It is a real pleasure for me to be here this evening as the guest of the Albany Chamber of Commerce and your affable and distinguished publisher, James Gray. I was glad to come to Georgia tonight, for I have a deep affection for your state and what it did for me in the Democratic National Convention last August. I have been particularly impressed, not only at that Convention but subsequent to it, by the ability of your nationally recognized Governor, Marvin Griffin, and many of your other state officials whom I have had the pleasure of meeting. And I owe a special debt to Jim Smith of Albany who nominated me at the Georgia caucus and who first asked me to address this Chamber meeting.
But this is not surprising, for in Washington Georgia is noted for her statesmen. Few men in our day and age have made such an impression upon the Senate, the nation and the world as the beloved Walter George. His wise and firm counsel is already missed in the Senate as we debate the tangled Middle East situation; and we are pleased that his talents and energies are still being utilized in the cause of a better and more peaceful world. Your Senior Senator, Richard Russell, is without question one of the most respected men in the entire Senate, whose words in committee and on the Senate Floor earn him attention and respect which few, if any, others can command. I am privileged to call him my friend. We all look for great things, as well, from your new Junior Senator, Herman Talmadge, whose fame as an orator and spokesman for the South preceded him to Washington where he has already made a host of new friends from every part of the country.
The most pressing issue before the entire country at this time – is the development of a foreign policy that will maintain the security of the United States.
Our responsibility in this field is to influence the conduct of others by our own behavior and example in the effort to obtain a strongly secured peace. In this matter of influence and responsibility beyond our borders both the President and the Congress have their proper functions. The President alone has the right to carry on our dealings and negotiations with foreign countries, and the primary responsibility for initiating the policies governing those affairs. The President alone speaks for the entire nation in our relations with others. He alone leads us in foreign policy. The President may lead well or he may lead badly, but for good, or bad, no American can escape the consequences of this leadership.
The Legislative Branch, however, is not without Constitutional responsibilities and powers in this connection. It is to the Senate that the President must turn for advice and consent on fundamental foreign questions. Our advice and consent are formally required in the cases of treaties and ambassadorial appointments; and they are informally required with respect to any major new policies where public support is desired – such as in the current proposals for the Middle East. It is Congress which appropriates the vast public funds necessary to support our defense establishments. It is Congress which, if circumstances were so to require, would declare war and, if circumstances were ever to permit, would make peace.
Thus however important and primary the President’s power may be in the field of foreign relations, formulating and carrying out a coherent, effective policy requires a partnership with the Congress. This partnership faces a serious challenge when political control is divided between the Presidency and the Congress, as in the present case. With the Republicans in control of the Executive Branch and the Democrats in control of the Congress, it will require all our political maturity to guide our nation safely through these days of our years.
A famous United States Senator once said … “The duty of the opposition party is to oppose” … But in a world such as ours, when the United States is face to face with the most serious challenge to its survival in all our history, I conceive it to be the duty of the opposition not to oppose but to propose. It is our obligation, it seems to me, to support the foreign policy recommendations urged by the President in his capacity as foreign affairs leader and on the basis of all the information available to him, unless, on the basis of our own thorough deliberations, we feel that events demand an alternative. In that case, it is our responsibility to work with the President, each within our own Constitutional sphere, to bring forth a reasonable synthesis from our combined effort.
Much is heard these days about a bi-partisan foreign policy. It is usually assumed that the responsibility for carrying out the theme of bi-partisanship is largely a matter for the Congress in general and the Democrats in particular. But successful bi-partisanship, in my opinion, requires a different approach than that followed by the Executive Branch in announcing its latest proposal for the Middle East. Once it had been announced, even if the Congress should have considered such an announcement ill-timed or unwise, even if we should feel that these proposals only aggravated the problems in the Middle East rather than reducing them, we should be hard pressed to reject proposals urged before the world by the President of the United States. For to so reject them would deflate not only his prestige but also that of our government and nation. It seems to me that true bi-partisanship would call for consultation between the leaders of Congress and the Executive Branch before such a plan is announced, in order that the Congress, in the words of the late Senator Vandenberg, may have an equal voice in the take-offs as well as the crash landings.
Another question underlying our Committee’s consideration of this Resolution is the question of precedents. The President’s program for the Middle East has been compared to the Eisenhower doctrine for Formosa and to the original NATO proposal in Europe. The facts of the matter, I believe, are to the contrary. The Eisenhower doctrine for Formosa provided for a specific military guarantee of a stated area – Formosa – against an obvious enemy – the Red Chinese. The Eisenhower doctrine for the Middle East, on the other hand, guarantees any country in the general area of the Middle east which seeks our protection in case of attack by any other country “controlled by international Communism”. The NATO Alliance was a joint effort by a group of countries to arm and defend themselves collectively against an obvious enemy threatening the European continent. The Eisenhower doctrine for the Middle East, on the other hand, does not permit other countries to join us, and, as mentioned, is directed against only an attack of a “Communist controlled country,” a definition which Mr. Dulles has stated would be met by none of the countries in the Middle East today.
