The Atlantic Alliance and its Future

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It would be ridiculous and impertinent to claim that I was able to make the closing speech at this Conference. I have not been present at your work. I have just heard a short resume about it and so it is unthinkable that I should try to summarise it or evaluate it. Therefore, I would ask you not to think of the speech which I am about to make as a closing speech, although that is the speech that I ought to have made. Since I am the Secretary General of. the Organization which is, as I have just heard, and it is true, the only concrete achievement at the present moment of an Atlantic Community, it might perhaps be as well to give you some of the impressions which I have managed to gather at the centre of this Organization, in four months -to tell you how I found it, what it is, what, together with my colleagues, we hope to make of it, 30 that you may have an insight into the best contribution to be made by organizations or groups such as your own.

I must apologise for being a little intimidated, dons always intimidate me terribly. My school studies and those at the university were modest. I have a vivid recollection of many a caustic remark, many a setback at the university. But every time that I am given an honorary degree now, I achieve a most profound and satisfying personal revenge - nevertheless, dons still continue to fill me with awe because I know that I am not quite up to their level. And already glancing rapidly over your efforts and listening to your summaries, I have come to the conclusion that this action of mine, which I rate at quite a high level,. is not, all the same, at the topmost level. I am first and foremost a politician and remain so even to this day, although I must be a little careful about it, and politics have certain exigencies, which pure disinterested thought does not always excuse. And if I should seem to you too practical, even perhaps too polemical, I make my apologies now.

How NATO came about

Now I am going, to try and tell you how I found NATO, what it seems to be doing at present and what its future could be, I shall have to repeat quite a few things which are well-known, which ought all to be well-known and which are basic. They are basic because they are continually being disputed by one part of the world, by the Communist world and even" by a certain number of Western people, NATO, as at present constituted, is essentially (and its limitations and deficiencies are self-evident) a military organization. Its existence has to be justified and explained. Our opponents accuse us of. having set up a block, an aggressive block, they add. To such an accusation I have this to say in reply: if it is true that the Atlantic Alliance represents a block, it is the Communist world which is responsible for block-politics. Secondly, it is utterly untrue that we are an aggressive block. I am stating a fact and I am entirely convinced when I say that after the second world war the great Powers of the West wanted to found and construct their foreign policies on two bases: first, upon the maintenance of their alliance with the Soviet Union and secondly, upon the United Nations. .1 am quite certain that to maintain this alliance with Soviet Russia, the great Powers of the West did not allow the European idea to take shape from 1944 or 1945, as it should have done, and the delay of several years, moreover, severely prejudiced the cause. One of the reasons which hindered the rise of the European idea and its development is that it was not desirable at this time to cause any difficulty, however slight, with Soviet Russia, and, since Russia was hostile to the European idea, everything possible was done to moderate the wishes, the will and the hopes of those who would have wished to attempt to rebuild Europe on new bases.

If this policy of co-operation with the Russians, if this policy based upon the United Nations failed, I see two chief reasons. One is the systematic intentional sabotage by the Soviet Union of the Security Council through their abusive use of the right of veto which they employed in that organization. The other is the need which confronted the West to put a stop at some time to Soviet imperialism.

Soviet Sabotage and Imperialism

May I, if you will allow me, say a word or two on both scores, I was, and I remain opposed to the right of veto in international organizations. And I still believe as deeply and with as much conviction as I did at San Francisco that international organizations will only work correctly and effectively when the small, the medium-sized and also the large nations (and I should add of their free will), when the large nations in particular, have realised that beyond their own will there exists international law, which is shaped by the majority, and moreover that this can be the result of ponderation. At San Francisco we were obliged to accept the system of the veto. We knew it was bad, but we never foresaw that it would produce as deceptive results as it did inside the Security Council. In order to persuade us to accept the principles of the Charter, the large nations said: "We shall only make a reasonable use of the right of veto. We shall only use it when our vital interests are at stake. Try it and see". We let ourselves be convinced. Moreover, we had no alternative and we have tried it. But what has the attempt given to the Russians? Just this - since the United Nations came into being, I can tell you now that Soviet Russia has used her right of veto more than ninety times in the Security Council. One must understand the significance of this: it means that ninety times in an international problem be it of lesser or major importance, ninety times the Security Council had reached a solution, this solution was accepted by a majority, sometimes by virtual unanimity, and then, at the sole desire of one single nation under the accepted rules of the Charter, the resolution was treated as non-existent, and as a result could not be put into effect. On ninety separate occasions our discussions have proved abortive. In the face of such a system, how can one not abandon hope, lose one's illusions, one's faith? In the face of such a system is it possible for a politician to keep believing that an organization thus mortally wounded can be the organization from which one expects peace and security? Truly, Soviet Russians systematic sabotage of the Security Council's work Was what compelled us to think of something more effective some years after 1945, after the period of illusions.

