Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito
Barry Goldwater photographed by Yousuf Karsh (1963)
“Strangely enough, I find myself in the position of one who, over the past year, has been challenged to make a case for victory in a conflict with an enemy of enormous power whose undisguised aim is to conquer the United States and enslave the world. I have been challenged to explain what victory in the Communist War means, how we could achieve it, and what we would do with it after we won it. This challenge, astounding as it is, comes from the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas—who reflects in his statements a policy line now being promoted within the top ranks of the Kennedy administration. Senator Fulbright, and I am sorry to say some others in positions of influence today, believes that victory in the Communist War is impossible, that we must co-exist with an alien ideological power which is using every device at its command to overwhelm us, and that one of the means toward co-existence is "aggressive compromise."
I doubt if any United States Senator or government official—ever before in the history of our Republic—has been called upon to make a case for victory in a conflict where everything that the United States stands for today—or ever stood for in the past—is at stake. I doubt if this nation ever before has found itself in a battle for her very existence where any public official or group of public officials automatically foreclosed the possibility of victory and questioned what we would do with it if it ever were achieved.
When I realize that Senator Fulbright speaks for a sizable bloc of influence in our State Department, I begin to wonder what forces are at work among us in this hour of crisis. I wonder whether the entire scope of this protracted conflict and the dire consequences which it holds for our nation and the world's freedom have been correctly understood. I wonder whether the American people actually realize that the failure to proclaim victory as our aim in the Communist War is not just an oversight but a calculated policy of influential men. Let me state this in Senator Fulbright's own words. "Apparently we have not yet fully accepted the fact that... we can hope to do little more than mitigate our problems as best we can and learn to live with them." Since that time, Senator Fulbright has made it plain that his method of "mitigation" would be through negotiation and compromise. This is what he proposes in the Berlin crisis, which might well serve as a terminal point in our diplomatic negotiations with Russia. The Senator apparently believes that negotiation and compromise are what we must do to "live with" communism. He assumes that the American people and the rest of the free world want to live with communism rather than risk a test of strength. He also tells us, in effect, that the price of this living is compromise—which is another way of saying that we will yield further and further to Khrushchev's demands.
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. I believe it is important for the reader to understand how the exchange between Senator Fulbright and myself evolved. It began on June 29 of last year when the Foreign Relations Committee Chairman delivered a speech to the Senate entitled, "Some Reflections Upon Recent Events and Continuing Problems." These remarks were hailed in a certain segment of the press as a major foreign-policy declaration. Now since these "reflections" contained so many arguments for doing nothing in the Communist War but waste more and more money in the name of social reform for other nations, I felt impelled to reply. I did this in a Senate speech on July 14. I challenged the Foreign Relations Chairman to explain why his approach to the Communist War, which boils down to more and more foreign aid, has not yielded results after the expenditure of nearly a hundred billion dollars. I challenged his assertion that a successful American action in Cuba would result in alienating Latin America, Asia, and Africa. I challenged his assertion that communism ninety miles off our southern coast was not "intolerable" to the American people. I challenged his declaration that the erection of missile bases by the Communists in Cuba would not increase the danger to our national existence. And I also said that this nation needs an official declaration stating that our aim in the Communist War is victory.
Now in his response to this, Senator Fulbright ignored my question concerning the wisdom of pursuing a costly and ineffective foreign policy. He ignored quite a few other things in commenting briefly on the Senate Floor on July 24 on what he referred to as "certain themes" contained in my remarks. He was excessively bemused with one of my phrases—"total victory." He seemed to think there was something funny about it. He referred to total victory as a "stirring term with a romantic ring." He ridiculed it as something that "quickens the blood like a clarion call to arms." I suggest that ridicule is a curious attitude for an American to take when discussing victory in a struggle that means survival. It is even more curious when that American holds the influential office of Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—and I say this whether he is referring to "total victory" or just plain "victory." There are many details of our conduct in the Communist War which invite scoffing and ridicule, but the subject of our winning in this desperate struggle is definitely not one of them.
