COLD WAR RESOURCES
SOURC A ON HIROSHIMA
(8) Henry Stimson, Secretary of War, letter to President Harry S. Truman (11th September,
1945)
The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way you can
make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him
untrustworthy is to distrust him. If the atomic bomb were merely another,
though more devastating, military weapon to be assimilated into our pattern of
international relations, it would be one thing. We would then follow the old
custom of secrecy and nationalistic military superiority relying on international
caution to prescribe the future use of the weapon as we did with gas. But I
think the bomb instead constitutes merely a first step in a new control by man
over the forces of nature too revolutionary and dangerous to fit into old
concepts. My idea of an approach to the Soviets would be a direct proposal
after discussion with the British that we would be prepared in effect to enter
an agreement with the Russians, the general purpose of which would be to
control and limit the use of the atomic bomb as an instrument of war.
SOURCE B ON THE BERLIN AIRLIFT
(1) Willy Brandt interviewed by Terence Prittle (1974)
It would not be fair to be over-critical, particularly when such a fine rescue
operation for Berlin was mounted by the Western Powers. Maybe there were
delays.... I would prefer to stress the positive aspects of the Blockade. First, it
was a heroic episode in which the Allied pilots and the Berliners played the
main roles. Then it brought about a feeling of real co-operation between the
Berliners and the Allies. Those were grey, grim days; but our people showed
their steadfastness, their courage, their dry humour and their basic decency.
SOURCE C ON THE DOMINO THEORY
(2) Vice-president Richard Nixon, speech, (December, 1953)
If Indochina falls, Thailand is put in an almost impossible position. The same
is true of Malaya with its rubber and tin. The same is true of Indonesia. If this
whole part of South East Asia goes under Communist domination or
Communist influence, Japan, who trades and must trade with this area in
order to exist must inevitably be oriented towards the Communist regime.
SOURCE D ON THE DOMINO THEORY
Professor George Kahin, speech (15th May, 1965)
Those who still are impressed by the simplistic domino theory must realize
that non-communist governments of Southeast Asia will not automatically
collapse if the Communists should come to control all of Vietnam. So long as
Southeast Asian governments are in harmony with their nations' nationalism,
so long as they are wise enough to meet the most pressing economic and
social demands of their people, they are not likely to succumb to Communism.
SOURC E ON THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
(A2) Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet Union's foreign
secretary, book Through Russian Eyes: President Kennedy's 1036
Days was published in 1973. In the book Gromyko wrote about the
background to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The United States over several years had established offensive military bases
around the socialist countries and, primarily, near the USSR borders... the
placement of medium-range effective Soviet missiles in Cuba was undertaken
only after the United States ruling circles continually rejected proposals to
remove American military bases, including missile sites, on foreign territory.
SOURCE F ON THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
(A3) In 1984 Fidel Castro was interviewed by the American journalist,
Tad Szulc. The journalist asked Castro why he was willing to allow
Soviet missiles to be placed in Cuba.
It was necessary to make it clear to the United States that an invasion of
Cuba would imply a war with the Soviet Union. It was then that they proposed
the missiles... We preferred the risks, whatever they were, of a great tension,
a great crisis, to the risks of the impotence of having to await a United States
invasion of Cuba.
SOURCE G ON THE MARSHALL PLAN
George Marshall, Secretary of State, speech at Harvard University (5th June, 1947)
It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist
in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can
be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not
against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and
chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so
as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free
institutions can exist.
SOURCE H ON MCCARTHYISM
Daniel Fitzpatrick, St Louis Post-Dispatch (23rd February, 1947)
SOURCE I THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE
(2) President Truman, speech to Congress (12th March, 1947)
At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose
between alternative ways of life. The choice is often not a free one. One way
of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free
institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of
individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political
oppression.
The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed
upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and
radio, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedom. I believe that
it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are
resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.