At the same time as this systematic sabotage of the Security Council was going on, there was Soviet imperialism. I am well aware that every time I pronounce these two words at a meeting at which Communists are present, or Communist sympathisers, they protest. But they protest more in the name of a doctrine and an ideology than in the name of facts. Because it seems that to join the two words imperialism and communism contradicts their doctrine. What I do know is that factually there is a Soviet imperialism and I cannot comprehend how people try to argue on those grounds. To my mind, imperialism is something very simple and clear and it exists as a fact when one country, a large country, seizes a certain strip of territory and subjects to its laws a certain number of men and women against their will. Soviet policy after the beginning of the second world war was precisely this. There is no difficulty in pointing this out, but the difficulty lies in the fact that when one quotes from memory one will forget one or other argument. Because the Russians, thanks to the second world war, have quite simply annexed the three Baltic States, taken a piece of Finland, a piece of Rumania, a piece of Poland, a piece of Germany and, thanks to a well thought-out policy composed of internal subversion and external pressure, have established Governments justifiably styled as Satellites, in Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Sofia, Bucharest, Tirana and East Berlin - I except Belgrade where the regime is unique thanks to the energy and courage of Marshal Tito. If all this does not constitute manifestations of imperialism, if all this is not the result of a policy consciously willed and consciously pursued, an imperialist aim, then indeed we shall have to start to go back to a new discussion and a new definition of words.

The determining factor in international politics after the second world war-was the coup d'etat at Prague, the disappearance of a democratic progressive policy and its replacement by a totalitarian government with a Communist minority. It will have a singularly important place devoted to it when the time comes to write the post-war history of international politics. The coup d'etat at Prague, the disappearance of Czechoslovakia as a free democratic State, was the last straw on the camel's back, or, if you prefer, the flash of lightning which opened the most stubborn eyes. Everyone understood in Western Europe, and fortunately also in the New World, that if we wanted to prevent the continuing unbounded development of Soviet imperialism, if we wanted to prevent its repetition in other capitals or in other more or less similar ways, yet following the same pattern, the same political procedure, that if we wanted to avoid the repetition of the events of Prague, then the Western countries had got to unite, to draw together and give Soviet Russia clearly to under- stand that Prague represented the last manifestation of this imperialism which we could permit without far more important and serious results.

What I would like to add to this, and what the Western people are perhaps insufficiently aware of, is that there has probably never been any alliance which has realised its principal objective as completely and utterly as NATO. For I would have you realise that since 1948 in Europe, for the Atlantic Pact was designed solely for Europe, Soviet imperialism was definitively brought to a halt, and that to attain this aim we did not have to use force or violence, we did not have to resort to war. This was as we had wished. And in a world where a great deal of adverse comment is directed at politicians, when they can produce one of their accomplishments which constitutes a success and even a total success there should be no hesitation in saying so, or in emphasizing it. And those who think that we could now afford to diminish the power of the military alliance or to do away with it, to my mind commit an awful mistake. This military power, which has never been used because it exists, that is, its existence has enabled the political objectives which it set itself to be attained, and the day when this military alliance is weakened or done away with, then those who bring this about, or who help to bring it about, will simply have recreated the conditions which prevailed in 1945-46-47-48 and made it possible for Soviet imperialism to expand across the world to absorb one by one a large number of European countries and to create one of the greatest tragedies witnessed by mankind, witnessed powerlessly -allowing millions and tens of millions of human beings to be submitted to political and moral rules which they condemn whilst the rest of the world stands by, powerless to help. I do not believe that we can undermine and sap the military strength of the Atlantic Alliance.

