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The Port Huron Statement
What are the governing policies which supposedly justify all this human
sacrifice and waste? With few exceptions they have reflected the
quandaries and confusion, stagnation and anxiety, of a stalemated nation
in a turbulent world. They have shown a slowness, sometimes a sheer
inability to react to a sequence of new problems.
Of these problems, two of the newest are foremost: the existence of
poised nuclear weapons and the revolutions against the former colonial
powers. In the both areas, the Soviet Union and the various national
communist movements have aggravated internation relations in inhuman and
undesirable ways, but hardly so much as to blame only communism for the
present menacing situation.
Deterrence Policy
The accumulation of nuclear arsenals, the threat of accidental war, the
possibility of limited war becoming illimitable holocaust, the
impossibility of achieving final arms superiority or invulnerability,
the approaching nativity of a cluster of infant atomic powers; all of
these events are tending to undermine traditional concepts of power
relations among nations. War can no longer be considered as an
effective instrument of foreign policy, a means of strengthening
alliances, adjusting the balance of power, maintaining national
sovereignty, or preserving human values. War is no longer simply a
forceful extension of foreign policy; it can obtain no constructive ends
in the modern world. Soviet or American "megatonnage" is sufficient to
destroy all existing social structures as well as value systems.
Missiles have (figuratively) thumbed their nosecones at national
boundaries. But America, like other countries, still operates by means
of national defense and deterrence systems. These are seen to be useful
so long as they are never fully used: unless we as a national entity
can convince Russia that we are willing to commit the most heinous
action in human history, we will be forced to commit it.
Deterrence advocates, all of them prepared at least to threaten mass
extermination, advance arguments of several kinds. At one pole are the
minority of open partisans of preventive war -- who falsely assume the
inevitability of violent conflict and assert the lunatic efficacy of
striking the first blow, assuming that it will be easier to "recover"
after thermonuclear war than to recover now from the grip of the Cold
War. Somewhat more reluctant to advocate initiating a war, but perhaps
more disturbing for their numbers within the Kennedy Administration, are
the many advocates of the "counterforce" theory of aiming strategic
nuclear weapons at military installations -- though this might "save"
more lives than a preventive war, it would require drastic, provocative
and perhaps impossible social change to separate many cities from
weapons sites, it would be impossible to ensure the immunity of cities
after one or two counterforce nuclear "exchanges", it would generate a
perpetual Arms Race for less vulnerability and greater weapons power and
mobility, it would make outer space a region subject to militarization,
and accelerate the suspicions and arms build-ups which are incentives to
precipitate nuclear action. Others would support fighting "limited
wars" which use conventional (all but atomic) weapons, backed by
deterrents so mighty that both sides would fear to use them -- although
underestimating the implications of numerous new atomic powers on the
world stage, the extreme difficulty of anchoring international order
with weapons of only transient invulnerability, the potential tendency
for a "losing side" to push limited protracted fighting on the soil of
underdeveloped countries. Still other deterrence artists propose
limited, clearly defensive and retaliatory, nuclear capacity, always
potent enough to deter an opponent's aggressive designs -- the best of
deterrence stratagems, but inadequate when it rests on the equation of
an arms "stalemate" with international stability.
All the deterrence theories suffer in several common ways. They allow
insufficient attention to preserving, extending, and enriching
Democratic values, such matters being subordinate rather than governing
in the process of conducting foreign policy. Second, they inadequately
realize the inherent instabilities of the continuing Arms Race and
balance of fear. Third, they operationally tend to eclipse interest and
action towards disarmament by solidifying economic, political and even
moral investments in continuation of tensions. Fourth, they offer a
disinterested and even patriotic rationale for the boondoggling,
belligerence, and privilege of military and economic elites. Finally,
deterrence stratagems invariably understate or dismiss the relatedness
of various dangers; they inevitably lend tolerability to the idea of war
by neglecting the dynamic interaction of problems -- such as the menace
of accidental war, the probable future tensions surrounding the
emergence of ex-colonial nations, the imminence of several new nations
joining the "Nuclear Club," the destabilizing potential of technological
breakthrough by either Arms Race contestant, the threat of Chinese
atomic might, the fact that "recovery" after World War III would involve
not only human survivors but, as well, a huge and fragile social
structure and culture which would be decimated perhaps irreparably by
total war.
Such a harsh critique of what we are doing as a nation by no means
implies that sole blame for the Cold War rests on the United States.
Both sides have behaved irresponsibly -- the Russians by an exaggerated
lack of trust, and by much dependence on aggressive military strategists
rather than on proponents of nonviolent conflict and coexistence. But
we do contend, as Americans concerned with the conduct of our
representative institutions, that our government has blamed the Cold War
stalemate on nearly everything but its own hesitations, its own
anachronistic dependence on weapons. To be sure, there is more to
disarmament than wishing for it. There are inadequacies in
international rule-making institutions -- which could be corrected.
There are faulty inspection mechanisms -- which could be perfected by
disinterested scientists. There is Russian intransigency and
evasiveness -- which do not erase the fact that the Soviet Union,
because of a strained economy, an expectant population, fears of Chinese
potential, and interest in the colonial revolution, is increasingly
disposed to real disarmament with real controls. But there is, too, our
own reluctance to face the uncertain world beyond the Cold War, our own
shocking assumption that the risks of the present are fewer than the
risks of a policy re-orientation to disarmament, our own unwillingness
to face the implementation of our rhetorical commitments to peace and
freedom.
Today the world alternatively drifts and plunges towards a terrible war
- when vision and change are required, our government pursues a policy
of macabre dead-end dimensions -- conditioned, but not justified, by
actions of the Soviet bloc. Ironically, the war which seems to close
will not be fought between the United States and Russia, not externally
between two national entities, but as an international civil war
throughout the unrespected and unprotected human civitas which spans the
world.
