1959.9 国际分歧可以以某种方式得到解决

shiyi18

The Atlantic Report on the World Today: Washington
SEPTEMBER 1959 ISSUE
SHARE
AMERICANS, by nature, believe that international differences can somehow be worked out, that a compromise will in some way be possible. Americans feel that the purpose of negotiations, such as those in Geneva, is to reach a settlement and that a settlement ought to bring stability so that we can all go fishing.

By all the evidence, however, this is not the fact. In one of the endless streams of radio and television interviews which take place in Washington, Representative Walter Judd, the Minnesota Republican, took a dim view of negotiating with the Communists. “We lost ground every time because we went there and laid our cards on the table and assumed they wanted a settlement. They don’t want a settlement. . . . They want victory. We want to end the struggle; they want to win the struggle,” he said.


That is indeed the view of those who spend their time either inside or outside the government living with the problems of the cold war. The President has been saying increasingly of late that the free world, Americans especially, must realize that we are in for years of struggle with the Communists. But he has never put it so bluntly as did Judd. And Eisenhower’s actions often seem to belie his words. His rejection of any moves which would “alarm” or “frighten” the American public, his tendency to see the hopeful side — however small the glimmer may be — his almost fanatical devotion to budget-balancing, all have undercut the small but growing group of American leaders, in and out of public office, who are trying to make the public face the facts.

Magazine Cover image
View This Story as a PDF
See this story as it appeared in the pages of The Atlantic magazine.

Open
In the two years since Sputnik heaved into the skies, every indication has been of a shifting balance of world power, a shift increasingly disadvantageous to the United States and the free world. It may be difficult to measure this shift in military terms with any precision. But it is plain for all to see that Khrushchev believes in the shift and is acting to take advantage of it.

Khrushchev’s brinkmanship
For many months after Khrushchev first created the Berlin crisis last November the standard view among top Administration foreign policy officials centered on two themes: he was bluffing, or he had overextended himself and needed some device to get off the hook. Initial policy decisions in the West were designed to offer Khrushchev a means of backing down.


This attitude has slowly changed to the extent that in the summer the State Department felt it necessary formally to deny a columnist’s report that top officials were “shaken and alarmed” by Khrushchev’s tough language to former New York governor W. Averell Harriman. In fact some were so affected, but they were the minority.

The Administration has reached the conclusion that Khrushchev was trying to frighten rather than entice the President into a Summit conference. The Russians worked hard and effectively at wringing each minute concession from the West on Berlin, knowing that the West is divided on how to negotiate with the Kremlin.

RECOMMENDED READING

How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive
JOSH GIESBRECHT

Dear Therapist: I Can’t Stand My Dad’s New Wife
LORI GOTTLIEB

SPONSOR CONTENT
In three states, 1 in 7 children is food insecure
AD COUNCIL
Probably the East-West negotiations will continue, in one form or another, at one level or another for many months. There is still little disposition in Washington to believe that Khrushchev wants war; the Soviet leader thinks he can win in the long run in what he calls peaceful competition. He has staked too much on the success of his seven-year plan to narrow, and subsequently to close, the economic gap between the two major powers to risk it all in war. But, it has been increasingly accepted in Washington, Khrushchev is playing at brinkmanship, and that always is dangerous in a world where the weapons which could go off by miscalculation are so terrible.

On top of the Soviet pressures on Berlin, there are rumblings of coming troubles in Asia, Few in the Capital would be surprised at a new outbreak over Formosa. No one knew tor certain whether Khrushchev was telling the truth in boasting to Harriman that Russian rockets have now been sited in Red China aimed at Formosa. But Washington has learned to respect the majority of Khrushchev’s boasts. A combination of Communist pressures in both Europe and Asia or in Europe and the Middle East could produce the most dramatic confrontation of power yet in the East-West struggle.

The foreign aid squabble
Those who have been worried about these trends, especially in the past six or eight months, are troubled by the lethargic American response in terms of government policies. Not only has the Administration refused to make any but a minimal increase in the arms program in order to close the missile gap, a gap which is widening rather than narrowing, but its economy drive has badly hobbled the program for economic aid.

