Paste This in Your Hat

Even for Washington, it was an extraordinary session. Crowded into the White House Cabinet Room a fortnight ago were about 50 top officials of the Pentagon, State Department, Central Intelligence Agency and other offices dealing with the life-and-death issues. The guest list had been dictated by President Kennedy; every man in the room had been required to write out an acceptance, promising personal attendance instead of sending a standin. Last week the echoes of that meeting were still sounding in Washington--and they would continue to do so for a long while.

Economics and Brush Fires. John Kennedy was grim as he faced the group. He talked rapidly; Army Secretary Elvis Stahr and Army Chief of Staff George Decker both started to take notes, could barely keep up. In the cold war, said Kennedy, the U.S. faces two major challenges. One is economic, but the U.S. can and will intensify its economic contest with the Soviet Union. The other threat is military--probably not on the cataclysmic scale of all-out nuclear war but rather in the form of Communistexploited brush fires throughout the world. In Communist jargon, these are known as "wars of liberation," and the U.S. must find ways and means of dealing with them.

As his text, Kennedy took a speech delivered by Nikita Khrushchev to Communist Party groups in Moscow on Jan. 6, 1961. The President himself had read and reread the speech, memorizing whole passages. He considers it one of the most significant speeches ever made by Khrushchev--indeed, a Red blueprint for eventual world domination. Kennedy urged that every official in the Cabinet Room get a copy of the speech and study it. If some had already grasped Khrush's message, perhaps sooner than the President himself (who in early 1961 entertained some hopes of an accommodation with the U.S.S.R.), there was nobody tactless enough to bring that up.

"Favorable Attitude." Excerpts from the future according to Khrushchev:

"There will be liberation wars as long as imperialism exists, as long as colonialism exists. Wars of this kind are revolutionary wars. Such wars are not only justified, they are inevitable, for the colonialists do not freely bestow independence on the peoples. The peoples win freedom and independence only through struggle, including armed struggle.

"Why was it that the U.S. imperialists, who were eager to help the French colonialists, did not venture directly to intervene in the war in Viet Nam? They did not do so because they knew that if they gave the French armed assistance, Viet Nam would receive the same kind of assistance from China, the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries, and that the fighting could develop into a world war. The outcome of the war is known--North Viet Nam won.

"A similar war is being waged in Algeria today. Or take Cuba. A war was fought there too. It began as an uprising against a tyrannical regime, backed by U.S. imperialism. Led by Fidel Castro, the people of Cuba won.

"Is there a likelihood of such wars recurring? Yes, there is. Are uprisings of this kind likely to recur? Yes, they are. Is there the likelihood of conditions in other countries reaching the point where the cup of the popular patience overflows and they take to arms? Yes, there is such a likelihood.

"What is the attitude of the Marxists to such uprisings? A most favorable attitude. The Communists support just wars of this kind wholeheartedly and without reservations, and they march in the van of the peoples fighting for liberation."

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