Military Alliance not enough

Whatever may be the success, which I believe to be pro-found and real, of this military organization, everyone feels strongly, and meetings like yours are evident proof of it, that one of those days an alliance which is and which continues to be, whatever its success, a purely military alliance would in the ultimate analysis be weak and in danger. I flatter myself on having written, a long while back, before even the Atlantic Alliance was a reality, that it was not enough to teach men to fight side by side in the course of a possible war, which we are doing all we can to avoid, but that it was also necessary to teach them to live side by side, and that this was even more important. And from the very start, the originators, those responsible for the Atlantic Alliance, have felt that the military effort which they had succeeded in bringing into being and organizing was a military effort, sufficient in itself but insufficient if regarded in the light of the possible durability of the Alliance. For a long time there have been efforts to strengthen the Atlantic Alliance politically and even economically. This idea has grown in importance and the urgency of the task has become increasingly greater. There was the urge to give reality to the truth in the theory that the army cannot be the mere fool of politics and that it is illogical to have common forces without having a common policy. In May, 1956, the NATO Foreign Ministers directed three of their number, the Foreign Ministers of Canada, Italy and Norway, to study the problem and report back on it. They were asked to see how it would be possible to give a stronger political and economic programme to the military alliance. They set to work, and what happened gave a singular importance to their studies.

We must not forget that last year, towards the end of last summer and autumn, the Atlantic Alliance went through an extremely critical period. What happened in the Middle East showed people that in one part of the world, not strictly covered by the geographic limitations of the alliance, matters had flared up, matters of extreme importance, and that the partners in the alliance were assuming different positions: the French and English on the one hand and the Americans on the other. If it had been possible to take a humorous view of things at the time, one might have noticed that paradoxically enough, the American position was closer to that of the Russians than that of the English and French. The situation was grave then, not only in the Middle East, but it raised extremely difficult problems at the centre of the alliance, and everyone realised that if the same situation was going to recur often, the alliance would break up and that indirectly Russian policy would bring off its greatest success. So much so that when the Three Foreign Ministers handed in their report last December, the ground was ready and there was no difficulty in accepting the conditions which they advocated in the field of foreign policy. I would not go so far as to say (for the subject is too important and the objective too difficult) that the Three proposed a unified foreign policy, but I do say that they did propose (as a condition for the survival of the Atlantic Alliance) a foreign policy that was not subjected to geographical restrictions, that is to say one. that was co-ordinated for world problems. I think that we are coming to this stage in the life of the Atlantic Alliance now. The question is to know whether in the months and years to come - for such things do not take place at the stroke of a magic wand, this is a new procedure we are establishing and it involves a profound and radical change of habits and customs in foreign policy - the fifteen Atlantic nations (who are very different one from another in many respects, in geographical position or by size, since the Alliance -stretches from Luxembourg to the United States, and from Canada to Norway), can find out if together we can create a co-ordinated foreign policy. I repeat, the task is not simple, yet I think we have certain cards, and even aces, up our sleeves which would enable us to succeed.

New Diplomatic Methods Needed

What is needed to ensure the success of this new diplomatic method which should result in certain transformations in traditional diplomacy? Countries must agree to keep each other informed, they must agree to consult together and to act together. I am saying this is difficult "because this runs counter to many time-honoured traditions for a great number of. countries. On reflection, I think one can say, that: national foreign policy, individualistic and to some extent egoistic, is a particularly strong tradition among countries, and that the. right to one's own foreign policy is perhaps one of the most evident manifestations of what is called national sovereignty. But I am convinced, and fortunately the number of people who share my conviction is growing day by day, that from now on economic questions are freeing themselves from the unduly narrow framework of nation States, even in the case of nations abounding in traditions, a great past, and plenty of possibilities for the future. By now many people have come to see that economic problems must be treated on the scale of large communities. What applies to economic, problems applies equally to diplomatic problems. And diplomacy on the national scale, a purely national scale, is an outmoded diplomacy.

Undoubtedly, people do prefer to act alone and even to confront their partners with a fait accompli. However, they are beginning to consider and say to themselves that the other method is perhaps preferable because at present when they have taken action they have so often to give numerous complicated and difficult excuses, so often to go back on what they have already done and to re-organize the position on which they have already moved forward, that I think they are beginning to believe that the method of information, consultation and action in common is fundamentally preferable.