When Arkansas’ J. William Fulbright this year took over the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairmanship, one of his resolves, stated in his committee report on the foreign aid bill, was “to effect a major transformation in the mutual security program.” Fulbright knew that the aid program has constantly suffered from being on a hand-to-mouth basis, subject to annual cutting when Congress got around to voting the actual money bill. This has been especially true in the House Appropriations Committee.

Magazine Cover image
Explore the September 1959 Issue
Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.

View More
Two years ago, at the Administration’s request, Congress had set up the Development Loan Fund to put long-term loans on a basis which would permit rational planning both by the United States and by the recipient nations. Year after year foreign governments have said that the greatest impediment to their use of American aid has been their inability to schedule long-term capital projects because they never knew whether the subsequent installments would be forthcoming from Congress.

The DLF in two years has proved a success, so far as it goes, and has won plaudits from Congress. Fulbright decided that the time was ripe to put the fund in business in a way which would give the free world a real economic weapon in the vast areas of Asia, Africa, and Latin America where selective Soviet aid is growing more and more effective politically. Fulbright won his committee’s approval to grant the fund a billion dollars a year for five years.


More important, and to prevent cuts in this authorization in the appropriation bills, Fulbright proposed exactly what Eisenhower himself had asked Congress to approve when DLF was set up in 1957: authority to borrow the money directly from the Treasury without subsequent votes by Congress. For weeks the President indicated coolness to the idea, though he favored the long-term proposal. And when the chips were down in the Senate vote, White House pressure whipped all but six Republican senators behind a vote to kill the Treasury borrowing power. The GOP votes were decisive, and on the key vote Fulbright was beaten 48 to 42.

Fulbright called the action “one of the most disastrous” ever taken by the Senate. That may be a matter of judgment, but no one who has hoped to see some order brought out of the foreign aid program, conceded all around as unpopular politically in the United States, could disagree with Fulbright’s statement that rejection of the longterm proposal was “further evidence that we have tied our hands so that we cannot plan an effective program.” Republican Senator Aiken of Vermont put the blame squarely on the White House.

Ironically, while White House agents were pressuring the Republican senators to reject what the President himself had proposed two years earlier, State Department officials were quietly lobbying for the Fulbright proposal. The senator was not revealing any secrets when he said on the Senate floor that he had no doubt that both Secretary Herter and Undersecretary Dillon supported the plan. What has happened, he added, “is that the Administration has permitted the Secretary of the Treasury to override the Secretary of State and the whole Department of State on the determination of foreign policy.” The facts fully justified the statement.


Faced with such Eisenhower policies, it is not hard to understand the bitterness of Northern and Western Democrats when they read an earlier comment by Vice President Nixon praising the Eisenhower budget-balancing drive. Said Nixon: “As far as the Republicans arc concerned, never have so few done so much for the country. As far as the Democrats are concerned, never have so many done so little.”

The power of the presidency
Since the President began to press his budget issue, and since Majority Leader Johnson responded with a policy of trimming Democratic measures in an effort to escape vetoes, there has been a lot of argument in Washington. Many who have been calling Eisenhower a weak President whose chief aim has been to preserve the status quo have begun to wonder if they were wrong. In fact the President is using the vast power of the presidency in a way he did not use it before. He began to make a fight on the budget issue, an issue which touches nearly all segments of government because money is basic to governmental programs.

As Walter Lippmann has aptly pointed out, Congress can deny funds to the President but it cannot force him to spend when he does not want to spend. Thus even a limited use of the presidential powers, coming after nearly six years of relative nonuse, has demonstrated to the President what force he can have if only he will act. Of course such action requires an issue of substance. The issue here is real, but it is not a balanced budget perse. It is inflation. Every housewife at the supermarket is acutely conscious of the cost of living, of trying to make the family budget meet the family needs. Constant hammering at the budget issue, and relating it more and more to inflation as Eisenhower has been doing, touches a responsive chord around the country.


In short, though the public wants more schools and highways, better housing and hospitals, and all the other things needed for the growing population, it has not been sold on paying for them. Some in Washington, though they are the minority, believe that the public would respond to presidential leadership which worked for such improved services and faced up to the tax rises necessary to pay for them. But that will not come in this Administration.