The Colonial Revolution
While weapons have accelerated man's opportunity for self-destruction,
the counter-impulse to life and creation are superbly manifest in the
revolutionary feelings of many Asian, African and Latin American
peoples. Against the individual initiative and aspiration, and social
sense of organicism characteristic of these upsurges, the American
apathy and stalemate stand in embarrassing contrast.
It is difficult today to give human meaning to the welter of facts that
surrounds us. That is why it is especially hard to understand the facts
of "underdevelopment": in India, man and beast together produced 65
percent of the nation's economic energy in a recent year, and of the
remaining 35 percent of inanimately produced power almost three-fourths
was obtained by burning dung. But in the United States, human and
animal power together account for only one percent of the national
economic energy -- that is what stands humanly behind the vague term
"industrialization". Even to maintain the misery of Asia today at a
constant level will require a rate of growth tripling the national
income and the aggregate production in Asian countries by the end of the
century. For Asians to have the (unacceptable) 1950 standard of
Europeans, less than $2,000 per year for a family, national production
must increase 21-fold by the end the century, and that monstrous feat
only to reach a level that Europeans find intolerable.
What has America done? During the years 1955-57 our total expenditures
in economic aid were equal to one-tenth of one percent of our total
Gross National Product. Prior to that time it was less; since then it
has been a fraction higher. Immediate social and economic development
is needed -- we have helped little, seeming to prefer to create a
growing gap between "have" and "have not" rather than to usher in social
revolutions which would threaten our investors and out military
alliances. The new nations want to avoid power entanglements that will
open their countries to foreign domination -- and we have often demanded
loyalty oaths. They do not see the relevence of uncontrolled free
enterprise in societies without accumulated capital and a significant
middle class -- and we have looked calumniously on those who would not
try "our way". They seek empathy -- and we have sided with the old
colonialists, who now are trying to take credit for "giving" all the
freedom that has been wrested from them, or we "empathize" when pressure
absolutely demands it.
With rare variation, American foreign policy in the Fifties was guided
by a concern for foreign investment and a negative anti-communist
political stance linked to a series of military alliances, both
undergirded by military threat. We participated unilaterally -- usually
through the Central Intelligence Agency -- in revolutions against
governments in Laos, Guatemala, Cuba, Egypt, Iran. We permitted
economic investment to decisively affect our foreign policy: fruit in
Cuba, oil in the Middle East, diamonds and gold in South Africa (with
whom we trade more than with any African nation). More exactly:
America's "foreign market" in the late Fifties, including exports of
goods and services plus overseas sales by American firms, averaged about
$60 billion annually. This represented twice the investment of 1950,
and it is predicted that the same rates of increase will continue. The
reason is obvious: Fortune said in 1958, "foreign earnings will be more
than double in four years, more than twice the probable gain in domestic
profits". These investments are concentrated primarily in the Middle
East and Latin America, neither region being an impressive candidate for
the long-run stability, political caution, and lower-class tolerance
that American investors typically demand.
Our pugnacious anti-communism and protection of interests has led us to
an alliance inappropriately called the "Free World". It included four
major parliamentary democracies: ourselves, Canada, Great Britain, and
India. It also has included through the years Batista, Franco,
Verwoerd, Salazar, De Gaulle, Boun Oum, Ngo Diem, Chiang Kai Shek,
Trujillo, the Somozas, Saud, Ydigoras -- all of these non-democrats
separating us deeply from the colonial revolutions.
Since the Kennedy administration began, the American government seems to
have initiated policy changes in the colonial and underdeveloped areas.
It accepted "neutralism" as a tolerable principle; it sided more than
once with the Angolans in the United Nations; it invited Souvanna Phouma
to return to Laos after having overthrown his neutralist government
there; it implemented the Alliance for Progress that President
Eisenhower proposed when Latin America appeared on the verge of
socialist revolutions; it made derogatory statements about the
Trujillos; it cautiously suggested that a Democratic socialist
government in British Guiana might be necessary to support; in inaugural
oratory, it suggested that a moral imperative was involved in sharing
the world's resources with those who have been previously dominated.
These were hardly sufficient to heal the scars of past activity and
present associations, but nevertheless they were motions away from the
Fifties. But quite unexpectedly, the President ordered the Cuban
invations, and while the American press railed about how we had been
"shamed" and defied by that "monster Castro," the colonial peoples of
the world wondered whether our foreign policy had really changed from
its old imperialist ways (we had never supported Castro, even on the eve
of his taking power, and had announced early that "the conduct of the
Castro government toward foreign private enterprise in Cuba" would be a
main State Department concern). Any heralded changes in our foreign
policy are now further suspect in the wake of the Punta Del Este foreign
minister's conference where the five countries representing most of
Latin America refused to cooperate in our plans to further "isolate" the
Castro government.
Ever since the colonial revolution began, American policy makers have
reacted to new problems with old "gunboat" remedies, often thinly
disguised. The feeble but desirable efforts of the Kennedy
administration to be more flexible are coming perhaps too late, and are
of too little significance to really change the historical thrust of our
policies. The hunger problem is increasing rapidly mostly as a result
of the worldwide population explosion that cancels out the meager
triumphs gained so far over starvation. The threat of population to
economic growth is simply documented: in 1960-70 population in Africa
south of the Sahara will increase 14 percent; in South Asia and the Far
East by 22 percent; in North Africa 26 percent; in the Middle East by 27
percent; in Latin America 29 percent. Population explosion, no matter
how devastating, is neutral. But how long will it take to create a
relation of thrust between America and the newly-developing societies?
How long to change our policies? And what length of time do we have?
The world is in transformation. But America is not. It can race to
industrialize the world, tolerating occasional authoritarianisms,
socialisms, neutralisms along the way -- or it can slow the pace of the
inevitable and default to the eager and self-interested Soviets and,
much more importantly, to mankind itself. Only mystics would guess we
have opted thoroughly for the first. Consider what our people think of
this, the most urgent issue on the human agenda. Fed by a bellicose
press, manipulated by economic and political opponents of change,
drifting in their own history, they grumble about "the foreign aid
waste", or about "that beatnik down in Cuba", or how "things will get us
by" . . . thinking confidently, albeit in the usual bewilderment, that
Americans can go right on like always, five percent of mankind producing
forty percent of its goods.