As to information, this can always be got hold of swiftly enough, but it is nothing like enough for one or another country to say to its allies: "This is what I have decided to do", and to tell them this before their mutual opponents, so that the partner should not be taken too unawares. This is already something, but it is nothing very much.

We come next to the following stage, that of consultation and there it is necessary - as experience shows - to make a distinction between what I may call loyal consultation and that which is not exactly so. There is one way of consulting one's partners, a rather hypocritical way, when one has already made up one's mind. Certainly it has teen decided to submit to certain exterior forms of this new diplomacy, but it has been decided not to heed the advice or comment which may be offered. All the same, this is a slight improvement since it is possible. that in the discussion, despite the initial intention, some judicious observation may be made which can alter a point of view. But that remains utterly inadequate.

It remains to be seen now whether one can start a discussion amongst the members of the Atlantic Community, a real preliminary consultation which is really loyal and really complete, that is to say, before the individual Governments have come to final decisions. As for myself I must tell you frankly that the success of this stage is essential to the survival of the Atlantic Alliance. And I think that if we failed in achieving that, if the Atlantic Alliance continued to be solely a military organization, and if in its day-to-day political life the large countries of the alliance did not succeed in finding common ground with their lesser allies upon which they could take up unchallenged positions and defend them together, if on the contrary they continued to act in conflict and make difficulties for one another, then I am quite certain that one of these days the Alliance will smash, with the consequences that I have indicated.

An example of Diplomacy among Allies

I have said the task is difficult, but I do not consider it impossible and I think it will have to be accomplished after establishing a certain number of principles and general lines of conduct. It must be achieved by elasticity for there is no single diplomatic method that solves any and every problem, any and every conflict. What is interesting is that in these last two months in Paris we have been experiencing something as yet very limited but nonetheless promising. Within the framework of the Atlantic Alliance we have got to work out a formula upon one very serious and important question, a very complicated and difficult one; the problem of disarmament.

As you doubtless know, these last few months in London there has been at work a sub-committee of the United Nations, where there are on the one hand Soviet Russia and on the other the United States, Great Britain, France and Canada, that is to say four Western Powers, four members of NATO. To establish a reasonable disarmament programme, to produce something more than propaganda and to give people something more than the subjects and the outcome of talks, it was necessary to make a series of logical propositions, reasonable propositions which were consistent and made disarmament move forward step by step. In order to succeed in adopting this position, the Western Powers in London were bound to put forward a series of propositions affecting the direct and most important interests of their NATO partners, and even to some extent, to take a fresh look at a certain number of principles of the Atlantic Organization. With considerable good will, sympathy and good grace, the four Western Powers at London realised that they could only put forward these proposals if they had obtained the sincere and entire approval of their eleven Atlantic partners. Throughout the whole of July and August there took place an exchange of information and discussion between the sub-committee and the North Atlantic Council, so that after the problem had been very seriously studied the four were able in the end to put forward a programme which represented not just the four Western nations on the subcommittee, but all the countries in the Atlantic Alliance who had had the chance to make the most of their particular points of view and objections, and to give a certain-amount of advice and suggestion. As I said, I believe that constituted an interesting experience, culminating in a success. But I make very careful note that this was a limited experience, which was moreover comparatively easy to make successful because on a question like disarmament there is no interest dividing the Western nations, there can only be contradictory ideas and differences of method and so it was simpler to find unanimity and agreement. I am convinced that there are quite enough problems, on whose solution depends the future of NATO, for the method just tried to be used again; and without being excessively optimistic, but with the basic optimism which is needed when one tackles difficult undertakings, I do not sec why we cannot succeed in other fields and on other questions just as we succeeded in the. problem of disarmament. And I do not think it at all impossible or even improbable that in the months and the years to come we shall really succeed in giving our military alliance the vital background of a foreign policy which, though not united, is at least co-ordinated.

The Economic and Social Challenge

If we succeed in this task we shall not have exhausted the possibilities of the Atlantic Alliance, We should however be able the more confidently to consider the achievement of another task which seems much more complicated to me, and that would be to give a common political base to the countries-of the Alliance. And this task would be to give ourselves a certain number of common economic objectives. Why? Because I personally believe that it is in the field of economics, and when I say economics I ask you always to add the word social (the two things to my mind constituting a whole), because I believe it is in the economic and social fields that in the years to come the struggle between the Communist regime and the West will be waged.