The Eisenhower veto, and threat of veto, has the Democrats on the defensive. The President, at cabinet meetings, talks about “my veto pistol” as though it were a newly discovered toy. Johnson remains determined to get as much as he can through Congress and past a presidential signature. He argues that the record in the end will be one of accomplishment, with a clear public picture that even more would have been accomplished except for the President’s veto. After all, he argues, in the years since 1952, since Republican control of the White House, the record has been good enough to lead the voters to replace some twenty sitting Republican senators with Democrats. It is an impressive argument. But will it lead the voters in November, 1960, to bring a Democrat into the White House? The Northern and Western Democrats cannot help wondering whether Johnson is right.

Mood of the Capital
The fire directed at Senator Johnson from the Democrats on the left and from the White House on the right has, in the opinion of political observers in Washington, considerably damaged whatever chances he had for the Democratic presidential nomination.


The Hubert Humphrey boom, after his much-publicized talk with Khrushchev, has not died out, but it has been drooping. Contrariwise, Senator Kennedy’s relentless drive makes him more and more the man to beat. The consensus in Washington is that, largely because of his religion, Kennedy will have to take on some of the favorite sons in next year’s primaries. Wins against Governor DiSalle in Ohio and Wayne Morse and others in Oregon, plus a couple of other victories in lesser states such as Maryland, would make it hard to deny him the nomination. A victory over Humphrey in Wisconsin also would be a big help. But Kennedy is holding off, until fall at least, the decision on whether to take the big risk.

On the Republican side, the polls look better for Vice President Nixon. But Washington finds it very hard to believe that Governor Rockefeller will pass up the chance to challenge Nixon at Chicago.





大西洋报》关于当今世界的报告。华盛顿
1959年9月号
分享
美国人天生相信，国际分歧可以以某种方式得到解决，妥协在某种程度上是可能的。美国人认为，谈判的目的，如在日内瓦进行的谈判，是为了达成一个解决方案，而这个解决方案应该带来稳定，以便我们都能去钓鱼。

然而，根据所有证据，事实并非如此。在华盛顿无休止的广播和电视采访中，明尼苏达州共和党人沃尔特-贾德议员对与共产党人的谈判持否定态度。"我们每次都输了，因为我们去了那里，把我们的牌放在桌子上，以为他们想要一个解决方案。他们并不想要一个解决方案。. . . 他们要的是胜利。我们想结束斗争；他们想赢得斗争。"他说。


这的确是那些在政府内部或外部花时间与冷战问题相处的人的看法。总统最近越来越多地说，自由世界，特别是美国人，必须认识到我们将与共产党人进行多年的斗争。但他从来没有像贾德那样直截了当地说出来。而艾森豪威尔的行动似乎常常掩盖了他的话。他拒绝任何会 "惊动 "或 "吓坏 "美国公众的举动，他倾向于看到有希望的一面--无论那一线希望有多小--他对预算平衡的近乎狂热的奉献，所有这些都削弱了美国少数但越来越多的在职和离职的领导人，他们正在努力使公众面对事实。

杂志封面图片
以PDF格式查看本故事
请看本故事在《大西洋》杂志的页面上出现。

打开
在人造卫星升空后的两年里，各种迹象表明，世界力量的平衡正在发生变化，这种变化对美国和自由世界越来越不利。也许很难在军事方面精确地衡量这种转变。但大家都清楚地看到，赫鲁晓夫相信这种转变，并正在采取行动，以利用它。

赫鲁晓夫的边缘政策
在赫鲁晓夫去年11月首次制造柏林危机后的许多个月里，政府高层外交政策官员的标准看法集中在两个主题上：他在虚张声势，或者他已经过度扩张，需要一些手段来摆脱困境。西方国家最初的政策决定旨在为赫鲁晓夫提供一种退让的手段。


这种态度已经慢慢改变，以至于在夏天，国务院认为有必要正式否认一位专栏作家的报道，即高层官员因赫鲁晓夫对前纽约州长哈瑞曼（W. Averell Harriman）的强硬语言而 "感到震惊和不安"。事实上，有些人受到了这样的影响，但他们是少数。

