The President's Rebuttal

Harry Truman waited 48 hours to counterattack. His platform was a dinner for 1,200 delegates to a civil-defense conference at Washington's Hotel Statler. Unlike General MacArthur, he had the microphones and cameras of the nation's major radio & television networks before him.

"We are right in the midst of a big debate on foreign policy," the President said. "A lot of people are looking at this debate as if it were just a political fight. But . . . the thing that is at stake in this debate may be atomic war. Because there was an atomic explosion in the Soviet Union in 1949, we must act on the assumption that they do have atomic bombs. Our foreign policy is not a political issue. It is a matter of life and death. The best defense against atomic bombing is to prevent the outbreak of another world war and achieve a real peace."

"We have been urged," he said, "to . . . spread the fighting in the Far East. [This] is not a local question. It affects . . . the future of the United Nations and . . . the whole world. I have refused to extend the . . . conflict. The best military advice--the best collective military advice in this country--is that [to spread the fighting] would not lead to a quick and easy solution of the Korean conflict. On the contrary it could . . . lead to a much bigger and much longer war. Such a war would not reduce our casualties ... it would increase them enormously.

"Furthermore . . . there is nothing that would give the Kremlin greater satisfaction than to see our resources committed to an all-out struggle in Asia, leaving Europe exposed to Soviet armies. [And] if the United States were to widen the conflict, we might well have to go it alone. The path of collective security is our only sure defense against the dangers which threaten us. It is the path to peace ... in the world. We are determined to do our utmost to limit the war in Korea."

The President played on two themes: the horror of a World War III ("Cleveland or Chicago, Seattle or New York, or any of our other great cities might be destroyed") and his hope for avoiding it. In effect, though he was careful not to say it so flatly, he argued that the U.S. was winning the cold war and the Korean war. Said he:

"The futility of the whole Communist program is becoming more . . . apparent to the people under Soviet control. The Kremlin's system of terror, which appears to be its main strength, is one of its greatest weaknesses. Dictatorships are based on fear. In China, the failure of the Korean adventure is weakening the hold of the Communist government. Yugoslavia has thrown off the Kremlin yoke. There are growing signs of internal tension behind the Iron Curtain. We are not engaged in a struggle without end. Peace under law is the victory we seek. I am confident that the American people will not yield either to impatience or defeatism."

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