DEMOCRATS: Prepared Positions

• Share

In the front-line confusion of campaigning, Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver have mostly been shooting from the hip when they attack the Eisenhower-Dulles foreign policy. But behind the front, two Democratic foreign-policy specialists have been preparing more solid positions for the party—and with the guns pointing different ways. The specialists are: 1) George F. Kennan, 52, author of the postwar policy of containment, Harry Truman's Ambassador to Moscow (1952-53), and Adlai Stevenson's foreign-policy adviser; 2) New York's Governor Averell Harriman, 64, Franklin Roosevelt's Ambassador to Moscow (1943-46), one of the sharpest forecasters of Russian attitudes and intentions during and after World War II, and candidate for nomination as President of the U.S.

The Kennan Line. Kennan's major theme, set forth in a recent speech to the Foreign Policy Association of Pittsburgh, is that the U.S. ought to "get over the charged and excited quality" of its relations with the Soviets. In the recent Soviet changes he sees the start of a mellowing that overtakes all militant movements. His recommendation: the U.S. should seek a new "normalcy" in learning to live with the Russians.

Kennan also recommends that the U.S.: Accept "whether we like it or not" that the best hope for the Soviet satellites is for gradual and peaceful evolution to greater independence. "There is a finality, for better or for worse, about what has now occurred in Eastern Europe."

Seek the reunification of Germany "as a neutral factor that can blunt the sharp edge of military bipolarity in Europe . . . I have always doubted the wisdom of the decision to rearm Western Germany."

Yield gracefully—by abstaining from voting—if other nations vote Red China into the U.N.

Be cautious about a broad indictment of colonialism. "I sometimes wonder whether these dreams of intimacy with what we regard as the humble and oppressed peoples of the earth do not represent a form of rebellion against the older European peoples ... in order to prove to ourselves the reality of our maturity and the finality of our liberation from the apron strings of old Europe . . ."

The Harriman Line. With Kennan's basic argument Harriman could hardly disagree more. The disarming Soviet policy of coexistence was set before Stalin's death, Harriman says, and the Soviets still seek world conquest, "but throwing off Stalin makes the new line more plausible." Writing in the Atlantic, he argues that U.S. foreign policy must derive from "moral strength," and especially that the U.S. must "succeed once again in identifying ourselves with anti-colonialism rather than with colonialism."