Anti-Communism
An unreasoning anti-communism has become a major social problem for
those who want to construct a more Democratic America. McCarthyism and
other forms of exaggerated and conservative anti-communism seriously
weaken Democratic institutions and spawn movements contrary to the
interests of basic freedoms and peace. In such an atmosphere even the
most intelligent of Americans fear to join political organizations, sign
petitions, speak out on serious issues. Militaristic policies are
easily "sold" to a public fearful of a Democratic enemy. Political
debate is restricted, thought is standardized, action is inhibited by
the demands of "unity" and "oneness" in the face of the declared danger.
Even many liberals and socialists share static and repititious
participation in the anti-communist crusade and often discourage
tentative, inquiring discussion about "the Russian question" within
their ranks -- often by employing "stalinist", "stalinoid", trotskyite"
and other epithets in an oversimplifying way to discredit opposition.
Thus much of the American anti-communism takes on the characteristics of
paranoia. Not only does it lead to the perversion of democracy and to
the political stagnation of a warfare society, but it also has the
unintended consequence of preventing an honest and effective approach to
the issues. Such an approach would require public analysis and debate
of world politics. But almost nowhere in politics is such a rational
analysis possible to make.
It would seem reasonable to expect that in America the basic issues of
the Cold War should be rationally and fully debated, between persons of
every opinion -- on television, on platforms and through other media.
It would seem, too, that there should be a way for the person or an
organization to oppose communism without contributing to the common fear
of associations and public actions. But these things do not happen;
instead, there is finger-pointing and comical debate about the most
serious of issues. This trend of events on the domestic scene, towards
greater irrationality on major questions, moves us to greater concern
than does the "internal threat" of domestic communism. Democracy, we
are convinced, requires every effort to set in peaceful opposition the
basic viewpoints of the day; only by conscious, determined, though
difficult, efforts in this direction will the issue of communism be met
appropriately.
Communism and Foreign Policy
As democrats we are in basic opposition to the communist system. The
Soviet Union, as a system, rests on the total suppression of organized
opposition, as well as on a vision of the future in the name of which
much human life has been sacrificed, and numerous small and large
denials of human dignity rationalized. The Communist Party has equated
falsely the "triumph of true socialism" with centralized bureaucracy.
The Soviet state lacks independent labor organizations and other
liberties we consider basic. And despite certain reforms, the system
remains almost totally divorced from the image officially promulgated by
the Party. Communist parties throughout the rest of the world are
generally undemocratic in internal structure and mode of action.
Moreover, in most cases they subordinate radical programs to
requirements of Soviet foreign policy. The communist movement has
failed, in every sense, to achieve its stated intentions of leading a
worldwide movement for human emancipation.
But present trends in American anti-communism are not sufficient for the
creation of appropriate policies with which to relate to and counter
communist movements in the world. In no instance is this better
illustrated than in our basic national policy-making assumption that the
Soviet Union is inherently expansionist and aggressive, prepared to
dominate the rest of the world by military means. On this assumption
rests the monstrous American structure of military "preparedness";
because of it we sacrifice values and social programs to the alleged
needs of military power.
But the assumption itself is certainly open to question and debate. To
be sure, the Soviet state has used force and the threat of force to
promote or defend its perceived national interests. But the typical
American response has been to equate the use of force -- which in many
cases might be dispassionately interpreted as a conservative, albeit
brutal, action -- with the initiation of a worldwide military onslaught.
In addition, the Russian-Chinese conflicts and the emergency !!
throughout the communist movement call for a re-evaluation of any
monolithic interpretations. And the apparent Soviet disinterest in
building a first-strike arsenal of weapons challenges the weight given
to protection against surprise attack in formulations of American policy
toward the Soviets.
Almost without regard to one's conception of the dynamics of Soviet
society and foreign policy, it is evident that the American military
response has been more effective in deterring the growth of democracy
than communism. Moreover, our prevailing policies make difficult the
encouragement of skepticism, anti-war or pro-Democratic attitudes in the
communist systems. America has done a great deal to foment the easier,
opposite tendency in Russia: suspicion, suppression, and stiff military
resistance. We have established a system of military alliances which of
even dubious deterrence value. It is reasonable of suggest the "Berlin"
and "Laos" have been earth-shaking situations partly because rival
systems of deterrence make impossible the withdrawal of threats. The
"status quo" is not cemented by mutual threat but by mutual fear of
receeding from pugnacity -- since the latter course would undermine the
"credibility" of our deterring system. Simultaneously, while billions
in military aid were propping up right-wing Laotian, Formosan, Iranian
and other regimes, American leadership never developed a purely
political policy for offering concrete alternatives to either communism
or the status quo for colonial revolutions. The results have been:
fulfillment of the communist belief that capitalism is stagnant, its
only defense being dangerous military adventurism; destabilizing
incidents in numerous developing countries; an image of America allied
with corrupt oligarchies counterposed to the Russian-Chinese image of
rapid, though brutal, economic development. Again and again, America
mistakes the static area of defense, rather than the dynamic area of
development, as the master need of two-thirds of mankind.
Our paranoia about the Soviet Union has made us incapable of achieving
agreements absolutely necessary for disarmament and the preservation of
peace. We are hardly able to see the possibility that the Soviet Union,
though not "peace loving", may be seriously interested in disarmament.
Infinite possibilities for both tragedy and progress lie before us. On
the one hand, we can continue to be afraid, and out of fear commit
suicide. On the other hand, we can develop a fresh and creative
approach to world problems which will help to create democracy at home
and establish conditions for its growth elsewhere in the world.
Discrimination
Our America is still white.
Consider the plight, statistically, of its greatest nonconformists, the
"nonwhites" (a Census Bureau designation).
- Literacy: One of every four "nonwhites" is functionally illiterate;
half do not complete elementary school; one in five finishes high school
or better. But one in twenty whites is functionally illiterate; four of
five finish elementary school; half go through high school or better.
