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TOP SECRET
FROM:The High Commissioner for Canada, Pretoria,
TO:
South Africa.
THEUNDER-SECRETARY
OF STATEFOR EXTERNAL
AFFAIRS, CANADA
Your despatch US-336 of December 11, 1950
Reference ...•.•........•••.•..•..•.•....•...............•.....................................
Subject:
............•.••.•.•...•..•.
I enclose a few lines by way of
immediate comment or reflection
prompted by the
two papers of December 8 prepared by the Deputy
Under-Secretary.
At this distance and away from
the activist
realism of the East Block, I do not
expect to be able to add anything very useful to
what is being thought and written there: hence
I have not put this in despatch form. ;'fuat I
have written is more by way of satisfying
rriy own
local sense of urgency than as a contribution
of
any great moment.
Copies ne £erred
To ..............
'. •.......................................................
.
7,;.._~~~o.
High Commissioner
No. of Enclosures
ONE
Post
File
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0003
�Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la ~o:ttag~dfl:E!'Tmation
enclosing
Notes on US.336 of December 11
two papers presented to the Minister
on December 9
These two memoranda state the terms of the world crisis in very
stark - not to say Toynbeeian - terms.
They also call for an immediate semimobilization
of the entire resources of the anti-Russian
world as the only way
of preventing the recurrence of one more, and perhaps the last, failure to
produce a response to the challenge on time.
2.
It seems to me that a disproportionate
emphasis is laid on the
inadequacy of the ¥larshall Plan, the North Atlantic Union, the Colombo Plan and
the united action in Korea. It is true that the first could not stop the
Czechoslovakian coup, the second is still
preoccupied with blueprints
and plans,
the third is still hatching and the fourth has met defeat because of a bad guess.
But it is in the nature of policies which are based on co-operation
between
autonomous sovereignties
and designed to inspire democratic allegiancies
as well
as to resolve immense, deeply rooted and excessively
complex social and economic
problems, that they take months to elaborate and years to mature.
We may appear
to have lagged behind Communist enterprise
at each step.
At the same time we
may have gained more than our present strategic
and reconstruction
position on
the surface shows. Economic recovery in Europe is well under way. The
constructive
intentions
of the West for the Far East and for undeveloped areas
are now established;
and so far as it can be done, the will of the western world
to refrain from large-scale
war is already explicit,
even if it is not yet
universally
convincing.
3.
I would suggest that we have now reached a new phase in the post
war world revolution.
It is a phase that moves at a quicker pace and therefore
requires a radical re-organization
of western authority
to cope with a Communist
strategy which looks as though it was being pushed rather faster than it had
expected to be.
4.
In these circumstances,
as the memoranda point out, the slowmoving but massive operations of the past three or four years can no longer be
our model. The machinery of Committees, Councils, Assemblies and Governments
must somehow be augmented by a more centralized
and expeditious medium of
decision, and equipped with material,
co-ordinated
transportation,
manpower and
armament, and pooled intelligence
which can respond with the utmost celerity
to
the tactical
and strategic
moves of the enemy. In short, alliances
must become
answerable to a Supreme Headquarters and commit themselves to carrying out its
demands. As described in the second memoranda, they are too brittle
and amorphous
to divert the centrally
controlled missiles of the Kremlin.
5.
Some such outline might emerge from the meetings of N.A.T.O.,
the Prime Ministers'
Conference, the proposed conference of the Organization of
American States,
and the Assembly meeting in March. Its purpose should be made
transparently
clear, namely, the closing of the ranks of all those who reject
the Communist order of things and in consequence have united their strength to
repel its attacks wherever they may fall.
In some way, too, such an organization
must clear itself
of any possible imputation that it is dominated by any one
Great Power. This, I realize,
will be a delicate and difficult
affeir,
especially
when the bulk of the load will be borntby that Power. But while we
cannot and would not wish to have the monolithic consolidation
of authority
enjoyed by Moscow, we should strive for the utmost·unity
of purpose, and the
basis for that is the principle
of real collaboration.
6.
In the same context it has occurred to me, while reading the long
range exchanges of view between East and Vlest during the past few months, that
while there is truculence,
bisotry and inflexible
hostility
in the utterances
of
Vishinsky, Wu and the rest, there is on our side an unrealistic
kind of
superiority,
an assumption of rightness
and righteousness
which I cannot help
feeling sets up a very difficult
barrier.
We seem to have failed to realize,
for
example, how the invasion of North Korea would appear to China - though Britain
went to war in 1914 for almost the same reason, when Belgium was invaded.
We
also seem to think there is virtue and force in announcing our objectives
before
our plans are fully formulated,
perhaps in the belief that we are dealing with
opponents who reason as we do. The latest example of this is the announcement by
a ranking American General of the three headed attack or reply which the western
••.• 2
000352
�Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur /'acces ii /'information
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2
world will make to a Russian
invasion
of Western Europe •
. 7.
This is another variation
of the deliberate
planning technique
of the cold war, whereas as I have tried to suggest, we have passed into the
more executive necessities
of a warm war.
8.
There is one aspect of combined western action which is omitted
in the memorandum, and that is the employment of the armoury of persuasion,
explanation and conversion to carry to all th_at can be reached the civilized
and
co-operative
intentions
and aims of the free world.
If the objective named that is, a modus vivendi for the two opposed groups - is to be realized,
the
defensive operations of the West must be supported with their own message of good
willJ reconstruction
and peaceful intent, and for this, a "College of Propaganda"
in its original sense, equipped as fully as the echelons and formations of
defence, will be necessary.
Its function will be equally to win support and to
re-assure the enemy that we can occupy the same planet contemporaneously even if
uneasily.
High Commissioner
000353
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�
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Title
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NATO
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Title
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Warm War / 28 DECEMBER 1950
Date
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1950-12-28
Format
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PDF
Language
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en
Type
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Text
Identifier
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CDTT00089
Source
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High Commissioner for Canada, Pretoria to Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs no. 599," 28 Dec. 1950, LAC, RG 25, vol. 4758, file no. 50069-D-40, part 1; MacDermot to Reid, 15 Jan. 1951, LAC, RG 25, vol. 4758, file no. 50069-D-40, part 1.
Pretoria
Reid
South Africa
Terence MacDermot