Taiwan Today

It is surprising that a popular writer such as the author of the present volume is so melancholic in his views as only befit a defeatist of the darkest water. All through the book he finds fault with his government and his people. The general tone of the book is that of self-condemnation, as is witnessed by the following quotation.

"Nevertheless," he said, "we are given to self-deception. We deceived ourselves about our technical superiority over Russia. We continue to deceive ourselves about reality in China. We even deceive ourselves about ourselves ..... " Though the author picks on his government, and though most of his criticisms concern none except his dear countrymen, it is none the less depressing for the ordinary readers.

The author approves the Marshall Plan as applied in Europe, because "we shrewdly set the regional economy on its feet before installing upon this base the necessary burden of a military alliance." But he finds fault with the fact that the United States bolstered up the military defense of countries in Asia and Africa before it helped develop their economy. Really there is nothing wrong with this arrangement. When the United States first started to pay attention to Communist aggression in Asia, practically all the Asian countries were under the shadow of the Chinese Communists. There was no time to wait for the economy of these countries to improve. The United States did the best it could—by strengthening the fighting capability of these countries first and attending to their economic needs later.

The author has the habit of quoting the bold claims of the Communists without assessing the possibility of their accomplishment. For instance, he repeats the boast of the Chinese Communists that by 1960 they would be making 20,000,000 tons of steel a year. They ransacked the whole country for scraps to make steel by backyard foundries to the neglect of all other economic activities. But according to a recent report issued by them, they produced no more than 11.08 million tons of steel in 1958. In fact, they produced much less than ten million. With all the scraps gone, they would have great difficulty to produce as much steel as they did last year, not to say doubling it.

Another instance that he takes the Communists' word at its face value is found in the fact that he thinks the "disengagement" proposal made by the Polish foreign minister, Rapacki, and the ones made by the British Laborite Hugh Gaitskell and George Kennan reflect the same thought on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The fact is that Rapacki had no standing to speak for the Communist world. His proposal was undoubtedly put into his mouth to be used as a trial balloon—to test out how far the West can be fooled.

Though writing with the intention to criticize the State Department's handling of diplomacy, the author makes the mistakes of advocating remedial measures that would have proved disastrous in practical politics. For instance, in criticizing the U.S. intervention in Lebanon, he said: "We could have insisted on expanding United Nations operations and pressed for the compromise that later worked out with Chehab as president." Anyone who knows anything about the urgency of the situation as it existed then and the slowness of the U.N. machinery knows the impracticability of the solution he has here set forth.

The author devotes a considerable portion of his work on the problem of China and insists on the United States recognition of the Peiping regime. It is here that he shows his greatest muddled thinking. Most of the arguments he uses have been sufficiently rebutted in the Review, and no useful purpose is served to repeat them here. But one thing he mentions in his book should not go without being challenged. "Why, for example," he asked, "ban from the U.N. a country that present the U. N. with one of its basic problems? We cannot even apply the moral influence of being in a position to ask it to withdraw." At the present time with their one veto in the Security Council and their sympathizers in the way of neutralists, the Communists under the leadership of Soviet Russia have things very much their way. If another veto power should be added to the Security Council, any measure that is the least displeasing to the Soviet bloc will be vetoed, and the world will take it to mean that the Communist influence is on the ascendant-with all the attendant results.

It is idle to talk of moral influence on Communists. The Soviet Union is a member of the United Nations. But when the Western powers want to talk of atomic ban or of the unification of Germany, they can exert no influence on the Soviet Union in the United Nations. Instead, they have to hold a technical experts and foreign ministers conference to discuss the situation with the Soviet Union. The author shows gross ignorance when he says that the Communists will respect moral considerations. If and when the Chinese Communists can gain admission into the United Nations, it will be for what gain they can make in the world organization. If they think that they would be subjected to any kind of moral influence inside the U.N., they would be the first people to refuse to join.