The Senator from Arkansas says he does not know what victory would mean—as he puts it—"in this age of ideological conflict and nuclear weapons." Perhaps we are meant to believe that victory for the forces of freedom in the world takes on a different meaning because ideology is a factor and weapons are more powerful. If Senator Fulbright finds difficulty in understanding what victory would mean perhaps he should spend a little thought on the question of what defeat—the only alternative to victory—would mean. This is a frightening thought—what would defeat mean? But, it is one which must be considered—and considered seriously—if our national policy is anything but victory.
This is a conflict where one side or the other must win, and no amount of wishful thinking can make it otherwise. On this question, the decision is out of our hands. The rules for the conflict have been laid down by the Soviet Union through a massive design aimed at destruction of the United States and domination of the world. Against the Communist strategy as it is being pushed today, there can be no middle alternative between a policy aimed at victory or one that would permit defeat. There is no cozy twilight zone such as Senator Fulbright envisions where the status quo is maintained. We know this from what has happened to the world since the end of World War II. We have continued to delude ourselves with something called "peaceful co-existence" while communism has kept right on gobbling up one country after another. Hundreds of millions of the world's people have fallen under the yoke of communism while we have followed a useless policy of spend and drift. Now we are told that this is the only feasible approach; that we can't hope for victory; that we can't risk a war; that we couldn't cope with victory it we won it. I say this is the most dangerous kind of sheer nonsense.
If there is doubt as to what victory in the Communist War means, let me say that it means the opposite of defeat; it means freedom instead of slavery; it means the right of every man to worship God; of nations to determine their own destiny free of force and coercion. Victory in the Communist War means the sum total of all the hopes of free men throughout the world. It means human dignity, freedom of choice, the right to work. And it means peace with honor for men who prize liberty and do not fear death.
Can victory be achieved without a nuclear war? My vociferous critics would like us to believe that there can be no Communist War victory without the destruction of civilization. This is precisely what the Communists would like us to believe. Their whole line of attack, through propaganda and adroit economic, political, and military moves, is directed toward making us think in terms of fear. They want to make sure that we believe the risk is too great to employ our strength. Their purpose is intimidation and it is working too well.
Indeed, a decisive victory over the Communists is possible. It won't be easy because we have lost too much valuable time and too many golden opportunities. But it can be done with the proper integrated strategy—a strategy that aims at victory; that retains our economic strength; that incorporates the principles of political, military, economic, and psychological strength in meeting Communist challenges and in presenting some challenges of our own. Those who argue against any use of strength, against any military risk, against any unilateral action fail to understand that political victory in the Communist War is the only way to avoid a strictly military solution of the East-West crisis. It involves some risk, but experience shows us that this risk is greatly overexaggerated. Every time we have stood up to the Communists they have backed down. Our trouble is we have not stood up to them enough.
Despite the arguments of Communists and left-wing propagandists who want us to believe that the present ideological struggle will inevitably lead to a shooting war, just the reverse is true. A shooting war can only be avoided by winning the Communist War. And unless we win this struggle, we will be an easy push-over for the Khrushchevs, the Castros, and the Mao Tse-tungs when they decide the time is ripe to shift their strategy into a shooting phase.
Senator Fulbright has joined the ranks of those who would paralyze the foreign policy of this nation by advancing the alternatives that either you accommodate the Soviet Union—or you fight a nuclear war. These are the alternatives which are stressed every time the Communists seek to advance their position. The essential weakness of this reasoning lies in accepting the enemy's terms— that the only alternative to self-destruction is to yield. First, we yield on one issue—unimportant, it appears, in context of such a horrible alternative as nuclear war. Then on a second and a third and a fourth, ad infinitum. So what is finally left to us except the same terrible dilemma we were confronted with on that first day when the enemy said: Yield or die?
If we could finally satisfy the enemy's appetite by giving him one city or one country or one territory, who among us, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, would not be tempted to say: Let them, in the name of peace and freedom for the rest of the world, let them, once and for all, have their way and be done with it. But this is not possible. We are dealing with an enemy whose appetite is insatiable, whose creed demands slavery for everyone, Americans included. The more we give in to that enemy, the more he wants; and the more we give in to him, the more he is encouraged to demand.