政府已经得出结论，赫鲁晓夫是在试图吓唬而不是诱使总统参加首脑会议。俄国人努力而有效地从西方在柏林问题上榨取每一分钟的让步，他们知道西方在如何与克里姆林宫谈判上存在分歧。

推荐阅读

圆珠笔是如何杀死草书的
乔什-吉斯布莱希特

亲爱的治疗师。我无法忍受我父亲的新妻子
罗莉-戈特利布（LORI GOTTLIEB

赞助内容
在三个州，每7个孩子中就有1个食物无保障
AD COUNCIL
东西方的谈判可能会以这样或那样的形式，在这样或那样的层面上持续许多月。在华盛顿，人们仍然不愿意相信赫鲁晓夫想要战争；这位苏联领导人认为，从长远来看，他可以在他所谓的和平竞争中获胜。他把太多的精力放在了他的七年计划的成功上，该计划旨在缩小并随后消除两个大国之间的经济差距，而不是在战争中冒所有风险。但是，华盛顿已经越来越接受，赫鲁晓夫在玩边缘政策，而在一个因误判而可能爆炸的武器如此可怕的世界上，这始终是危险的。

在苏联对柏林的压力之外，还有亚洲即将出现的麻烦的隆隆声，在首都，很少有人会对台岛问题的新爆发感到惊讶。没有人知道赫鲁晓夫向哈里曼吹嘘说俄罗斯的火箭现在已经安置在红色中国，瞄准了福摩萨，这是否说的是真的。但华盛顿已经学会尊重赫鲁晓夫的大部分吹嘘。共产党在欧洲和亚洲或欧洲和中东的压力结合起来，可能会产生东西方斗争中迄今为止最戏剧性的力量对抗。

外援争吵
那些对这些趋势感到担忧的人，特别是在过去的六、八个月里，对美国在政府政策方面的昏昏欲睡的反应感到不安。政府不仅拒绝为弥补导弹差距而对军备计划进行任何增加，而这一差距正在扩大而不是缩小，而且其经济驱动力也严重阻碍了经济援助的计划。

当阿肯色州的威廉-富布赖特（J. William Fulbright）今年接任参议院外交关系委员会主席时，他在关于对外援助法案的委员会报告中表示，他的决心之一是 "实现共同安全计划的重大转变"。傅尔布莱特知道，援助计划一直受到手忙脚乱的影响，当国会对实际的资金法案进行投票时，每年都会被削减。这在众议院拨款委员会中尤其如此。

杂志封面图片
探索1959年9月号
查看本期的更多内容，并找到你要阅读的下一个故事。

查看更多
两年前，应政府的要求，国会设立了发展贷款基金，将长期贷款建立在允许美国和受援国进行合理规划的基础上。年复一年，外国政府说，他们使用美国援助的最大障碍是他们无法安排长期资本项目，因为他们从不知道国会是否会提供后续分期付款。

两年来的DLF被证明是成功的，就目前而言，它赢得了国会的赞誉。傅尔布莱特决定，现在时机已经成熟，让该基金投入运作，使自由世界在亚洲、非洲和拉丁美洲的广大地区拥有真正的经济武器，在那里，苏联的选择性援助在政治上越来越有效。富布赖特赢得了他的委员会的批准，在五年内每年给予该基金10亿美元。


更重要的是，为了防止在拨款法案中削减这一授权，富布赖特提出的正是艾森豪威尔本人在1957年成立DLF时要求国会批准的内容：授权直接从财政部借钱，而无需国会随后投票。几周来，总统对这一想法表示冷淡，尽管他赞成这一长期提案。当参议院投票的筹码下降时，白宫的压力使除六名共和党参议员外的所有参议员都投票支持取消财政部的借款权。共和党的投票是决定性的，在关键投票中，富布赖特以48票对42票被击败。

富布赖特称这一行动是参议院所采取的 "最灾难性的行动之一"。这可能是一个判断问题，但没有人希望看到外援计划出现一些秩序，因为在美国，人们都承认外援计划在政治上是不受欢迎的，他们不可能不同意富布赖特的说法，即拒绝长期提案是 "进一步证明我们已经束缚了我们的手脚，以至于我们无法计划一个有效的计划。" 佛蒙特州的共和党参议员艾肯将责任完全归咎于白宫。

