath of the Cuban quarantine leads one to wonder whether the military forces in this country have not al ready attained such ascendancy that it would be impossible for us to return to purely peaceful objectives in foreign and domestic policy. Our overflights and the blockade deliberately violated international law and our own respect for the concept of sovereignty. Through the abortive Cuban invasion effort, as well as the lies told in connection with the overflights and the blockade, we are seriously impeaching our integrity as an honest and truthful nation and our ability to appeal to the peoples of other lands over the heads of their national leaders. FINALLYand this worries me a great dealthe ability of the people effectively to participate in the national decision-making process in foreign affairs is constantly being undermined; it may actually have been destroyed. The last presidential campaign is a good example. Both candidates said foreign policy was the basic issue of the campaign. Yet we found that discussions of Quemoy, Matsu, and the Pescadores might adversely affect the foreign policies of the Eisenhower adminis tration and disrupt diplomatic relations; involved risks of disclosing secret matters; and might unduly limit or define the new President’s freedom of action upon his election. We found that Cuba could not be debated intelligently. Mr. Nixon felt that he was forced to take an artificial position so as not to disclose the invasion efforts even then in the making. We were told of a great missile gap that was really non-existent, and we heard of a super-secret poll of our prestige in the world which Mr. Eisenhower insisted on keeping secret. In truth there was no debate, and the voter could make no intelligent, informed decision in that area. I conclude the people have no voice in foreign policy decisions. To preserve the simplest, most basic of all our concepts, the concept of the democratic process, and to justify any hope of avoiding nuclear suicide, the people must find means to discuss meaningfully and without fear of being called traitors, unAmerican, disloyal, or unpatriotic the vast and related subjects of citizenship, sovereignty, foreign policy, human relations, international rights and responsibilities, people-to-people relationships, concepts of power, and all the rest. From such discussions, we must formulate and evaluate new concepts of principle and attitude: the identity of all peoples in humanity; world citizenship; the rule of law in international affairs; life beyond surrender; world against national values; and many other concepts not now even known or guessed at. WHAT CAN WE DO as individuals, now, to avoid the next world war? Immediately, as citizens vitally interested in our lives and our children and their lives, we can : 1. Demand participation in the decision-making processes that would lead in the future to this country exploding an atomic or nuclear bomb GETTING READY Rep. Dick Cory, Victoria, has introduced in the Texas legislature a “public succession” bill to provide for passing governmental powers on to survivors in event of nuclear attack. It applies to state, county, and municipal governments, including fire, power, and drainage districts. Mullinax Russell Lee unilaterally and initially in a war effort. 2.Help keep before the world at all times a set of clear and well defined limits, violation of which would provoke nuclear attack from usthe limits expressing principles for peace to which all peace loving nations can subscribe and on which they can rely. 3.Uphold the freedom of people in this country to travel and communicate with people in any other country on a people-to-people basis without governmental interference and without any obligation on this government to protect such people from abuse by the governments of other countries, except as accorded to our embassies and legations by agreement or treaty. 4.Demand, of our own representatives in Washington, the truth about the “top secret” war in Viet Nam. 5.Begin immediately to support bringing our boys home from Europe. They have served their purpose, restoring order and prosperity to the European community.; the European states can now adequately police and protect themselves; and our troops would be a lesser provocation and a greater deterrent when held in this country ready for deployment. 6.Strongly support all efforts to keep disarmament negotiations and disarmament studies by agencies and government progressing. 7.Stay out of the ground and walk upright on the face of the earth with our fears in control. 8.Seize every opportunity to support all efforts of the church, judiciary, government, or associations of nations to strengthen the rule of law in international affairs. Until and unless the people, as individuals, do these things, war for this country and all countries is indeed inevitable. March 7, 1963 9