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From The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 51, 20 December 1948, pp. 1 & 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The most far-reaching and ominous military alliance in history is nearing completion in Washington. Meeting in secret under auspices of the U. S. State Department, top diplomatic
and military representatives of Great Britain, Canada, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and other countries are drawing up an “Atlantic Pact” which aims at uniting the world’s major capitalist powers under leadership of American imperialism for a vast coalition war against the Soviet Union.
The pact will eventually include not only the war-like industrial giants of the Atlantic basin but also the smaller, traditionally neutral countries such as Eire, Portugal, Denmark and Norway. Its ramifications will extend to Greece, Turkey and Iran as well as Spain and the former Axis powers who were the “enemy” powers of World War II. The Latin American countries are not included because under the recently ratified Rio Pact they are ilready committed to participation in the projected war.
The State Department has clamped a news blackout on the talks. What secret commitments are being made can only be guessed at; but the main lines and meaning of this sinister design for war are fully apparent. Under some legalistic device to get around the U.S. Constitution, the Atlantic Pact will commit America in advance to armed conflict with the USSR when the pretext is given.
Even before submission ot the Atlantic Pact to the Senate for rubber-stamp approval, Truman has opened a drive for new dictatorial powers to facilitate war mobilization. The National Security Resources Board, composed of the President and top brass, has drawn up a proposed “Emergency Powers Act” for Congressional enactment that includes establishment of war facilities, authority to seize plants, requisition, renegotiate contracts, establish import and export controls, censorship of communications, etc.
Truman approved this militaristic legislative proposal with the remark that “currently almost one-half of the national budget is directly devoted to national. defense and international programs, and the work of nearly ail the major units’ of our government bears an intimate relation to mobilization problems.”
The Atlantic Pact is the military capstone to the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. The Truman Doctrine constituted a declaration of “Cold” war on the Soviet Union. The Marshall Plan pumped life-saving plasma into the drained arteries of Wall Street’s capitalist allies in Europe.. Now, with the Atlantic Pact, war preparations get down to armaments, air bases, recruitment of armies, disposition of troops and assignment of definite military role to the various powers.
Great Britain has already begun rearming, standardizing armaments in accordance with the master blueprints in Washington right down to the threads on nuts and bolts.
Canada is getting ready. Defense Minister Brooke Claxton announced Oct. 25 that Canada’s armaments “are being coordinated with those of the other Western powers so they will fit into a North Atlantic security pact.”
France too is rearming. According to a Nov. 4 dispatch from Germany,
“The United States has secretly revitalized three French divisions with new military equipment to help boost Western Europe’s armed strength.”
Terrific pressure is being placed on the Scandinavian countries to join the pact. The aim openly avowed by Hanson W. Baldwin, military expert of the N.Y. Times, is to secure strategic military bases.
“We already have the right to the use of airfields in Greenland, Iceland, the Azores, England, Germany, Tripoli and Morocco; the other countries of the pact will probably extend us similar privileges quietly after signing.”
Fascist Spain, in one way or another, will be integrated into the gigantic coalition. As Rep. L. Mendel Rivers (S.C.) put it, “We must help people we know we can trust.”
The former Axis powers rate as allies. Washington is said to be insisting on open inclusion of Italy in the pact. Chief of Staff Omar Bradley sent his plane to bring Italian Chief of Staff Gen. Efisio Marras to Washington to discuss Italy’s role.
As for Western Germany, Secretary of the Army Kenneth O. Royall gave substance to widespread speculation about German remilitarization by admitting “there has been some discussion of a necessary police force.”
From Japan, Gen. MacArthur sent a lengthy analysis on reviving Japanese militarism. The report has been kept secret so far, but Hanson W. Baldwin disclosed that
“Some Japanese leaders – and a good many of our own – have quietly broached the subject of limited Japanese rearmament despite! the fact that the new postwar Japanese Constitution ‘renounces forever’ armed forces for Japan.”
However, says Baldwin, “the establishment of a Japanese army is still merely in the discussion stage.”
The enormous cost of Wall Street’s war preparations is being minimized by the Truman Administration. For the fiscal year of 1950 Truman is said to have set an arms budget “ceiling” of $15 billions. This compares with some $10 billions for 1948 and an estimated $12 billions for 1949.
But the $15 billions is actually a minimum, since Truman’s proposal contains an “escape” clause permitting higher expenditures if “further evaluation” calls for them. Projects already approved by Congress reach close to $18 billions. This does not take into account indirect costs which likewise reach astronomical figures.
Big as these amounts are, they do not cover the Atlantic Pact. The cost of financing this inter-continental alliance is additional. Minimum estimates run between $15 billions and $20 billions for the next four or five years.
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