On this point, in my purely personal point of view, and it is a point of view that I have come to accept since I became NATO's Secretary General, and I have no ambition or pretence to speak today in the name of everyone concerned, in my personal opinion I do not think that in the years to come, and by that I mean as far ahead as a human being can foresee political events I do not think we shall experience a third world war. My optimism about this should be explained. There are two essential reasons, and I believe that in foreign politics one has to make hypotheses and at a given time to select one and abide by it if one wants to have a foreign policy and some attitude towards events that present a measure of continuity, which allow me to be optimistic. Firstly, I think the conditions of modern warfare today are entirely novel, absolutely revolutionary, and that any comparison with the birth of the crossbow or of gunpowder is invalid and cannot be made. Ever since I was very young, -I have come across people who spoke in a manner which always disturbed me terribly: people who used to say "Men will always fight one another because men have always fought one another". When I was 18 and heard my elders, experienced people, saying that, I was terribly unhappy because this was such a pessimistic, desperate statement on mankind's future and destiny. And today, when I hear people advancing opinions like that, my feelings are still hurt profoundly by a reasoning which is so simple as to be facile. The history of the world and its wars is not explained by this phrase "Men have always fought one another and always will fight one another"... True enough, one must ask one's self why men have always fought one another. And I think there is an answer, a relatively simple and easy answer to be found to this essential question and that is, that always in at least one of the two camps, and sometimes in both, at least one side always believed that it was going to be victorious, it believed that the war was going to end in success and that the military victory would make it possible for it or for them to solve the problems confronting them, their people, their group in a- satisfactory way, and bringing with it fresh advantages to this group. It was the idea of possible victory which also made war possible. And so, ladies and gentlemen, there is one thing we ought to be very well aware of, and fortunately I think that the most important statesmen are, that the idea of military victory, the expression "military victory" should be blotted out of our vocabulary when it comes to a third world war in which atomic weapons would be used. This phrase "military victory" has become entirely devoid of meaning. There is no statesman today who can imagine for an instant that if he were to drag his country into a third world war in which atomic weapons -were used, that after the end of this war the problems he would have to resolve would be easier than those facing him today and that the destiny of the group he represents and whose interests he is defending would be better assured. I do not know if a third world war would be the end of humanity and of civilisation. But I do know that it would cause the respective adversaries to suffer blows so wounding-and so deep that it would require tens and perhaps hundreds of years for the world to recover even partial equilibrium. From the moment when the expression "military victory" is deleted from those phrases which have any meaning, the very idea of war is transformed.

Here I would make a parenthesis in order to profit by the opportunity of defending an idea which is not very popular but which is, nevertheless, wise. And to defend ideas which are not popular but which are wise always requires a certain political courage. We must certainly desire disarmament. Of this there is no shadow of doubt. Humanity can never be reassured until the day dawns when men have ceased the armaments race. We must, of course, plan a controlled disarmament, for without control there is no real disarmament at all. But we must also seek a general disarmament. This means that, taking up a point of view which is not philosophical and perhaps not even purely humanitarian but which is a political point of view, I maintain that general disarmament implies not only atomic disarmament but also of those, arms which today one is apt to call, curiously and for reasons which I am unable to fathom, by two names which always make me smile, namely classic or conventional. For my part I have never been able to conceive why they are classic and conventional.

What I mean to say is that we are today living in a sort of paradox and I share the view appearing a few days ago in an article in "Le Monde" which ended with the words: "We are today living under an equilibrium of terror". This is not indeed the. best equilibrium, tut let those who would destroy this equilibrium of terror be very careful and let them first ask themselves with what other equilibrium they would hope to replace it. For I am convinced that if today atomic armaments did not exist we would be much nearer, to war - that war would again be possible and in such a war as this the Western World would not have one chance in a thousand of winning or even of resisting. Consequently, we must be conscious of the special nature of the period of world history through which we are living, and we must accept the idea that our peace and our equilibrium are far from perfect, but that they do exist and that we must not lightly destroy such an equilibrium.