- Salary: In 1959 a "nonwhite" worker could expect to average $2,844
annually; a "nonwhite" family, including a college-educated father,
could expect to make $5,654 collectively. But a white worker could
expect to make $4,487 if he worked alone; with a college degree and a
family of helpers he could expect $7,373. The approximate Negro-white
wage ratio has remained nearly level for generations, with the exception
of the World War II employment "boom" which opened many better jobs to
exploited groups.
- Work: More than half of all "nonwhites" work at laboring or service
jobs, including one-fourth of those with college degrees; one in 20
works in a professional or managerial capacity. Fewer than one in five
of all whites are laboring or service workers, including one in every
100 of the college-educated; one in four is in professional or
managerial work.
- Unemployment: Within the 1960 labor force of approximately 72
million, one of every 10 "nonwhites" was unemployed. Only one of every
20 whites suffered that condition.
- Housing: The census classifies 57 percent of all "nonwhite" houses
substandard, but only 27 percent of white-owned units so exist.
- Education: More than fifty percent of America's "nonwhite" high
school students never graduate. The vocational and professional spread
of curriculum categories offered "nonwhites" is 16 as opposed to the 41
occupations offered to the white student. Furthermore, in spite of the
1954 Supreme Court decision, 80 percent of all "nonwhites" educated
actually, or virtually, are educated under segregated conditions. And
only one of 20 "nonwhite" students goes to college as opposed to the
1:10 ratio for white students.
- Voting: While the white community is registered above two-thirds of
its potential, the "nonwhite" population is registered below one-third
of its capacity (with even greater distortion in areas of the Deep
South).
Even against this background, some will say progress is being made. The
facts bely it, however, unless it is assumed that America has another
century to deal with its racial inequalities. Others, more pompous,
will blame the situation on "those people's inability to pick themselves
up", not understanding the automatic way in which such a system can
frustrate reform efforts and diminish the aspirations of the oppressed.
The one-party system in the South, attached to the Dixiecrat-Republican
complex nationally, cuts off the Negro's independent powers as a
citizen. Discrimination in employment, along with labor's accomodation
to the "lily-white" hiring practises, guarantees the lowest slot in the
economic order to the "nonwhite." North or South, these oppressed are
conditioned by their inheritance and their surroundings to expect more
of the same: in housing, schools, recreation, travel, all their
potential is circumscribed, thwarted and often extinguished. Automation
grinds up job opportunities, and ineffective or non-existent retraining
programs make the already-handicapped "nonwhite" even less equipped to
participate in "technological progress."
Horatio Alger Americans typically believe that the "nonwhites" are being
"accepted" and "rising" gradually. They see more Negroes on television
and so assume that Negroes are "better off". They hear the President
talking about Negroes and so assume they are politically represented.
They are aware of black peoples in the United Nations and so assume that
the world is generally moving toward integration. They don't drive
through the South, or through the slum areas of the big cities, so they
assume that squalor and naked exploitation are disappearing. They
express generalities about "time and gradualism" to hide the fact that
they don't know what is happening.
The advancement of the Negro and other "nonwhites" in America has not
been altogether by means of the crusades of liberalism, but rather
through unavoidable changes in social structure. The economic pressures
of World War II opened new jobs, new mobility, new insights to Southern
Negroes, who then began great migrations from the South to the bigger
urban areas of the North where their absolute wage was greater, though
unchanged in relation to the white man of the same stratum. More
important than the World War II openings was the colonial revolution.
The world-wide upsurge of dark peoples against white colonial
domination stirred the separation and created an urgancy among American
Negroes, while simultaneously it threatened the power structure of the
United States enough to produce concessions to the Negro. Produced by
outer pressure from the newly-moving peoples rather than by the internal
conscience of the Federal government, the gains were keyed to improving
the American "image" more than to reconstructing the society that
prospered on top of its minorities. Thus the historic Supreme Court
decision of 1954, theoretically desegregating Southern schools, was more
a proclamation than a harbinger of social change -- and is reflected as
such in the fraction of Southern school districts which have
desegregated, with Federal officials doing little to spur the process.
It has been said that the Kennedy administration did more in two years
than the Eisenhower administration did in eight. Of this there can be
no doubt. But it is analogous to comparing whispers to silence when
positively stentorian tones are demanded. President Kennedy lept ahead
of the Eisenhower record when he made his second reference to the racial
problem; Eisenhower did not utter a meaningful public statement until
his last month in office when he mentioned the "blemish" of bigotry.
To avoid conflict with the Dixiecrat-Republican alliance, President
Kennedy has developed a civil rights philosophy of "enforcement, not
enactment", implying that existing statuatory tools are sufficient to
change the lot of the Negro. So far he has employed executive power
usefully to appoint Negroes to various offices, and seems interested in
seeing the Southern Negro registered to vote. On the other hand, he has
appointed at least four segregationist judges in areas where voter
registration is a desperate need. Only two civil rights bills, one to
abolish the poll tax in five states and another to prevent unfair use of
literacy tests in registration, have been proposed -- the President
giving active support to neither. But even this legislation,
lethargically supported, then defeated, was intended to extend only to
Federal elections. More important, the Kennedy interest in voter
registration has not been supplemented with interest in giving the
Southern Negro the economic protection that only trade unions can
provide. It seems evident that the President is attempting to win the
Negro permanently to the Democratic Party without basically disturbing
the reactionary one-party oligarchy in the South. Moreover, the
administration is decidedly "cool" (a phrase of Robert Kennedy's) toward
mass nonviolent movements in the South, though by the support of racist
Dixiecrats the Administration makes impossible gradual action through
conventional channels. The Federal Bureau of Investigation in the South
is composed of Southerners and their intervention in situations of
racial tension is always after the incident, not before. Kennedy has
refused to "enforce" the legal prerogative to keep Federal marshals
active in Southern areas before, during and after any "situations" (this
would invite Negroes to exercise their rights and it would infuriate the
Southerners in Congress because of its "insulting" features).
