THE ESSENCE OF THE STRUGGLE

In the Declaration of Washington the President and the Prime Minister ringingly defined the moral gulf between the free and Communist worlds:

We are conscious that in this year 1956 there still rages the age-old struggle between those who believe that man has his origin and his destiny in God and those who treat man as if he were designed merely to serve a state machine. Hence we deem it useful to declare again certain truths and aims upon which we are united and which, we are persuaded, are supported by all free nations.

"Because of our belief that the state should exist for the benefit of the individual and not the individual for the benefit of the state, we uphold the basic right of peoples to governments of their own choice . . . During the past ten and more years 600 million men and women in nearly a score of lands have, with our support and assistance, attained nationhood. Many millions more are being helped surely and steadily towards self-government. Thus, the reality and effectiveness of what we have done is a proof of our sincerity. Further, we know that political independence cannot alone assure men and nations full opportunity to pursue happiness and to fulfill their highest destiny. There is likewise need for economic sustenance and growth. This, too, we have helped to provide . . .

"During this period of notable cooperative progress in the free world, those who assert the supremacy of the state, and deny the inherent rights of man, have also been active. Millions of people of different blood, religion and traditions have been forcibly incorporated within the Soviet Union . . . In Europe alone, some 100 million people, in what were once ten independent nations, are compelled, against their will, to work for the glorification and aggrandizement of the Soviet Communist state.

"The Communist rulers have expressed, in numerous documents and manifestos, their purpose to extend the practice of Communism by every possible means until it encompasses the world. To this end they have used military and political force in the past. They continue to seek the same goals, and they have now added economic inducements to their other methods of penetration. It would be illusory to hope that in their foreign policies, political and economic, the Soviet rulers would reflect a concern for the rights of other peoples which they do not show toward the men and women they already rule. Any free nation that may be persuaded by whatever threat, promise or enticement to embrace Communism will lose its independence and its people will forfeit their rights and liberties. These contrasting records of recent years reflect the essence of the struggle between free countries and the Communist rulers . . .

"In the face of the Communist challenge almost fifty nations which cherish freedom have drawn together in voluntary associations . . .We reject any thought that the cleavage we have described should be resolved by force. We shall never initiate violence. Moreover, we shall use our full influence to assure that Soviet efforts to inflame old antagonisms will not succeed in breaking the peace . . . Meanwhile, the society of free nations must retain the power needed to deter aggression. We recognize that such power should never serve as a means of national aggrandizement but only as an essential shield . . . We shall help ourselves and others to peace, freedom and social progress, maintaining human rights where they are already secure, defending them when they are in peril, and peacefully restoring them where they have temporarily been lost.

"While resolutely pursuing these aims, which are the products of our faith in God and in the peoples of the earth, we shall eagerly grasp any opportunity to free mankind of the pall of fear and insecurity which now obscures what can and should be a glorious future."

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

ANTHONY EDEN

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