The Strongest Force

The U.S. was reminded last week that the real battle of the cold war is far from won--or even fully joined. Addressing the Mississippi Valley World Trade Conference in New Orleans,* Massachusetts' Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the No. 2 Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, put the case bluntly. Said he:

"The Russians, believe me, are not smart enough to have single-handedly created the Communists of Europe." Europe's chronic ills--overpopulation, maldistribution of goods and wealth, the failure of its educated class to provide leadership, the selfishness of its wealthy--"these are the facts which create Communists.

"Fundamentally, we face a political--a human--challenge of the very highest order. In spite of our great efforts and vast expenditures, we have been hugely unsuccessful in the battle for men's minds. We have spent more than $1,800 million in Italy since the war and during the same period the membership of the Communist Party there went from 60,000 to 2,500,000. We run the risk of a political campaign in which one candidate spends most of the money while the other candidate receives all the votes.

"An enthused America, speaking through its Government, can make American democracy an article of export. The Christian concept of the dignity of man is the strongest revolutionary force in the world. But because we lack imagination or understanding, we have allowed the materialistic and brutal verbiage of Communism to gain a greater export currency than our own belief which springs from eternal sources.

"The job of stating our aims for ourselves badly needs to be done . . .

"Our ideas must emphatically mean that we do not uphold any regime abroad, no matter how corrupt, provided only that it is antiCommunist. At its best such a course would be stupidity, at its worst it would be nihilism. In any event it would simply strengthen the Communist cause. We are not--we must not be--on the horns of a dilemma of which one prong is Communism and the other prong is Fascism.

"This fight is fundamentally one for men's minds. The effort must, therefore, be made by ideas which appeal to the aspirations of men's souls. With such ideas we will win; without these all the money and Cominterns and 'cloak and dagger' services in the world will fail."

* Jointly sponsored by the city of New Orleans and TIME-LIFE International, replacing the scheduled New Orleans-TIME Forum on "The Future of Freedom," which was postponed because of international conditions.

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