While corrupt politicians, together with business interests happy with
the absence of organized labor in Southern states and with the $50
billion in profits that results from paying the Negro half a "white
wage", stymie and slow fundamental progress, it remains to be
appreciated that the ultimate wages of discrimination are paid by
individuals and not by the state. Indeed the other sides of the
economic, political and sociological coins of racism represent their
more profound implications in the private lives, liberties and pursuits
of happiness of the citizen. While hungry nonwhites the world around
assume rightful dominance, the majority of Americans fight to keep
integrated housing out of the suburbs. While a fully interracial world
becomes a biological probability, most Americans persist in opposing
marriage between the races. While cultures generally interpenetrate,
white America is ignorant still of nonwhite America -- and perhaps glad
of it. The white lives almost completely within his immediate, close-up
world where things are tolerable, there are no Negroes except on the bus
corner going to and from work, and where it is important that daughter
marry right. White, like might, makes right in America today. Not
knowing the "nonwhite", however, the white knows something less than
himself. Not comfortable around "different people", he reclines in
whiteness instead of preparing for diversity. Refusing to yield
objective social freedoms to the "nonwhite", the white loses his
personal subjective freedom by turning away "from all these damn
causes."
White American ethnocentrism at home and abroad reflect most sharply the
self-deprivation suffered by the majority of our country which
effectively makes it an isolated minority in the world community of
culture and fellowship. The awe inspired by the pervasiveness of racism
in American life is only matched by the marvel of its historical span in
American traditions. The national heritage of racial discrimination via
slavery has been a part of America since Christopher Columbus' advent on
the new continent. As such, racism not only antedates the Republic and
the thirteen Colonies, but even the use of the English language in this
hemisphere. And it is well that we keep this as a background when
trying to understand why racism stands as such a steadfast pillar in the
culture and custom of the country. Racial-xenophobia is reflected in
the admission of various racial stocks to the country. From the
nineteenth century Oriental Exclusion Acts to the most recent up-dating
of the Walter-McCarren Immigration Acts the nation has shown a
continuous contemptuous regard for "nonwhites." More recently, the
tragedies of Hiroshima and Korematsu, and our cooperation with Western
Europe in the United Nations add treatment to the thoroughness of racist
overtones in national life.
But the right to refuse service to anyone is no longer reserved to the
Americans. The minority groups, internationally, are changing place.
WHAT IS NEEDED?
How to end the Cold War? How to increase democracy in America? These
are the decisive issues confronting liberal and socialist forces today.
To us, the issues are intimately related, the struggle for one
invariably being a struggle for the other. What policy and structural
alternatives are needed to obtain these ends?
- Universal controlled disarmament must replace deterrence and arms
control as the national defense goal. The strategy of mutual threat can
only temporarily prevent thermonuclear war, and it cannot but erode
Democratic institutions here while consolidating oppressive institutions
in the Soviet Union. Yet American leadership, while giving rhetorical
due to the ideal of disarmament, persists in accepting mixed deterrence
as its policy formula: under Kennedy we have seen first-strike and
second-strike weapons, counter-military and counter-population
inventions, tactical atomic weapons and guerilla warriors, etc. The
convenient rationalization that our weapons potpourri will confuse the
enemy into fear of misbehaving is absurd and threatening. Our own
intentions, once clearly retaliatory, are now ambiguous since the
President has indicated we might in certain circumstances be the first
to use nuclear weapons. We can expect that Russia will become more
anxious herself, and perhaps even prepare to "preempt" us, and we
(expecting the worst from the Russians) will nervously consider "preemption"
ourselves. The symmetry of threat and counter-threat lead not
to stability but to the edge of hell.
It is necessary that America make disarmament, not nuclear deterrence,
"credible" to the Soviets and to the world. That is, disarmament should
be continually avowed as a national goal; concrete plans should be
presented at conference tables; real machinery for a disarming and
disarmed world -- national and international -- should be created while
the disarming process itself goes on. The long-standing idea of
unilateral initiative should be implemented as a basic feature of
American disarmament strategy: initiatives that are graduated in their
~~~ potential, accompanied by invitations to reciprocate when done
regardless of reciprocation, openly ~~~ significant period of future
time. Their ~~~ should not be to strip America of weapon, ~~~ produce a
climate in which disarmament can be ~~~ with less mutual hostility and
threat. They might include: a unilateral nuclear test moratorium,
withdrawal of several bases near the Soviet Union, proposals to
experiment in disarmament by stabilization of zone of controversy;
cessation of all apparent first-strike preparations, such as the
development of 41 Polaris by 1963 while naval theorists state that about
45 constitutes a provocative force; inviting a special United Nations
agency to observe and inspect the launchings of all American flights
into outer space; and numerous others.
There is no simple formula for the content of an actual disarmament
treaty. It should be phased: perhaps on a region-by-region basis, the
conventional weapons first. It should be conclusive, not open-ended, in
its projection. It should be controlled: national inspection systems
are adequate at first, but should be soon replaced by international
devices and teams. It should be more than denuding: world or at least
regional enforcement agencies, an international civil service and
inspection service, and other supranational groups must come into
reality under the United Nations.
2. Disarmament should be see as a political issue, not a technical
problem. Should this year's Geneva negotiations have resulted (by
magic) in a disarmament agreement, the United States Senate would have
refused to ratify it, a domestic depression would have begun instantly,
and every fiber of American life would be wrenched drastically: these
are indications not only of our unpreparedness for disarmament, but also
that disarmament is not "just another policy shift." Disarmament means
a deliberate shift in most of our domestic and foreign policy.
- It will involve major changes in economic direction. Government
intervention in new areas, government regulation of certain industrial
price and investment practices to prevent inflation, full use of
national productive capacities, and employment for every person in a
dramatically expanding economy all are to be expected as the "price" of
peace.
- It will involve the simultaneous creation of international rulemaking
and enforcement machinery beginning under the United Nations, and
the gradual transfer of sovereignties -- such as national armies and
national determination of "international" law -- to such machinery.