具有讽刺意味的是，当白宫人员向共和党参议员施压，要求他们拒绝总统本人两年前提出的建议时，国务院官员却在悄悄为富布赖特建议进行游说。参议员在参议院会议上说，他毫不怀疑国务卿赫特和副国务卿狄龙都支持这一计划，这并不是在透露什么秘密。他补充说，"所发生的事情是，政府允许财政部长在外交政策的决定上凌驾于国务卿和整个国务院之上。" 事实完全证明了这一说法。


面对这样的艾森豪威尔政策，不难理解北方和西方民主党人在看到副总统尼克松早些时候赞扬艾森豪威尔预算平衡运动的评论时的愤懑。尼克松说 "就共和党人而言，从来没有这么少人为国家做了这么多事。就民主党人而言，从来没有这么多人做得这么少。"

总统的权力
自从总统开始强调他的预算问题，以及多数党领袖约翰逊以削减民主党措施以逃避否决的政策作为回应后，华盛顿就出现了很多争论。许多一直称艾森豪威尔为软弱的总统，其主要目的是维持现状，他们开始怀疑自己是否错了。事实上，总统正在以一种他以前没有使用过的方式使用总统的巨大权力。他开始在预算问题上做文章，这个问题几乎涉及到政府的所有部门，因为钱是政府项目的基础。

正如沃尔特-李普曼（Walter Lippmann）恰当地指出的那样，国会可以拒绝向总统提供资金，但不能强迫他在不想花钱的时候花钱。因此，即使是对总统权力的有限使用，在近六年的相对不使用之后，也向总统表明，只要他愿意行动，他就能拥有什么力量。当然，这种行动需要一个实质性的问题。这里的问题是真实的，但它不是平衡预算的问题。它是通货膨胀。超市里的每个家庭主妇都敏锐地意识到了生活成本，试图使家庭预算满足家庭需求。不断地敲打预算问题，并像艾森豪威尔所做的那样越来越多地将其与通货膨胀联系在一起，触动了全国人民的心弦。


简而言之，尽管公众希望有更多的学校和公路，更好的住房和医院，以及所有其他人口增长所需的东西，但他们并不赞成为它们付费。华盛顿的一些人（尽管他们是少数）认为，公众会对总统的领导力做出反应，即努力改善服务，并正视支付这些服务所需的税收增长。但是，这在本届政府中不会出现。

艾森豪威尔的否决权，以及否决权的威胁，使民主党人处于守势。总统在内阁会议上谈论 "我的否决权手枪"，好像它是一个新发现的玩具。约翰逊仍然决心尽可能多地通过国会并通过总统签字。他认为，最终的记录将是一个成就，公众清楚地看到，如果没有总统的否决，甚至会有更多的成就。他认为，毕竟在1952年以来的几年里，自从共和党控制白宫以来，记录已经好到足以让选民用民主党人取代约20名现任共和党参议员。这是一个令人印象深刻的论点。但在1960年11月，它能否引导选民将民主党人带入白宫？北方和西方的民主党人不禁要问，约翰逊是否正确。

首都的情绪
华盛顿的政治观察家们认为，左派民主党人和右派白宫对约翰逊参议员的抨击，大大损害了他获得民主党总统提名的任何机会。


休伯特-汉弗莱在与赫鲁晓夫进行了大肆宣传的谈话之后，他的热潮并没有消退，但却一直在下降。与此相反，肯尼迪参议员的不懈努力使他越来越多的人被击败。华盛顿的共识是，主要由于他的宗教信仰，肯尼迪将不得不在明年的初选中对一些受宠的儿子下手。在俄亥俄州战胜迪萨尔州长，在俄勒冈州战胜韦恩-莫尔斯等人，再加上在马里兰州等较小的州取得的其他几场胜利，将使他很难拒绝获得提名。在威斯康星州战胜汉弗莱也将是一个很大的帮助。但肯尼迪至少要等到秋天才能决定是否要冒这个大风险。

在共和党方面，民意调查显示副总统尼克松的情况更好。但华盛顿发现，很难相信洛克菲勒州长会放弃在芝加哥挑战尼克松的机会。