My opponents adroitly try to make it appear that I am in favor of nuclear war, that I would make war the prime instrument of our policy. I can't imagine what makes them think that. No one values life more than do I. Would I take satisfaction from exchanging my pleasant life, my family, my freedom, for a nuclear graveyard? Certainly not. But that does not mean that I am prepared to assure the enemy that, under no circumstances, will we ever consider war. If we are not prepared, under any circumstances, ever to fight a nuclear war, we might just as well do as the pacifists and the collaborationists propose—dump our entire arsenal into the ocean.
But my critics have proposed no such venture in national suicide. They want us to save our bombs. Only they apparently want us to act as though we did not have them—because the mere thought of having them terrifies those who are dedicated to the principle of co-existence. Thus, we are supposed to eliminate our possession of nuclear weapons from our consciousness in discussing the formulation of American foreign policy.
If victory is not our official aim, then there would appear to be no point in bringing all our arguments—be they military, economic, political, or psychological—to bear on the side of freedom. But can we be sure that if we completely eliminate the possible use of nuclear weapons the Communists will follow suit? Can we risk our future and the future of mankind on exclusive emphasis on conventional rather than ultimate weapons? Can we make any assumptions that would diminish our strength—in any field—when dealing with the Communists? Merely to ask the questions is to answer them. We can assume nothing where the Communist leaders are concerned. We can trust nothing that the Communist leaders say. We can accept nothing that the Communist leaders sign as a conclusive guarantee.
The Communist plan of world conquest makes the element of time a vital factor. Time is running out on the West while it is working in favor of international communism—at least under our present policy. I would remind you the policy we are following today is the same one which we have followed—with a few exceptions since the end of World War II. It is the policy of spending in the hope of gaining allies. It is the policy which has permitted the Communists to gain in almost every area of the world while the cause of freedom has been losing.
I want to emphasize this time factor particularly in the light of what Senator Fulbright sees as our objective. He says that "total victory" is a process. And he defines that process as one "of civilizing international relations and of bringing them gradually under a worldwide regime of law and order and peaceful procedures for the redress of legitimate grievances."
If this is our objective, what is our hope of achieving it? This just says that the United States should work for the establishment of some kind of international super-state whose members would behave in a civilized and peaceful way toward each other. At the very least this would take several centuries. And we have no assurance that the time will ever come when all other states will want to behave peacefully toward each other. The lessons of history are all against it. There have always been men and states that would not hesitate to use arms to advance their national policies and defend their special interests.
A world without arms, a world living peacefully and adjusting its grievances in a global regime of law and order is more than an objective. It is a glorious dream, a kind of utopia. Even if it were practical, such an objective has no direct application to the urgent problems which beset the world today. We haven't the time for implementing dreams right now. We must deal with reality, the ever-present threat of Communist tyranny which is not going to submit to the kind of civilizing Senator Fulbright envisions.
Suppose there is a big fire in your neighborhood. What do you think about first? You think of saving your house from destruction and your family from death. And if the flames have already enveloped your garden fence, do you lose time planning to build a dream house next year or next decade in a nonexistent fire-proof city in a theoretical country? Of course, you don't. You go to work fighting the flames to save the house you've already got in the city and country—no matter what their imperfections—where you live now.
This is the way it is today with our country and with the world. There is a fire, and its Communist flames are threatening to destroy the American way of life. Not next year, or in the next decade, or in a future century, but right now—today. These ugly Red flames are already brushing our shores and they continue to rage unchecked.
This is no time for an American foreign-policy objective designed to erect an impractical international dream city of the future. Our objective must be the practical means of dousing the fire and smothering the flames of international communism.