- It will involve the initiation of an explicitly political -- as
opposed to military -- foreign policy on the part of the two major
superstates. Neither has formulated the political terms in which they
would conduct their behavior in a disarming or disarmed world. Neither
dares to disarm until such an understanding is reached.
- A crucial feature of this political understanding must be the
acceptance of status quo possessions. According to the universality
principle all present national entities -- including the Vietnams, the
Koreans, the Chinas, and the Germanys -- should be members of the United
Nations as sovereign, no matter how desirable, states.
Russia cannot be expected to negotiate disarmament treaties for the
Chinese. We should not feed Chinese fanaticism with our encirclement
but Chinese stomachs with the aim of making war contrary to Chinese
policy interests. Every day that we support anti-communist tyrants but
refuse to even allow the Chinese Communists representation in the United
Nations marks a greater separation of our ideals and our actions, and it
makes more likely bitter future relations with the Chinese.
Second, we should recognize that an authoritarian Germany's insistence
on reunification, while knowing the impossibility of achieving it with
peaceful means, could only generate increasing frustrations among the
population and nationalist sentiments which frighten its Eastern
neighbors who have historical reasons to suspect Germanic intentions.
President Kennedy himself told the editor of Izvestia that he fears an
independent Germany with nuclear arms, but American policies have not
demonstrated cognisance of the fact that Chancellor Adenauer too, is
interested in continued East-West tensions over the Germany and Berlin
problems and nuclear arms precisely because this is the rationale for
extending his domestic power and his influence upon the NATO-Common
Market alliance.
A world war over Berlin would be absurd. Anyone concurring with such a
proposition should demand that the West cease its contradictory advocacy
of "reunification of Germany through free elections" and "a rearmed
Germany in NATO". It is a dangerous illusion to assume that Russia will
hand over East Germany to a rearmed re-united Germany which will enter
the Western camp, although this Germany might have a Social Democratic
majority which could prevent a reassertion of German nationalism. We
have to recognize that the Cold War and the incorporation of Germany
into the two power blocs was a decision of both Moscow and Washington,
of both Adenauer and Ulbricht. The immediate responsibility for the
Berlin wall is Ulbricht's. But it had to be expected that a regime
which was bad enough to make people flee is also bad enough to prevent
them from fleeing. The inhumanity of the Berlin wall is an ironic
symbol of the irrationality of the Cold War, which keeps Adenauer and
Ulbricht in power. A reduction of the tension over Berlin, if by
internationalization or by recognition of the status quo and reducing
provocations, is a necessary but equally temporary measure which could
not ultimately reduce the basic Cold War tension to which Berlin owes
its precarious situation. The Berlin problem cannot be solved without
reducing tensions in Europe, possibly by a bilateral military
disengagement and creating a neutralized buffer zone. Even if
Washington and Moscow were in favor disengagement, both Adenauer and
Ulbricht would never agree to it because Cold War keeps their parties in
power.
Until their regimes' departure from the scene of history, the Berlin
status quo will have to be maintained while minimizing the tensions
necessarily arising from it. Russia cannot expect the United States to
tolerate its capture by the Ulbricht regime, but neither can America
expect to be in a position to indefinitely use Berlin as a fortress
within the communist world. As a fair and bilateral disengagement in
Central Europe seems to be impossible for the time being, a mutual
recognition of the Berlin status quo, that is, of West Berlin's and East
Germany's security, is needed. And it seems to be possible, although
the totalitarian regime of East Germany and the authoritarian leadership
of West Germany until now succeeded in frustrating all attempts to
minimize the dangerous tensions of Cold War.
The strategy of securing the status quo of the two power blocs until it
is possible to depolarize the world by creating neutralist regions in
all trouble zones seems to be the only way to guarantee peace at this
time.
4. Experiments in disengagement and demilitarization must be conducted
as part of the total disarming process. These "disarmament experiments"
can be of several kinds, so long as they are consistent with the
principles of containing the Arms Race and isolating specific sectors of
the world from the Cold War power-play. First, it is imperative that no
more nations be supplied with, or locally produce, nuclear weapons. A
1959 report of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences predicted that
19 nations would be so armed in the near future. Should this prediction
be fulfilled, the prospects of war would be unimaginably expanded. For
this reason the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union should
band against France (which wants its own independent deterrent) and
seek, through United Nations or other machinery, the effective
prevention of the spread of atomic weapons. This would involve not only
declarations of "denuclearization" in whole areas of Latin America,
Africa, Asia and Europe, but would attempt to create inspection
machinery to guarantee the peaceful use of atomic energy.
Second, the United States should reconsider its increasingly outmoded
European defense framework, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Since its creation in 1949, NATO has assumed increased strength in
overall determination of Western military policy, but has become less
and less relevant to its original purpose, which was the defense of
Central Europe. To be sure, after the Czech coup of 1948, it might have
appeared that the Soviet Union was on the verge of a full-scale assault
on Europe. But that onslaught has not materialized, not so much because
of NATO's existence but because of the general unimportance of much of
Central Europe to the Soviets. Today, when even American-based ICBMs
could smash Russia minutes after an invasion of Europe, when the Soviets
have no reason to embark on such an invasion, and when "thaw sectors"
are desperately needed to brake the Arms Race, one of at least
threatening but most promising courses for American would be toward the
gradual diminishment of the NATO forces, coupled with the negotiated
"disengagement" of parts of Central Europe.