I would add that, from the purely moral point of view there is something which shocks me in a rather too facile humanitarianism represented by this struggle and this terror of the atomic weapon which we condemn with the expression "weapon of mass destruction". As though, indeed, in the other war, before the existence of atomic weapons, there had been no weapons of mass destruction. We are no longer living in the days of the revolver, or of the bullet, and we must certainly not allow the curtain horrors of a future war to let us forget certain horrors of the last one. By speaking so much of atomic war, we have already forgotten the nature of the 1914 War, and oven more the nature of the.1959 War. I therefore consider that both from the humanitarian and intellectual and from the political points of view, this disarmament question is of the utmost importance and that we must not allow ourselves to be carried away by movements which I consider, excuse the expression, as falsely humanitarian.

But I believe that there is another reason which should inspire us with confidence. This is the special ideology of the Communists. I naturally speak of the Communists because for me there are no problems from the Western point of view. There are no problems from the Western point of view because I am deeply convinced that the Atlantic Alliance is purely defensive, and that there is no question, that there can be no question at any time, of. the peoples of the Atlantic Alliance declaring war on Soviet Russia, on the Communist world and of trying to destroy them by force. I therefore speak only of the Communists, and if they do not have the same ideology and certainly not the same respect for men and people and individuals as ourselves, they nevertheless have other ideological characteristics of which we cannot afford to lose sight. And I believe that one of the most important points at the present time in the sphere of international politics is that a certain Marxism (probably badly interpreted) accentuates the mechanical and fatalistic character of events. And I am convinced that M. Krushchev believes, as he never ceases daily to repeat, that in fact Communism is carried along by the course of history. He believes, and this conforms with the tradition and the ideology of Communism, that the world which they call Capitalist and which we shall rather call the Western World, is a world condemned however great may be the efforts which it may make to resolve the problem.

M. Krushchev indeed announces daily that Communism is the future. M. Krushchev has the merit of speaking a great deal, but of speaking, we are bound to admit, with extreme simplicity, which I for my part believe to derive from his own conviction. Let us hearken to the words of dictators. Used as we are to the practice of liberty in the Western World, we have have perhaps become, in some cases though not in all, too intelligent and often too subtle. Dictators are more simple and more direct. Before the second world war we committed the basic error of not taking the speeches and writings of Hitler seriously. If we had read Mein Kampf more attentively and if instead of interpreting Mein Kampf with the intelligence and subtlety of the free man, we had simply said to ourselves: "He is speaking the truth, he is informing us of what he is going to do" - we should have avoided falling into the grave errors which in fact we committed and we should have put our policies back on the right. path in good time. Let us therefore not recommence with Krushchev that which we did so badly with Hitler. Let us take his speeches as they stand and when M. Krushchev says:-. "I have this certainty, that in a few years Communism will have triumphed throughout the globe", and when he says, addressing the Americans on their television(which, by the way is a sign of a great freedom of appreciation and openness of mind on the part of the Americans), when Krushchev addresses the Americans for a..whole half-hour by saying: "In fifty years your grandchildren will ask themselves how you could have been so stupid as to fail to rally to the banner of Communism when it is evident that Communism represents history and the future", - on such occasions I believe that Mr. Krushchev is merely saying what he thinks. And as he does not have a short-term policy (he and Stalin have shown this clearly enough), as he sees fairly far ahead and since he has the habit of planning and of patient waiting, what makes you think that a man who feels himself to be carried on the current of history and who is convinced that the day of his triumph will come, will risk all this in a third world war with the United States of America. A third atomic world war, moreover, in which he can be sure that however hard may be the knocks he would administer to the U.S.A., that the measures of reprisal would "be terrible for his country. What makes you think that he would risk all that?

I therefore believe quite sincerely, both or the count of the very existence of the atomic bomb and the count of Communist doctrine, that we must not continue to live under the impression that the Communists are systematically preparing the third world war. This does not mean that they remain indifferent and impassive to historical events. On the contrary, each time that there appears in the world, in any corner of it, a problem which is a difficult problem, or a wound which suppurates, you can be sure that you will find the Communists there to render the problem still more difficult and to poison the wound still further. This explains what they did in Iran, in Greece, in Berlin, in Korea, and what they are at present doing in the Middle East; all this is designed to accelerate the process of difficulties and decadence in the Western World, to do all mischief short of provoking the third world, war. And when indeed, in the various corners of the world which I have just listed, we saw the Western World suddenly stiffen and make the Russians understand that it was enough, and that if they went further they risked creating precisely what they wanted to avoid, generally we have seen them put a sudden halt to their actions without the West always having understood very well why. But a few months later they can be seen repeating their action in some other corner of the world, where some new difficulty has arisen. If my theory is correct we are safe for the foreseeable future, provided always of course that we remain strong, for we must not lead them into temptation (we have seen what they did when there was a temptation as in the case of Hungary). Provided that we remain strong, the third world war can no doubt be avoided,

