Emerson Favors Stevenson Fears Ike on Foreign Policy

This country's Asian policy will benefit more by the election of Stevenson than of Eisenhower, according to Rupert Emerson '21, professor of Government.

"In all his comments on the Far Eastern situation Stevenson has demonstrated both broad knowledge and sound judgment concerning the problems we are up against," Emerson said.

Specifically in relation to the Point Four program, Emerson said he "would have a larger faith that Stevenson would more adequately recognize the need for giving as much aid as possible to the Asian peoples in their present insistent demand for speedy economic and social advancement and political equality."

Part of his preference for Stevenson in this field stems from Emerson's. doubts about the desirability of having a military man in the White House. He is afraid that Ike would be unable to "break away from his military background" in the administration of foreign policy.

Emerson said that in general he is a supporter of the foreign policy of the Truman administration and believes that Stevenson will carry on its work--while at the same time "bringing a new and keen intelligence to the problem."

He believes it is "absurd" that there should be any charge that Truman and Acheson have been "soft on Communism." In fact, he continued, "They have welded together an extraordinary anti-Communist coalition and in Korea gave the world its first sample of working collective security."

Charge Misplaced Blame

Emerson added that "the blame which Ike has placed on the Truman administration for the collapse of Nationalist China and for the outbreak of the Korean war strikes me as rather misplaced. In my opinion; it is fantastic to place any major share of the responsibility for the disintegration of Chiang's regime and the take-over by the Communists on the shoulders of Truman and Acheson."

He added that "400 million Chinese were the key participants, and I doubt whether any American policies or actions would have very significantly affected the results.

"At the outset of the campaign," Emerson said, "it seemed a reasonable hope that there would not be a very grave and fundamental difference on foreign policy between the two candidates. But since then, Ike has apparently drifted further and further from what appeared to be his earlier views.

"Now," he said, "there seems to be some evidence that Eisenhower has been taken into camp by the isolationists in his own party whom he has endorsed and on whose cooperation he would have to count to carry out his policies."

Ike also has been making some rather "unwise and irresponsible statements," Emerson said. He cited the proposals looking toward liberation of satellite countries and Ike's recent suggestion concerning the withdrawal of United States forces from Korea.

"On the other hand," Emerson said, "Stevenson has shown himself to be a man of unusual restraint and clarity of analysis. Where Ike has been prepared to indulge in ill-considered generalities, Stevenson has cogently and patiently laid out the realities which the American people must face up to.