It is especially crucial that this be done while America is entering
into favorable trade relations with the European Economic Community:
such a gesture, combining economic ambition with less dependence on the
military, would demonstrate the kind of competitive "co-existence"
America intends to conduct with the communist-bloc nations. If the
disengaged states were the two Germanies, Poland and Czechoslovakia,
several other benefits would accrue. First, the United States would be
breaking with the lip-service commitment to "liberation" of Eastern
Europe which has contributed so much to Russian fears and intransigence,
while doing too little about actual liberation. But the end of
"liberation" as a proposed policy would not signal the end of American
concern for the oppressed in East Europe. On the contrary,
disengagement would be a real, rather than a rhetorical, effort to ease
military tensions, thus undermining the Russian argument for tighter
controls in East Europe based on the "menace of capitalist
encirclement". This policy, geared to the needs of Democratic elements
in the satellites, would develop a real bridge between East and West
across the two most pro-Western Russian satellites. The Russians in the
past have indicated some interest in such a plan, including the
demilitarization of the Warsaw pact countries. Their interest should be
publicly tested. If disengagement could be achieved, a major zone could
be removed from the Cold War, the German problem would be materially
diminished, and the need for NATO would diminish, and attitudes
favorable to disarming would be generated.
Needless to say, those proposals are much different than what is
currently being practised and praised. American military strategists
are slowly acceeding to the NATO demand for an independent deterrent,
based on the fear that America might not defend Europe from military
attack. These tendencies strike just the opposite chords in Russia than
those which would be struck by disengagement themes: the chords of
military alertness, based on the fact that NATO (bulwarked by the German
Wehrmacht) is preparing to attack Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union.
Thus the alarm which underlies the NATO proposal for an independent
deterrent is likely itself to bring into existence the very Russian
posture that was the original cause of fear. Armaments spiral and
belligerence will carry the day, not disengagement and negotiation.
The Industrialization of the World
Many Americans are prone to think of the industrialization of the newlydeveloped
countries as a modern form of American noblesse, undertaken
sacrificially for the benefit of others. On the contrary, the task of
world industrialization, of eliminating the disparity between have and
have-not nations, is as important as any issue facing America. The
colonial revolution signals the end of an era for the old Western powers
and a time of new beginnings for most of the people of the earth. In
the course of these upheavals, many problems will emerge: American
policies must be revised or accelerated in several ways.
- The United States' principal goal should be creating a world where
hunger, poverty, disease, ignorance, violence, and exploitation are
replaced as central features by abundance, reason, love, and
international cooperation. To many this will seem the product of
juvenile hallucination: but we insist it is a more realistic goal than
is a world of nuclear stalemate. Some will say this is a hope beyond
all bounds: but is far better to us to have positive vision than a
"hard headed" resignation. Some will sympathize, but claim it is
impossible: if so, then, we, not Fate, are the responsible ones, for we
have the means at our disposal. We should not give up the attempt for
fear of failure.
- We should undertake here and now a fifty-year effort to prepare for
all nations the conditions of industrialization. Even with far more
capital and skill than we now import to emerging areas, serious prophets
expect that two generations will pass before accelerating industrialism
is a worldwide act. The needs are numerous: every nation must build an
adequate intrastructure (transportation, communication, land resources,
waterways) for future industrial growth; there must be industries suited
to the rapid development of differing raw materials and other resources;
education must begin on a continuing basis for everyone in the society,
especially including engineering and technical training; technical
assistance from outside sources must be adequate to meet present and
long-term needs; atomic power plants must spring up to make electrical
energy available. With America's idle productive capacity, it is
possible to begin this process immediately without changing our military
allocations. This might catalyze a "peace race" since it would demand a
response of such magnitude from the Soviet Union that arms spending and
"coexistence" spending would become strenuous, perhaps impossible, for
the Soviets to carry on simultaneously.
- We should not depend significantly on private enterprise to do the
job. Many important projects will not be profitable enough to entice
the investment of private capital. The total amount required is far
beyond the resources of corporate and philanthropic concerns. The new
nations are suspicious, legitimately, of foreign enterprises dominating
their national life. World industrialization is too huge an undertaking
to be formulated or carried out by private interests. Foreign economic
assistance is a national problem, requiring long range planning,
integration with other domestic and foreign policies, and considerable
public debate and analysis. Therefore the Federal government should
have primary responsibility in this area.
- We should not lock the development process into the Cold War: we
should view it as a way of ending that conflict. When President Kennedy
declared that we must aid those who need aid because it is right, he was
unimpeachably correct -- now principle must become practice. We should
reverse the trend of aiding corrupt anti-communist regimes. To support
dictators like Diem while trying to destroy ones like Castro will only
enforce international cynicism about American "principle", and is bound
to lead to even more authoritarian revolutions, especially in Latin
America where we did not even consider foreign aid until Castro had
challenged the status quo. We should end the distinction between
communist hunger and anti-communist hunger. To feed only anticommunists
is to directly fatten men like Boun Oum, to incur the wrath
of real democrats, and to distort our own sense of human values. We
must cease seeing development in terms of communism and capitalism. To
fight communism by capitalism in the newly-developing areas is to
fundamentally misunderstand the international hatred of imperialism and
colonialism and to confuse and needs of 19th century industrial America
with those of contemporary nations.
Quite fortunately, we are edging away from the Dullesian "either-or"
foreign policy ultimatum towards an uneasy acceptance of neutralism and
nonalignment. If we really desire the end of the Cold War, we should
now welcome nonalignment -- that is, the creation of whole blocs of
nations concerned with growth and with independently trying to break out
of the Cold War apparatus.
Finally, while seeking disarmament as the genuine deterrent, we should
shift from financial support of military regimes to support of national
development. Real security cannot be gained by propping up military
defenses, but only through the hastening of political stability,
economic growth, greater social welfare, improved education. Military
aid is temporary in nature, a "shoring up" measure that only postpones
crisis. In addition, it tends to divert the allocations of the nation
being defended to supplementary military spending (Pakistan's budget is
70% oriented to defense measures). Sometimes it actually creates crisis
situations, as in Latin America where we have contributed to the growth
of national armies which are opposed generally to sweeping
democratization. Finally, if we are really generous, it is harder for
corrupt governments to exploit unfairly economic aid -- especially if it
is to plentiful that rulers cannot blame the absence of real reforms on
anything but their own power lusts.