But the fight will take place, and it will take place on the territory chosen by M. Krushchev. Once again, let us take things simply as they are said. In this interview on the American television, to which I listened, not once but ten times did Krushchev return to the idea: "In a few years the Communist economy will bear comparison with the economy of the U.S.A. and we shall have demonstrated that our social standards in Russia and in the Communist world are superior to those of the West". Here too, I believe M. Krushchev to be sincere and that this is really what he wants and what he is going to try and do, but it is also a territory upon which I have always felt that he could be defeated and upon which I am now convinced that he can be defeated.

The Iron Curtain has been raised

We must take up this economic and social challenge, just as we have already taken up the military one. There is no reason why we should not be victors on the economic and social ground, just as we have been on that of military organization. Because, after all, things now seem to be much clearer and the curtain which had closed the Communist world to our view has been partly raised over Poland and Hungary. We no longer have to depend, in order to judge the economic and social situations of these countries, solely upon the speeches and accounts of passing travelers. We now have the cry of revolt of the Hungarian people and of the Polish people themselves, which is not only a cry of revolt showing us the bankruptcy of a political and ideological system already long since known to us. At one time we were under the illusion that from the economic and social point of view they were perhaps capable of achieving as much as we. Now we know the truth because the experience of Hungary and Poland has shown us that from the economic and social point of view Communism leads only to a political setback. But what is perhaps even more extraordinary, even more important, and from which we must draw certain conclusions. Communism leads also to an economic and social setback. And today I believe that we are on the right path and that we can say so; I believe that the Western World, not the Capitalist world as it is still seen by Mr. Krushchev, from his readings of Marx, but the Capitalist world such as we know it, which has evolved considerably and which represents a directed and social Capitalism - I believe that we of the Western world may claim that our regime of political democracy and social and directed Capitalism is infinitely superior to Communist totalitarianism and state Capitalism.

It follows, therefore, that we must consciously accept the challenge. We cannot take it up individually. There is no question of Belgium, for example, taking up the challenge alone, for it is not only the challenge of the USSR, but also of the Communist world, for M. Krushchev does not speak in the name of Soviet Russia, however vast she may be, he speaks in the name of the Communist world with all the Satellites and with China at his back. Therefore it is completely meaningless for Belgium to say: "I take up the challenge". The Western world must take up this challenge as a single entity. Therefore we must not be too optimistic, for we must realise that our values and our principles have not yet been completely applied; there are still many spots in the world where we have failed in our aims, and from the economic and social point of view we do not even need to go outside Europe in order to find underdeveloped regions and countries. If we broaden our horizon a little we still do not need to go to the depths of Asia in order to be struck by certain situations wherever we have interests and direct responsibilities in certain parts of Africa and the Middle East. The effort which we should make to take up the Communist challenge and to say: "See now, the general prosperity of all those who refuse Communist principles and resist Communist blackmail", remains enormous.

Underdeveloped Countries

I do not know what were the conclusions of your deliberations about the underdeveloped countries, but I am sure that during recent year's the problem has been tackled very badly. In the first place it is a problem which has always somewhat irritated me in recent, times because I have always had the impression that for many people it was a matter for speechmaking rather than a matter for action, and that when a politician rather short of ideas no longer knew what to say he made a speech on the underdeveloped countries, which is all very well for its intellectual value and its heartfelt feelings, but which also binds him to precisely nothing. We must not only speak about the problem of the underdeveloped countries; we must also see how we are to resolve it. Here I ask you to put yourselves the question: "Can the Western World today, although it is the richest quarter of the globe, undertake to bring precise and really effective help to all the underdeveloped regions of the world? And I would ask you to give this problem a little thought, not as generous intellectuals, but as practical men. Well, I must admit to you that I doubt it very much. I see that today people speak in terms of a few tens of millions, (I speak in Belgian francs). It is already very difficult to find a few tens of millions, but what we really need are a few hundreds of billions and probablythousands of billions in order to help all the underdeveloped countries at the same time and to the same degree. In consequence, one of the questions which arises is to ask if we should not limit our effort and direct a little - not what I would call our generosity, for this is a word that I would rather not employ - but to direct somewhat our efforts towards those places where we have special responsibilities.

