Woodrow Wyatt, a British Labor Party member of Parliament, assailing John Foster Dulles Sept. 6, said that never before had a man "spent so long in preparing himself to be Foreign Secretary and made such a fool of himself and his country when he finally got the job."
This impression of the head of the State Department is fairly widespread, not only in Europe but also among liberals in America. Dulles seems to act more like a bull in a china shop than a smooth diplomat trying to win friends and influence people abroad. For instance, in a single press conference Sept. 3, he said things that ruffled feelings in Italy, Germany and Japan.
[p. 115]
Dulles' course can be dismissed as a consequence of stupidity, or a manifestation of colossal boorishness, which is another form of stupidity. However, it is dangerous to underestimate a foe, particularly a class enemy. Before we write off Dulles' speeches as nothing but a typical symptom of the lack of regard American Big Business has for the feelings of its allies abroad, which only hurts Wall Street, let us once again check the diplomatic problems faced by Truman and now Eisenhower.
Wall Street's major line of world strategy since the close of World War II has been the preparation for World War III, as I have indicated in previous articles. Part of the preparation has been the building of the most gigantic military coalition ever seen. It includes the Western Hemisphere, Western Europe and the Mediterranean, and the Pacific from Japan to Australia.
If you assume, as it seems only common sense to do, that the major diplomatic problem facing the capitalist class in the U.S. is to arm, inspire, and lead this vast coalition into war on the Soviet Union, China, and the colonial countries that are now seeking freedom from imperialist domination, the State Department's course since 1948 and even earlier seems irrational.
It has provoked one diplomatic crisis after another with the Soviet Union, truculently rejected all overtures for a deal with the Kremlin, everywhere taken the initiative in one form or another to stir up trouble, and has thus succeeded in proving itself in the eyes of the world to be the aggressor. Even Hitler tried to avoid getting into such an unfavorable diplomatic position by making disarmament proposals, in accordance with the standing rule of capitalist diplomacy to try to appear to be seeking peace when you are preparing for war.
On top of this, the State department seems to pay no attention to the complaints of its allies about this uncomfortable state of diplomatic affairs. Instead, Dulles, as before him Acheson, gives them stern lectures about speeding up their rearmament.
I repeat, this course seems irrational—if you consider that the State Department's major problem is to lead its tremendous coalition of powers into war under a plausible diplomatic cover. But it happens to face a bigger problem — the problem of convincing the American people they should fight another war and submit to the lowered standard of living, loss of freedoms, bitter sacrifices, frightful bloodshed and destruction, and even danger of total annihilation that this war entails.
Just how crucial this problem is, is not generally appreciated even by those who pose as experts on such things. To grasp it, you have to understand the weight of the American people as a force in world politics.
In the last century, Karl Marx made the rather startling statement that the sparsely settled United States was actually more populous than teeming India. He explained this assertion, which seems to fly in the face of the facts, in the following way: Populations, viewed from the standpoint of economics, must be weighted by relative development of their industries. That this is a correct way of viewing populations is dramatically shown when countries go to war. If political factors do not intervene, the war boils down to a conflict between their relative industrial powers. Thus, in Marx's view, the high level of American transportation, agricultural and industrial production even in the last century gave the U.S. a greater population than India.
It was on the basis of such considerations that Trotsky could say in 1929, "... in the last historic analysis all the problems of our planet will be decided upon American soil."
The preponderance of the United States by the end of World War II could be expressed in two graphic sentences: "Three-quarters of the world's invested capital and two-thirds of the world's industry were concentrated inside the United States. The other third of industry was shared over the other 95% of the earth's inhabited surface." (Howard K. Smith in "The State of Europe.")
If we translate this into terms of population, as Marx viewed it years ago, then so far as industrial power is concerned, two-thirds of the world's population is concentrated inside the United States. The other third is spread among the other countries of the world.
The face of the power-sensitive State Department is turned toward this two-thirds. It is with this two-thirds that it sees its major diplomatic problem.
The problem has two sides. If the American people can be cajoled, frightened, bamboozled, psychologized — in brief, hypnotized and high-pressured into going willingly, even enthusiastically, to war, then the world's most colossal force has been successfully lined up behind Wall Street's banners. American capitalism then has fair chances of getting a new lease on life by conquering vast new areas for exploitation. If, on the other hand, the American people remain unconvinced, disquieted, potentially ready to turn on Wall Street, then war can mean the quick finish of capitalism — the definitive finish on a world scale.
That is why what Dulles does in public is calculated above all for its effect on the American people. The State Department, so far as its public declarations are concerned, has really been converted into a government propaganda department aiming primarily at the American audience.
The provocative diplomacy abroad is designed to furnish one incident after another to inflame public opinion in America. The high-handed attitude toward the allies is likewise designed for its effect on the public at home. The witch hunt with its spectacular raids, trials and spy scares is part of the pattern.
Demagogues like McCarthy and others in the most reactionary wing of the Republican and Democratic parties take advantage of this for their own ends — appearing as powers holding a club over the State Department. But the real club is the need the State Department feels to convince the American people that the "reds" are a genuine danger against whom we must go to war no matter what the cost.
Dealing with the mightiest power on earth — the American people —Wall Street understands very well that to simply launch World War III without adequate preparation could prove the shortest way to suicide. Precisely because of the power involved, it must move cautiously, test the ground again and again; not only advance when possible, but be prepared to make detours and even retreats if the advance proves to have been too precipitate. Dangerous as retreats may be, Wall Street feels it cannot afford to lose this game and a costly retreat is better than a suicidal advance.
[p. 116]
Hence the hesitations and postponement after postponement of World War III despite a diplomacy that has breathed fire and smoke and rattled atom bombs since 1945 and even tried to use the civil war in Korea as a possible opener. Hence also the cease-fire in Korea.
The American people are proving hard to mold according to the blueprint laid down for World War III, but Wall Street dares not let its impatience run away with its better political judgment. America's ruling 60 families see the main danger and therefore the main problem not abroad but here at home. And in this they are right.