"World Opinion"

Why should my liberty be determined by another man's scruples?

--Paul to the Corinthians

In the long history of American foreign policy, no thought has weighed more heavily upon the U.S. than the Jeffersonian injunction to pay "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind"--a respect that the U.S. has always hoped mankind would return. But last week, in Belgrade, the leaders of 25 neutral nations, calling themselves "the conscience of mankind," issued a formal statement with the predictable condemnations of Western colonialism--and not one word of direct censure for the Soviet resumption of atmospheric nuclear tests. Shocked by the anti-Western tone of the statement, Washington could only wonder whether it was not past time to shape U.S. foreign policy on the basis of enlightened self-interest as opposed to the dictates of "world opinion."

Twice in the past month, the U.S. has confidently expected to reap sweeping propaganda advantages from unmistakable evidences of Communist brutality. But there was no world outcry over the blockading of the border between East and West Berlin; and the private dismay of neutralists over the Soviet testing was hidden in guarded words at Belgrade. Last week, in a departure from his past policy, President Kennedy publicly warned that U.S. foreign aid in the future would go primarily to those countries whose thinking comports with that of the U.S.--and whose professed neutralism is not merely a disguise for pro-Soviet feelings and dollar-blackmail.

But Kennedy's warning did not pretend to answer the larger questions: Has the U.S. too often deferred to an imaginary court of world opinion? And has this deference prevented the U.S. from achieving the aims that it deeply believes to be right, not only in its own interests but in the cause of freedom? Last week TIME posed those questions to U.S. leaders in many fields.

A Great Partnership. Inevitably, there was a divergence of thought. To Pulitzer Prizewinning Historian Allan Nevins, the U.S., in determining its foreign policy, has not paid sufficient attention to "reasonable" overseas reaction. "The U.S.," he says, "is now the leader of the free world. With this leadership rests a great responsibility. Remember, Australian boys. South African boys, Israeli boys may die as a result of the actions we take. This is a great partnership, and we are not by any means running a foreign policy for ourselves alone." Editor-Publisher Barry Bingham of the Louisville Courier-Journal emphatically agrees. "It is terribly important that we show the world that we are not just acting out of self-interest. If we try to compete with the Soviets just on the basis of might alone, we might find that we have lost a vital part of our armor. We badly need to convince neutral opinion that our cause is their cause."

Others were less enthusiastic about the power of world opinion, but still thought it must have a substantive place in the formation of U.S. policy. Episcopal Bishop James A. Pike of San Francisco believes that neutralist opinion often veers against the U.S. simply because the U.S. responds to it and the Russians do not. In his view, "we should respect the opinions of others," but rely essentially on a national moral judgment in determining U.S. policy. Editor Norman Podhoretz of the Jewish monthly Commentary thinks that "the U.S. is unique among the great powers of history in its concern for world opinion," but adds that such a concern has not been consistently followed. "Public opinion only seems to count when certain harder considerations happen to coincide with it." To Dr. Charles Townes, provost of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "world opinion expects higher standards of behavior of the U.S. than it does of the U.S.S.R. We can be proud of this and should live up to it, even though the asymmetry in attitude may seem unfair."

But in the consensus, there was a strong feeling that the U.S. has not properly understood the true relationship between world opinion, national self-interest, and the principles of freedom for which the U.S. stands. Union Starch & Refining Co. Board Chairman J. Irwin Miller, the lay theologian who is president of the National Council of Churches, says: "We ought to explain ourselves every way we can all the propaganda that makes sense--but that's not the same as making a decision for propaganda purposes. When you do that, you hand over foreign policy to other people. There's been too much of this trying to get elected Miss America every day." Sociologist Peter (The New Society) Drucker thinks that the U.S. has been "childishly eager" to be popular, at the expense of understanding what national self-interest demands. Essential to U.S. interests, in Drucker's estimate, are both military and economic strength and world leadership of "free and voluntary followers." But the U.S. has not known how to maintain that leadership. "In a sense," he says, "we are the conductors of a heterogeneous orchestra. Toscanini didn't worry about being popular; but he did, for example, learn just how the clarinet works; just what it can and cannot do. This is how one remains a leader."

A Question of Power. Perhaps the most decisive answers came from thinkers who questioned the very reality of world opinion that the U.S. has sought to court. Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr says: "World opinion doesn't really exist." So also argues University of Chicago Political Scientist Hans (Politics Among Nations) Morgenthau (TIME, July 7). To Morgenthau, the U.S. has too long tended to consider foreign policy as a public-relations gimmick, forgetting that policy is a question of power. "This world opinion we pay so much attention to is largely a myth," he says. "It is true that there are a few spokesmen around who always react--Nehru, Sukarno and others--but they are just expressing an opinion, and their remarks are meant mainly for their own countries. This isn't world opinion at all; yet we act as if it were. For instance, what was the world opinion reaction to the resumption of Soviet nuclear tests? How can you measure this myth when a very large chunk of the world didn't even know the Russians had resumed testing?

"Our position should simply be to think and act in terms of our self-interest. If so-called world opinion supports our self-interest, well, that's fine. But if it doesn't support it, we should ignore it."

What seemed clear, to a majority of TIME'S respondents, was the fact that both the national interest and world opinion have sharing roles in the formation of U.S. foreign policy. That view was best summed up by Foreign Affairs Scholar Louis Halle, a Dulles-era member of the State Department Policy Planning Staff. "A large degree of deference to what is called world opinion should always be a principle of our foreign policy," said Halle. "Occasions could arise, however, when we ought to do as a nation what we profoundly believe to be right, even though all the world disagrees. In the long run, world opinion shows devotion to certain moral standards that we ought always to honor in our behavior. In the short run, however, and on particular issues, it may assume positions that are based on ignorance and bigotry and that don't deserve our respect for a moment."

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