THREAT TO PEACE OF EAST-WEST CLEAVAGE UNDER ATOMIC SHADOW

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27221, 26 October 1949, Page 7

THREAT TO PEACE OF EAST-WEST CLEAVAGE UNDER ATOMIC SHADOW

New Zealand Press Association—Copyright

Rec. 9 p.m. NEW YORK, Oct. 24. “ Under the atomic shadow, the world dwells in two hr:tile camps,” said General Dwight D. Eisenhower, warning Americans to-night to concentrate their thinking, planning and actions towards the preservation of freedom against threats in a divided world.

General Eisenhower was addressing the Herald Tribune forum, which is organised by the New York newspaper to discuss each year some outstanding public topic. He said: “ One of these camps is dedicated to human freedom and human rights and founded in the dignity of man. The other is committed to dictatorship of the proletariat, where the State decides what rights and what freedoms the individual may enjoy. This basic cleavage of itself would apparently involve no irreconcilable antagonisms, but the Communistic leaders openly declare that individual freedom and free enterprise as we practice them cannot long exist in the same world with Communism.

“In their declaration is a tragic, continuing threat to our kind of Government. In view of the dynamic force with which those leaders are prosecuting their aims, we scarcely need a further incentive to concentrate our thinking, our planning and our actions towards the preservation of freedom against threats from without.”

General Eisenhower suggested that there should be a convocation of leaders in every field, with the faculties of the great universities to determine the dividing line between the individual’s and the Government’s responsibilities. “When .freedom is threatened from without, it is more than ever necessary that we at home watch with a critical eye every slightest reason or excuse for moving the line that separates Government from individual responsibility,” he added.