In trying to define what the Eisenhower program is for the Middle East, it is well to realize what it is not.
I think it could be generally agreed that this resolution does not constitute such a policy for the Middle East – does not reduce Communistic political, economic or ideological penetration in that area, or its control of governments by conversion, subversion, sale of arms, or other indirect methods. It does not offer any permanent settlement for the major issues at the bottom of the Middle East instability; such as the Arab-Israeli dispute, the control of the Suez Canal, and the resettlement of Arab refugees; and it does not carry out other major objectives of American Foreign Policy, such as a reduction of tensions and armaments, a rebuilding of our seriously weakened western alliance, or a strengthening of the United Nations.
All of this does not mean that the program will not be helpful. It will be of assistance in guaranteeing under certain conditions the stability fo certain countries on which the West is dependent, including such varied countries as Libya, Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Pakistan. I will give assurance to the governments of these countries that if they take a strong pro-West stand they will not be left defenseless if they are attacked by a Communist dominated neighbor. It does indicate that the U.S. feels its security is directly involved in the Middle East. It does give us and them, in essence, a foundation of security in which to build. The point I wish to emphasize is that this is only a first step. It is important, after all, to realize that the Middle East is a vast area emerging from centuries of foreign domination and poverty, racked by religious struggles, possessing untold resources. Obviously no one policy or even a group of policies can bring peace and calm to this bridge between continents which is now the direct object of the Communist conspiracy.
On the contrary, I believe it vitally important in considering the Middle East to recognize the limitations of American policy as well as it potentialities. The United States is one of the greatest, strongest countries in the world, numbering 165 million people and possessing great productivity, that is true; but we nevertheless cannot impose upon the people of any area – particularly the Middle East – solutions to their problems which are at variance with their basic desires. Obviously, if we seek to do so, they will turn closer to the Communists. We can assist and support, in other words, but we cannot direct.
But this does not mean, on the other hand, that we can do nothing. Recognition of the limits of our world influence does not call for retreat and isolation. Rather it is a call to use that influence wisely, economically and with great care and deliberation.
I do not believe we are using that care when we permit our basic alliances with western Europe to be disrupted. We are not using our power wisely when we pursue a policy in the Middle East which Senator Mansfield has called “isolated internationalism”. We are not using our power wisely when these aid programs tend to produce dependency rather than independence in other countries, when they become the means for irresponsible governments to prolong their irresponsibility to their people. We are not using our power wisely when old policies are persisting after they have outlived their usefulness.
We are not using that policy wisely when we commit ourselves to fulfill heavy military obligations in the Middle East at a time when we are permitting our military strength in relation to the Soviet Union’s to steadily deteriorate. The report recently filed by Senator Symington – a report that does a great service to our nation, while confirming his warning for [?] years – that report has stated that “Russia’s long-range Air Force has in operational units more long-range jet bombers (B-52 class) with a nuclear bomb capacity than has the United States;” and that Russia is currently producing more bombers of this nuclear type than the United States. This report also warned that if present plans and programs are not changed by the period 1958-60, the Russian long-range Air Force will be stronger than that of the United States; and this nation will have lost its superiority in strategic air power. We cannot carry the burden of our own security and that of much of the free world if at the same time we are not willing to pay the price of maintaining our own military superiority.
Secretary Dulles has said that this is the most severe post war crisis that the United States has ever faced. The Hungarian experience has shown that when countries pass into the orbit of Soviet influence, they do not escape. We cannot afford to lose the Middle East, or indeed any area of the world, and merely hope that one day their disillusionment will bring them back to us. It was difficult enough to develop policies which would assist countries of Western Europe to remain free, but in that case we were aided by the desire of the people themselves to associate with us. In the Middle East and in Asia, the United States is looked upon in too many areas as an enemy of freedom rather than its friend. Thus to help those who would not be helped, to aid those who feel that every gift is a Trojan horse, will require perseverance, understanding, steadfastness, and imaginative initiative by the President, by the Congress and, perhaps most importantly of all, by the American people!
John O’Reilly once wrote:
“The world is large when its weary leagues
two loving hearts divide;
But the world is small when your enemy is
Loose on the other side.”
The world is small tonight, and our enemy is loose in it. It is the task of your nation in the years that lie ahead to meet this challenge with all the wisdom and all the understanding that have been bestowed upon us – as a nation.
ADD CONCLUSION
In the Capitol in Washington, in the Congressional Hall of Statues where each state is represented by the stone figures of two of their most famous sons, there stands the statue of one of the most noted statesmen of Georgia and the South, Alexander Stephens. Inscribed thereon are some of the most famous words he ever spoke, words which we as a nation must recall today if we are to meet the challenge of which I have spoken. “I am afraid,” said Alexander Stephens, “I am afraid of nothing on the earth, beneath the earth, above the earth – except to do wrong.”
Alexander Stephens’ words are good words to guide this nation one hundred years after they were spoken.
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