Need For New U.S. Far Eastern Policies

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27912, 8 March 1956, Page 13

Need For New U.S. Far Eastern Policies

[Specially written for the N.Z.P.A. by FRANK OLIVER} (Rcc. 10 p.m.) WASHINGTON, March 6.

The amount of newsprint and ink being consumed over the future of the Republican Party is prodigious and other matters of importance have to manage with short commons; but a failamount of this is being used to discuss that large area called the East.

Mr Dulles is there and before this travelling salesman of Americanism returns, he will have visited 10 Asian countries, including those two uncertain quantities. India and Indonesia. His immediate purpose of course, is the SEATO meeting in Karachi, but the purposes of his journey are somewhat wider than that. The Orient, as Americans prefer to call it. has lately been given more thought than for a long time, ever since those travelling salesmen of communism Marshal Bulganin and Mr Khrushchev, went to woo the millions of India and Burma. And thinking about the Orient has induced a measure of disquiet among those who think seriously about Far Eastern affairs. Whether this disquiet has invaded the State Department is difficult to say, but outside it there's a strong feeling among Far Eastern experts that something is lacking in American policies being applied to all parts of Asia. There is a strong feeling, undoubtedly shared by the Secretary of State, that the cold war is entering a new phase in Asia, as elsewhere. The Stalinist tactics of violence and war are discarded and more subtle and more flexible methods of achieving Communist expansion have been initiated by his more wily successors. There are those who feel the Communists got rather the best of the exchanges during the Stalinist cold war in the East and who fear they may do even better in the economic cold war. Certainly Mr Dulles should on this journey get a clearer picture of the impact of the new Communist policies and tactics on the still free nations of Asia and there are many who hope he I comes back with facts and arguments

to support the President’s proposal of a 10-year foreign aid programme, which is still making no progress in Congress.

There is no doubt that many outside his own party have developed a slight nervousness about the Secretary of State since his “brink of war” interview and he has been accused of playing the “game of brinkmanship” in the conduct of American foreign policy.

The “New York Times” says the new Communist strategy is winning victories in the Middle East and Asia and it raises new dangers, which Mr Dulles appears to underestimate. It says the Administration is ahead of most of its critics in that it wishes a larger and more flexible economic aid programme, with above all continuity, but doubts if even this is sufficient to meet the new dangers if it is not accompanied by bolder, more imaginative measures, especially including the planned expansion of free world trade as a key to its economic strength. The paper expresses the thought of many when it says it hopes Mr Dulles will return with new ideas in this field.

But hope is a cheap commodity and there is not much assurance visible that Mr Dulles, who. his critics say. loves to think he is playing a shrewd political game, will be as bold and imaginative as the times and conditions seem to demand. There are many, including some Republicans, who feel that Mr Dulles is not going to be a great asset to the President in his bid for another term; but even his Republican critics seem stumped when asked with whom they would replace him if they could. They cannot of course, and Mr Eisenhower has said bluntly that he regards Mr Dulles as the greatest Secretary of State he has ever known. The President has a simi'ar deeprooted faith in the Vice-President, Mr Richard , Nixon, and now that the President’s intentions. are known, the great debate in the Republican Party is centred on the Vice-President. Those who claim to have inside information say that not long ago Mr Nixon had considerable support at a very high level—that is Cabinet level —as running mate if Mr Eisenhower ;

asked for a second term. Since the President's announcement, they add. support for Mr Nixon has melted away, leaving him with but one friend; but that one is more powerful than all the others put together—the President himself. Mr Nixon is one of those men who are either loved or hated and it is generally agreed that he is detested by the Opposition and has lost ground with independent voters. Many in the party therefore want a running mate with wider appeal, but any Presidential nominee has something to say about who is to run with him and it can hardly be questioned that unless the President changes his stand on Mr Nixon, the Republican ticket next November will be the same as four years ago. This is in spite of the fact that a number of very important Republicans think the Vice-President would be a handicap to Mr Eisenhower. especially as the Vice-Presi-dential nominee will have to do most of the travelling campaigning. The Republicans remain elated that the President will run, but in the main feel unhappy over the running mate issue.