5. America should show its commitment to Democratic institutions not by
withdrawing support from undemocratic regimes, but by making domestic
democracy exemplary. Worldwide amusement, cynicism and hatred toward
the United States as a democracy is not simply a communist propaganda
trick, but an objectively justifiable phenomenon. If respect for
democracy is to be international, then the significance of democracy
must emanate from America shores, not from the "soft sell" of the United
States Information Agency.
6. America should agree that public utilities, railroads, mines, and
plantations, and other basic economic institutions should be in the
control of national, not foreign, agencies. The destiny of any country
should be determined by its nationals, not by outsiders with economic
interests within. We should encourage our investors to turn over their
foreign holdings (or at least 50% of the stock) to the national
governments of the countries involved.
7. Foreign aid should be given through international agencies,
primarily the United Nations. The need is to eliminate political
overtones, to the extent possible, from economic development. The use
of international agencies, with interests transcending those of American
or Russian self-interest, is the feasible means of working on sound
development. Second, internationalization will allow more long-range
planning, integrate development plans adjacent countries and regions may
have, and eliminate the duplication built into national systems of
foreign aid. Third, it would justify more strictness of supervision
than is now the case with American foreign aid efforts, but with far
less chance of suspicion on the part of the developing countries.
Fourth, the humiliating "hand-out" effect would be replaced by the joint
participation of all nations in the general development of the earth's
resources and industrial capacities. Fifth, it would eliminate national
tensions, e.g. between Japan and some Southeast Asian areas, which now
impair aid programs by "disguising" nationalities in the common pooling
of funds. Sixth, it would make easier the task of stabilizing the world
market prices of basic commodities, alleviating the enormous threat that
decline in prices of commodity exports might cancel out the gains from
foreign aid in the new nations. Seventh, it would improve the
possibilities of non-exploitative development, especially in creating
"soft-credit" rotating-fund agencies which would not require immediate
progress or financial return. Finally, it would enhance the importance
of the United Nations itself, as the disarming process would enhance the
UN as a rule-enforcement agency.
8. Democratic theory must confront the problems inherent in social
revolutions. For Americans concerned with the development of Democratic
societies, the anti-colonial movements and revolutions in the emerging
nations pose serious problems. We need to face these problems with
humility: after 180 years of constitutional government we are still
striving for democracy in our own society. We must acknowledge that
democracy and freedom do not magically occur, but have roots in
historical experience; they cannot always be demanded for any society at
any time, but must be nurtured and facilitated. We must avoid the
arbitrary projection of Anglo-Saxon Democratic forms onto different
cultures. Instead of Democratic capitalism we should anticipate more or
less authoritarian variants of socialism and collectivism in many
emergent societies.
But we do not abandon our critical faculties. Insofar as these regimes
represent a genuine realization of national independence, and are
engaged in constructing social systems which allow for personal meaning
and purpose where exploitation once was, economic systems which work for
the people where once they oppressed them, and political systems which
allow for the organization and expression of minority opinion and
dissent, we recognize their revolutionary and positive character.
Americans can contribute to the growth of democracy in such societies
not by moralizing, nor by indiscriminate prejudgment, but by retaining a
critical identification with these nations, and by helping them to avoid
external threats to their independence. Together with students and
radicals in these nations we need to develop a reasonable theory of
democracy which is concretely applicable to the cultures and conditions
of hungry people.
TOWARDS American DEMOCRACY
Every effort to end the Cold War and expand the process of world
industrialization is an effort hostile to people and institutions whose
interests lie in perpetuation of the East-West military threat and the
postponement of change in the "have not" nations of the world. Every
such effort, too, is bound to establish greater democracy in America.
The major goals of a domestic effort would be:
- America must abolish its political party stalemate. Two genuine
parties, centered around issues and essential values, demanding
allegiance to party principles shall supplant the current system of
organized stalemate which is seriously inadequate to a world in flux.
It has long been argued that the very overlapping of American parties
guarantees that issues will be considered responsibly, that progress
will be gradual instead of intemperate, and that therefore America will
remain stable instead of torn by class strife. On the contrary: the
enormous party overlap itself confuses issues and makes responsible
presentation of choice to the electorate impossible, that guarantees
Congressional listlessness and the drift of power to military and
economic bureaucracies, that directs attention away from the more
fundamental causes of social stability, such as a huge middle class,
Keynesian economic techniques and Madison Avenue advertising. The
ideals of political democracy, then, the imperative need for flexible
decision-making apparatus makes a real two-party system an immediate
social necessity. What is desirable is sufficient party disagreement to
dramatize major issues, yet sufficient party overlap to guarantee stable
transitions from administration to administration.
Every time the President criticizes a recalcitrant Congress, we must ask
that he no longer tolerate the Southern conservatives in the Democratic
Party. Every time in liberal representative complains that "we can't
expect everything at once" we must ask if we received much of anything
from Congress in the last generation. Every time he refers to
"circumstances beyond control" we must ask why he fraternizes with
racist scoundrels. Every time he speaks of the "unpleasantness of
personal and party fighting" we should insist that pleasantry with
Dixiecrats is inexcusable when the dark peoples of the world call for
American support.
2. Mechanisms of voluntary association must be created through which
political information can be imparted and political participation
encouraged. Political parties, even if realigned, would not provide
adequate outlets for popular involvement. Institutions should be
created that engage people with issues and express political preference,
not as now with huge business lobbies which exercise undemocratic power,
but which carry political influence (appropriate to private, rather than
public, groupings) in national decision-making enterprise. Private in
nature, these should be organized around single issues (medical care,
transportation systems reform, etc.), concrete interest (labor and
minority group organizations), multiple issues or general issues. These
do not exist in America in quantity today. If they did exist, they
would be a significant politicizing and educative force bringing people
into touch with public life and affording them means of expression and
action. Today, giant lobby representatives of business interests are
dominant, but not educative. The Federal government itself should
counter the latter forces whose intent is often public deceit for
private gain, by subsidizing the preparation and decentralized
distribution of objective materials on all public issues facing
government.
Continued at The Port Huron Statement, part three.