Stevenson Dismisses Isolationism

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30286, 12 November 1963, Page 26

Stevenson Dismisses Isolationism

(N.Z. Press Association— Copyright) NEW YORK, November 10. The chief United States delegate to the United Nations (Mr Adlai Stevenson) said today that some of America’s old isolationism still existed, but its influence on foreign policy was no longer important.

He described the current Right-wing surge in the United States as a “curious phenomenon.” based on old traditions and frustrations, lack of knowledge and the help of “a good deal of money.” “If Right-wing influence is important, and I don’t think it is, the ideas are a mistake,” Mr Stevenson said in an interview on the

American Broadcasting Company’s television programme “Issues and Answers.” He predicted that foreign policy would be an important issue in the 1964 Presidential election. Mr Stevenson disputed the view of a Right-wing contender for the Republican nomination, Senator Barry Goldwater, that the United States should sever relations with the Soviet Union. It was hardly conceivable that peace could be preserved except through talks, he said. If the United States broke off relations with Moscow, the world would be divided into “two air-tight compartments, and we should And very soon that we were alone in one compartment,’’ while other nations continued to negotiate, he said. Mr Stevenson said America’s "obsession about Cuba” was beginning to diminish, although the existence of a Communist beach-head in the Western Hemisphere remained a source of grave concern and constant tension. Cuba was no great military threat or source of infection to the United States, but it was a training ground for subversives and .terrorists who could exercise influence in Latin America. Rusk's Claims Tito Secretary of State (Mr Rusk) said today that some "significant withdrawals” of Soviet staff had been made from Cuba. “We also know the situation inside Cuba is very tight from the economic point of view,” he said. “Cuba is experiencing considerable difficulties.”