"Put Up or Shut Up"

A few days before George Marshall would move in as Secretary of State, the U.S. heard a concrete suggestion for a policy toward Germany. The man who made it was John Foster Dulles, adviser to Republicans, including Senator Arthur Vandenberg and Presidential Aspirant Thomas Dewey in 1944, and an alternate delegate to the U.N. General Assembly. Dulles had discussed the policy with both Dewey and Vandenberg, who concurred in his view; he had had a brief session with President Truman ("I just paid my respects"). He presented his proposition last week to 1,000 publishers and managers of U.S. magazines gathered at Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

The year 1947, said Dulles, must witness an important extension of U.S. policy, if that policy is to succeed in the face of Russia's "double-barreled" challenge: "social revolution throughout the world . . . [and] nationalistic expansion."

The year 1946, he explained, saw one of those challenges spiked, at least temporarily. Soviet nationalism had become less aggressive. But the other, the ideological barrel, was still loaded and aimed. "In most of the world, effective popular leadership is in the hands of persons who are sympathetic to Soviet Communist doctrines." Spreading revolutionary movements in China, India, Dutch Indonesia, French Indo-China, Latin America, France, Italy gave Communists reason to remember 1946 "joyfully." Under the threat of that Red explosion the U.S. now stands. How best to meet that threat was Dulles' concern.

How to Fight Fire. In a few weeks the Foreign Ministers of the Big Four would meet in Moscow to write at long last the terms under which Germany might return to some kind of sovereignty. On those terms depends the fate of all Europe. And "whoever deals with Europe deals with the world's worst fire hazard."

Dulles' recommendation for fire control was chiefly an economically united Western Europe which would exercise federalized control of Germany's industrial areas. Then the economic unification of Germany could be brought about without the risk of resurgent German political domination. He compared the kind of "federal formula" he had in mind with the Tennessee Valley Authority. "It is not beyond human resourcefulness to find a form of joint control which will make it possible to develop the industrial potential of western Germany in the interest of the economic life of Western Europe." And in this enterprise, "we Americans ought to be able to give them precious assistance."

Unruly Aspects. Dulles saw the same challenge to U.S. leadership and enterprise all around the world. This was his extension of U.S. foreign policy: "Old societies need to be rebuilt. Sick societies need to be made well." U.S. society, better than any other, qualifies men to take the leadership in such restoration, said Dulles. "That, I say, is our belief."

But it is not the belief of others. "They are frightened by the unruly aspect we present and they suspect us of a certain moral and intellectual bankruptcy. They are attracted by the apparent smoothness and efficiency of a society where conformity is the rule and where all men walk in step. That is why Soviet Communism can seriously challenge us for world leadership. The time has come when we shall have to put up or shut up."

It was a speech not only to the U.S. but to the rest of the world.

The Russians replied on the double. Said Pravda: "The question arises, what prompted Dulles to disdain elementary decency to give vent to a wrathful speech against the U.S.S.R.?"

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