ESSENTIALS FOR WEST DEFENCE

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26856, 8 October 1952, Page 9

ESSENTIALS FOR WEST DEFENCE

“Plan, And Effective Machinery”

LONDON. October fl. Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery, Deputy-Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, told a press conference in London tonight that two things were vitally important if the West was to win the cold war. They were an agreed Allied plan and effective machinery for handling the problem. "So far as I am aware, we have neither of those two vital necessities," he said. “We tackle a potential hot war on an Allied basis. Why do we not do the same for the cold war?" He said that If the cold war was won there might never be a shooting war for years to come. If a hot war came, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation would not act alone. "It will be a global or world war between the enslaved nations and the free peoples, and the question is how could such a war be handled by the free nations.” he asked. "I am not suggesting that it would be suitable to set up an organisation today to handle a hot war—large headquarters to handle a global war—but I do suggest that we should do our thinking about it before the trouble begins —have it all thought out how we should handle it if it should happen." Field-Marshal Montgomery said that the Cold war could only be won by getting the truth over to the enslaved nations, and so making them see that life on the Western side of the Iron Curtain was better than life' on their side. “It is because we do not win cold wars that we have to flghi, hot wars. When the politicians get completely mucked up about the cold war they hand it over to us.” The field-marshal suggested that the NATO nations should name someone as sunreme commander for the cold war with th* task of co-ordinating the cold war propaganda effort* of the Atlantic Treaty countries.