When we wrote the European treaties we established- two excellent things, namely an investment fund for Europe and the outlines of an investment for the African territories. And I can assure you that in order to bring together the few tens of millions necessary for this task, a great struggle was necessary. Then we must also realise what the European social progress, of which I am so proud, means in financial terms. It is after all a policy which costs money, it is a policy which consists of taking away from our own economic wealth sums which are daily increasing in importance in order to raise the standard of living. We are in fact placed before a problem not unlike that facing the Russians. When M. Krushchev announces that he intends at one and the same time to raise the standard of living of the Russian population, to grant enormous aid to China and India and then still go to the help of the whole world, I tell you that all this is bluff. I repeat that he simply cannot do it and that it is materially impossible to find any economic regime which can do it. I therefore return to my idea that we should limit and direct our economic effort and our aid to specific parts of the world and. I am not ashamed to declare that since we cannot achieve everything at the same time, our prime obligation is to those countries which are resisting Communism, not because we are imposing this resistance upon them by political pressure but because they simply want to resist Communism and its blackmail. And I repeat that this is an effort we cannot make individually; we cannot make it in an efficient manner on a strictly European level. Here indeed we have a task which can probably not be undertaken and can certainly not succeed unless it is viewed from an Atlantic angle. Let us state things as they are: such a policy cannot be realised without the United States of America.

Those people are guilty of many contradictions who first speak ill of the U.S.A. and then think of the American policy of help, very powerful help to the underdeveloped countries, in the full knowledge that the main effort must come from the U.S.A. and that if we in Europe do not make a corresponding and proportionate effort we shall give the U.S.A. even more importance in the conduct of world affairs than it enjoys today. We must be logical and reasonable and if we wish to play our part in the world we must also be prepared on our own part to make a real effort.

I have just made a rapid resume of the situation of the countries of Europe, as it presents itself today, and I shall give no further details in order to remain within the bounds of the discretion imposed upon me. You will see how many European countries, both great and small, are today, through their economic organization, in a position to make an effective contribution, apart from speeches to the less-developed countries. The problem is urgent and important. I am sure that it can be resolved in common.

Conclusion

Ladies and gentlemen, there you have what seems to me to be the present state of the Alliance and its possible future. I fully realise that I have passed over one essential thing, but this is the inevitable consequence of all that I have said. If we wish to resist militarily, if we wish to take up the challenge in the economic and social spheres, if we wish to demonstrate to the whole world that it is those who remain faithful to our principle and to our values who will see their situation bettered the most rapidly, all this really means that above all our immediate problems and our material worries what we have to save is a civilisation, a form of life, a way of thinking. For- years and years I have been convinced, and my conviction increases daily, that this civilisation is the Western civilisation. Of course some of us have our profound differences, but the greatest of them is as nothing compared with what we have in common. You can make all the jokes you like about the French, the English, the Belgians, the Italians, and the Americans. You can ridicule their way of life, that some do not know how to eat, nor others how to sleep, that some cannot do some other things; it is all very funny, sometimes very true and often very witty, but after all, we are still guided by the defence of the same cause. Coming from a politician, my friends did not like all that; they believed that I was teasing them when I said that we are defending the cause of a civilisation itself. Do what you will, it is a civilisation which will be called a Christian civilisation. We are all children of one and the same thought. Of course it is a Christianity, which in the minds of many, has been developed and enriched by humanism and by the French Revolution, and I hope that I shall not appear to some people too heretical in saying that it has also been enriched by Socialism. There can be no respect of persons if there is no political democracy, there can be no respect of persons without social justice, and only when we have carried this to its maximum, not only in our own countries but also in all places where 'we have undertaken political responsibilities, shall we find ourselves in that state of quiet conscience and moral peace which will allow us genuinely to take up the challenge of Communism. But this challenge the whole Western World must take up together; this is the essential prerequisite to our success.