So what can we do? Our job, first and foremost, is to persuade the enemy that we would rather follow the world to Kingdom Come than consign it to Hell under communism. Having made that clear, we must seize opportunities as they arise to protect freedom and demonstrate our strengths. Many such opportunities have arisen in the past, a few of which we have used to good advantage. For example, we were told by the weak of heart and the peddlers of despair that unless we yielded Quemoy and Matsu, the islands off the Chinese coast, to the Communists, a terrible war would result. The Eisenhower administration said, in effect, very well, if the Communist world chooses to go to war to occupy these islands, then that's the way it will have to be. But the Communist world did not so choose, and Quemoy and Matsu are free today. And they will be free tomorrow and just as long as our resolution lasts.
This sequence of events was repeated in Lebanon. We sent in Marines there against the trembling advice of those who fear any display of determination and strength. And Lebanon is free today. We acted from strength, too, when threatened Berlin was saved by our airlift in 1948, and at least half of Berlin remains free today. In Korea, we responded in June of 1950 with courage and a commitment but we allowed the fear-mongers among us to whittle that initial commitment to victory down to an acceptance of a humiliating stalemate.
On the other hand, our resolve was not strong enough in Cuba to back our intent with the strength required. The result is that Cuba languishes in chains while a Communist dictator thumbs his nose at the United States and plays the enemy's game to the hilt. And when my critics worry lest we alienate the rest of Latin America by taking affirmative action in Cuba, I am sure Castro guffaws. Much of Latin America has already been alienated by the timidity and ineffectiveness of our American policy. The Latins cannot understand why a world power, such as the United States, allows a two-bit Kremlin stooge to spit in our eye. And they wonder what source of support we could possibly be to them when communism pushes its expansion program throughout the Western Hemisphere. They see us weak and baffled in an area of vital concern, not only to them but to our own existence.
Must we surrender Laos, too? Is that the fixed conviction of Senator Fulbright when he worries lest we commit American soldiers to a jungle war? Are there not Free Chinese, South Vietnamese, South Koreans, Filipinos, and Japanese who would fight if the United States gave them backing? Have we ever asked them?
When Senator Fulbright questions what we would do with victory if we won it, he implies that any doubt or difficulty on this score becomes, per se, an argument against winning. He asks whether we would occupy Russia and China and launch a program to re-educate the Russians and the Chinese in the ways of democracy. The answer to this is simply "no." We would not have to occupy China and Russia because the vast majority of the people in both of these countries are not Communists. They will, with proper guidance, take care of their own freedom once they are released from the iron grip of Communist dictatorship. But even if this weren't true, the mere fact that victory would pose problems is not reason to submit to slavery.
In this same connection, Senator Fulbright says that our victories in World War I and World War Il "offer little encouragement." I assume that his reference is to the fact that, having won the wars, we lost the peace—at Versailles, at Yalta, Teheran, and Potsdam. I won't argue with him there. We did lose the peace in both instances. But if our victories in the two world wars "offer little encouragement," what would defeat at the hands of the Kaiser or at the hands of Adolf Hitler have offered? Because we lost the peace after World War I and World War II, should we not try to win the struggle in which we are presently engaged?
Against the advice of those who counsel inaction because of the risk, let me ask, when has Western resolution backed up by Western disposition to use its total resources ever been defied by the Communist empire? The answer is never—not once. The rulers of the Kremlin would sooner reduce their territory to the ancient state of Muscovy than to die fighting for their ideology. Their doctrine does not call for fatal acts of heroism. Their credo is: "Live to fight (subvert) another day."
In the final analysis the choice is not yield or fight a nuclear war. It is: win, or fight a nuclear war. For a nuclear war we shall certainly have to fight, from whatever beleaguered outpost we are reduced to occupying, if we continue to yield, piece by piece, all over the world. Finally, in desperation, we would see the horrible alternatives clearly in view—a violent act of nuclear aggression or surrender. Our only hope is to proclaim victory as our aim and then to press boldly and unremittingly on all fronts—always prepared to fight and making sure the Communists always know we are prepared to fight.” - Barry Goldwater, ‘Why Not Victory? A Fresh Look at American Foreign Policy’ (1963) [p. 149 - 163]
