LOBBYIST SPEAKS UP

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

As an ardent though insignificant member of the China Lobby, which includes among its charter members Dwight Eisenhower, who back in 1945 at Potsdam begged Truman to do all he could to keep Russia out of the Pacific War, the late Senator Vandenberg, and Senator Paul Douglas, may I point out a few facts that should be plain to experts and you and me alike.

Five monosyllables sum up the overriding fact about China: Chiang is all we have. Without a Nationalist government one fifth of the world is the sworn enemy of America.

The second fact is that all the millions that got into grafter's hands there are peanuts compared to what loss of China is costing and is going to cost us. The third fact is that our aid to Chiang was at best in driblets and disorganized, and that our diplomats there often hindered him. Had our aid to China been as vigorous and proportional to the size of the problems as our aid to Greece, which had similar weaknesses and corruption, and had Chiang still lost, we could then say that the situation was hopeless; as is, we must chalk up this catastrophe to the Administration's lack of interest.

It should be obvious even to a CRIMSON writer that it is impossible to subvert American Far Eastern policy since there is none, unless you agree with McCarthy that total appeasement of Mao was Acheson's desire. Certainly "waiting for the dust to settle" was as frank an admission of no policy whatsoever as one could give. Had the China Lobby been able to incite as vigorous a policy as our present Vandenberg Policy in Europe, most of our foreign difficulties would be over and we would not be in the grave peril we are now. Unfortunately, this country is going to pay for the weakness of the China Lobby for many years to come. Earl M. Kulp '52

Mr. Kulp's assertions require a certain paraphrasing before they can claim the status of "facts." First, Chiang is all Chiang has, and so long as the United States "has" Chiang, it does not have the sympathy or support of the Chinese people. The present Chinese Communist regime could hardly be expected to be friendly toward a country which provided arms and other aid to a discredited government that was engaged in a civil war against the present regime, and which refused to recognize the existence of the present regime long after it had demonstrated that it was indeed the government of China.

Second, the millions that got into the grafters' hands, not to speak of the "large proportion of military supplies furnished the Chinese armies by the United States... (which fell) into the hands of the Chinese Communists through the military ineptitude of the Nationalist leaders, their defections and surrenders, and the absence among their forces of the will to fight" (State Dept. report on China), were hardly a sound investment in the future of China, and there is no reason to suppose that making a heavier investment would have prevented "the loss of China."

The third fact is that "since V-J Day, the United States government has authorized aid to Nationalist China in the form of grants and credits totaling approximately 2 billion dollars, an amount... proportionately greater in magnitude in relation to the budget of that government than the United States has provided to any nation of Western Europe since the end of the war." (State Dept. report on China). Had our aid to China been as vigorous and pro-portional to the size of the problem as our aid to Greece. We should have poured 61/2 billion dollars into Chiang's lost cause instead of a total of 2 billion, and the Chinese Communists would now be twice as much our sworn enemies as they actually are.

Finally, "most of our foreign difficulties" are not "ever" In Europe, In spite of the "Vandenberg Policy" (so named because it was Secretary of State Marshall who first outlined it), and to equate the problems facing China with these facing Western Europe, or to equate their relative Importance to the United States, requires the sublimes political naivete. Unfortunately, the strength of the Chinese Nationalists in Washington was not undermined by their weakness in China until this country had been supporting a doomed regime for far too many years.