Hocking Asserts U.S. Should Not 'Contain' Communist Expansion

American foreign policy, aiming at the containment of Communist expansion in the Middle and Far East, is "folly," according to William E. Hocking '01, professor of Philosophy, emeritus.

Hocking maintained that while the containment policy can prevent expansion of the Soviet and Chinese Communist governments, it will never stem the natural desire for international intercourse on the part of the Soviet and Chinese people.

In a letter to the New York Times, Hocking, a former member of the Commission on a Just and Durable Peace of the Federal Council of Churches, attacked the American patrol of the Formosa Straits. ". . .all the long-time considerations," he wrote, "require our planning for the normalization of the relations of the Chinese coast to the Chinese mainland--the sooner the better."

Hocking also acclaimed the position taken by Ralph Barton Perry '96, Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy, emeritus. In a letter to the Times of April 14, Perry asked for the admission of Red China to the U.N. and restoration of Formosa to mainland control. Hocking said that Perry's letter "contains a principle of first-rate statesmanship."