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This file contains material relating to Arthur Vandenberg.
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4525671
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Michigan Bar Association, Junior Bar Section, September 27, 1950
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4525671
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Michigan Bar Association, Junior Bar Section, September 27, 1950
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This file contains material relating to Arthur Vandenberg.
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Gerald R. Ford Congressional Papers
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Asia
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Soviet Union
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1950-09-30
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1950
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1950-09-01
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1950
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The original documents are located in Box D13, folder "Michigan Bar Association, Junior
Bar Section, September 27, 1950" of the Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and
Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Copyright Notice
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of
photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. The Council donated to the United
States of America his copyrights in all of his unpublished writings in National Archives collections.
Works prepared by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duties are in the public
domain. The copyrights to materials written by other individuals or organizations are presumed to
remain with them. If you think any of the information displayed in the PDF is subject to a valid
copyright claim, please contact the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Janim Bar section J Muchigm Bar axxn
Wednesday, September 27th 19 ?
Michigan citizens should be rightfully proud of Senator
Arthur H. Vandenberg, the foremost statemen in the United States
now and for the last two decades. As a member of the minority party
he, more than anyone else, vas responsible for the success of bi-
particanship in foreign affairs. Re cerried his full part in formu-
lating and implementing the creation and support of the United
Nations, the European Recovery Program and our national policy in
the Western Hemisphere. All of Michigan, in fact the entire world,
excepting perhaps Stalin and his cohorts, at this noment regret his
present 111 health and wish him a speedy and complete recevery.
There have been some critics of a bipartisanship in foreign
policy. Actually where a sincere bipartises offort has been made
our foreign policy has been successful. Substantial progress has
been made in Europe under the able guidance and leadership of Mr.
Paul O. Hoffman. Despite Europe's economic and military post var
weaknesses Communion has been on the defensive. The best evidence
of the success of foreign policy bipartisanship se the fact that
Communists did not strike in Europe but in Asia where biparticanship
has never existed.
Some may contend that bipartisanship has directed our Far
Sastern foreign policy. To remove any doubt in this regard the fol-
loving quotations from speeches by Senator Vandenborg should be a part
of the record.
on March 18, 1947 Senator Vandenberg, then Chairman of the
Committee on Foreign Relations said: "This bigartisan foreign policy
FORSTON been confined within relatively narrow limits. It has applied to
&
GERALD
the United Nations. It has applied to peace treaties in Europe. It
-1-
Digitized from Box D13 of The Ford Congressional Papers: Press Secretary and Speech File at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
has applied to nothing else. I have had nothing to do, for example,
with China policies or pan-American policies except within the United
Nations, and nt times I have been entiefied with neither.
on February 10, 1949 Mr. Vandenberg said: "It 414 not
apply to everything - for example, not to Polestine OF China."
It 10 regrettable that bipartisanship vod not tried in
the Far East. If such a policy hed been given a chance it 10 quite
likely that success against Communism instead of feilure would have
been the result in that part of the world.
The importance of Asia cannot be underestim ted in the
titanic struggle between Communism and those who believe in freedom
and liberty. Only Amia has great undeveloped natural resources and
great undeveloped human resources. More than half the people of the
world live in Asia. which way are they to go? To Russia or to the
United States. That 10 likely to be the decisive question of this
century.
At the end of World War II the Soviets had approximately
200 million people under their control. Nov, with their estellites
in Europe, and what they have seized in Anto, the Rede dominate almost
western
800 million. Ve of the free/world are almost 800 million people. The
two roughly balance. The seales can be tipped by the 700 million
people on the periphery of China, what happens to Korea, Japan,
Formona, the Philippines, Indonesia, Indochina, Stem, Malaya, Burne,
India, Pakestan and even Iron will decide the rate of our way of life.
Some foreign policy makers contend that the Unit ed States
could write off China with her 400 million people and then build up
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GERALD FORD MARARI
the countries around her. That policy, as recent experiences have
indicated, is not sound. China in like & giant hand end the surround-
ing countries like the outstretched fingers, or to pat it another
way, China 10 like the hub of a wheel with the surrounding countries
the spokes in the wheel. What happens in the hub controls the
spokes and the fate of the hand determines fate of the fingers.
Unfortunately ve have lost China to Communists and 1/0 are
now fighting in the Korea finger. If the United Nations forees puch
the North Korean forces to the 38th parallel, and I am certain that
will be the case, and even If ve move the Communists beek to the
Manchurian border, they can move into that name finger again, as soon
B.G our attention 10 turned elsewhere into other fingers such no Indo-
China, the Philippines OF Burna. The problem 1a simply China. The
Rede can bleed un to death with China under Kremlin domination.
The record shows that Communist leaders have always under-
stood the importance of China. In 1937. Chow En-lai, now Prime Minister
of the Communist regine in China, wrote Earl Browder, then head of
the Communist Party in the United States, the following:
"Conrade, do you still remember the Chinese comrades
who worked with you in China 10 years ago?"
Earl Browder vas in China in 1927 to help the Rede seize complete
control of that country but Chian Eai-sek and his believers in a free
and independent China withstood the Communist forces.
In the name year, Earl Browder received A letter from Hao
Tee-tung, now President of the Communist regine in Peking. The follow-
ing sentencein that letter in important in understanding overado Krenlin
strategy
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GERALD
LIBRARY
"We feel that when ve achieve victory (in china), this
vistory will be of considerable help to the struggle of the American
people fouliberation."
Other evidence 10 likevise available. In the Daily Worker
for December 2, 1945, Villiam 9. Foster, head of the Communist Party
in this country, said:
"On the international scale, the key tack, ae emphasized
in Compade Dennie' report, in to stop American intervention
in China."
The Krealin to date has boen successful in achieving victory in
China. The United States after World Var II lost its golden oppor-
tunity to set up & government in China that would be independent of
the Soriets. Until such #: goverment in in control in China the
United States and her allies will never be secure from the imperial-
1st designs of the U.S.S.R. Let's not forget one fact, which 10
all too clear, that Communists in Asia are Communists and not
simple agrarian reformers.
In conclusion, there are several points which should be
brought out. First, in both world were we ourselves helped bring
on the trouble by putting expediency shead of principle. In the
thirties we helped the aggressor, Japan, instead of the victin,
China. In the forties we bribed Russia by giving her China's terri-
tory and then appeased Communism in China while denouncing those
who were resisting it.
Second, twice in one decade the United States made the
same mistake of imagining that what happened in Europe vae more
likely to get us into var than what happened in Asia.
GERALD FORD LIBRARY
atto
The United States has always been secure from var in the
Pacific as long as Japan had a free China, friendly to America, in
the west. Our nation can be free from Soviet aggression if a free
China exists on the mainland of Loin. Our Pacific policy must be
tailored to rit this IR ttern and that means our State Department
should not be deluded by the present Chinese Reda who are Communists
and under the complete domination of the Kremlin.
FORD & LIBRARY GERALD
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