FOR THE SKEPTIC
Edited by Lyle H. Munson
Distributed by the Bookmailer, Inc. 1959
Reviewed by D. J. Lee

Having been a witness before the Senate Internal Security Sub-committee, Mr. Lyle H. Munson is best qualified to be the editor of "For The Skeptic," which represents, in his own words, "a distillation"—a reprint of only a fraction of one per cent of the Committee's publications.

When the reader comes upon a 4-cent U.S. postage stamp inside the book, which is meant to be used by the reader for writing to those who represent him in the American Congress to encourage, extend and enlarge the work of the Congressional investigating committees, he will at once have the impression that the book is exclusively for American readers. Be that as it may, the book is as instructive and enlightening to readers in other parts of the world. Exposure of Communist activity in the United States means one and the same thing as the exposure of Communist activity throughout the world, since Communist imperialism knows no national boundary and is strictly international in character.

Many millions of words have been written on Communism and the Communist form of government, very few have given such graphic description of how daring and unethical Communists operate in free nations.

The book begins with definitions of such terms as "legal apparatus-resident," referring to one engaged in Soviet espionage work who has overt diplomatic status; "illegal apparatus-illegal resident" referring to one engaged in the same activity who does not have any diplomatic status; "cadre worker" referring to one who is permanently employed as an espionage agent of M.V.D. or G.Q.U.; "collaborator" is the description used in Soviet espionage parlance for a person, other than a Soviet official, who has been recruited or whom the Moscow Center regards as having been recruited for espionage in the "target" country; "Tass" is the abbreviation for TELEGRAFNOIE AGENSTVO SOVIET-SKAVO SOIUZA (Telegraphic Agency of the Soviet Union), etc.

The defection of Nikolai Khokhlov, who had been an employee of the Soviet secret police for many years and an officer of it since 1950, and Yuri Rastvorov, who had also been former official of the Soviet secret police have provided invaluable information on the Communist activities this side of the Iron Curtain in general and the U. S. A. in particular.

A greater part of the book is devoted to the activities of Communist operators whose notoriously familiar names read like the Who's Who in the world of international intrigue. Of all these people, J. Peters is the most dangerous. His 25 years in America had been extremely productive in the growth and development of the Communist Party in the United States. As a matter of fact, his real name is not J. Peters, which is only a pseudonym. He is known to have more than half a dozen of other names.

Whitaker Chambers' description of this dangerous man is most revealing:

"The first time I met Peters in Washington we walked from the Union Station to a downtown restaurant. In New York Peters' manners hall always been that of a minor commissars little more human than the breed, for he had a sense of humor—but reserved, innately distrustful, secretive. In Washington he was like a king returned to his kingdom—suddenly gay and expansive. He enlarged on the party's organizational and human resources in Washington, mentioning, among others, the man whose name he always pronounced "Awl-jur"—with a kind of drawling pleasure, for he took an almost parental pride in Alger Hiss. Then, with a little inclusive wave of his pudgy hand, he summed up. 'Even in Germany under the Weimar Republic,' said Peters, 'the Party did not have what we have here.'"

The Communists are shrewd plotters and tenacious fighters. Even when the Soviet Union was fighting on the side of the allies against Hitler's Germany, the Communist leaders never for a moment lost sight of the fact that the U.S. would eventually be their most dangerous enemy. Communist activities were in full swing in the United States during World War II. Men like Harry Dexter White, Alger Hiss, Whitaker Chambers would have done irreparable damage to America if Chambers did not get his chance to tell his story before a congressional committee. The U.S. Government adopted a different attitude altogether. All the evidences collected by the FBI on Russian spies were only of academic interest to the policy makers of the U.S. Government. Any attempt on the part of FBI to arrest those engaged in espionage work for the Soviet Union would meet with interference of the State Department. That accounts for the success of the Communist agents in the person of Rosenbergs of America and Klaus Fuchs of Britain in transmitting atomic secret to the Soviets. If the U.S. Government was then as farsighted in planning and policy making as the Russians were, America would not be placed in such a disadvantageous position as she is today.

The strategy of cold war and policy of the Kremlin remain the same today as it has been all along. "For The Skeptic" should be a warning to what the people in the free world are up against.