The motion which Deputy Declan Costello has moved and which Deputy Dillon has seconded reads as follows:—
"That Dáil Éireann disapproves of recent developments in the foreign policy of the Government as represented by certain statements and actions of the Minister for External Affairs at recent meetings of the General Assembly of the United Nations."
I want to say at the outset that, having studied carefully the criticisms as well as the approvals, both at home and abroad, I see no reason to regret anything I said or any vote I cast in the United Nations. I have read all the comments that were made upon my speeches and my votes that have been read to the House by Deputy Costello and referred to by Deputy Dillon, but I am as convinced to-day as when I spoke that the policy I advocate represents the right approach for this nation to adopt to the troubles that bedevil the world.
Indeed, in view of the struggles and sacrifices of our compatriots, from Colmcille to Columbanus, to Tone and Davis and to Pearse and MacSwiney, I should have regarded myself as betraying our national traditions had I allowed myself to be pushed, persuaded or palavered into adopting a contrary course or a contrary approach. When I spoke at the United Nations, there were no signs of a sputnik circling the globe, but there were mounted on the ground and flying in the lower levels of the earth's atmosphere sufficient weapons of destruction to obliterate everything alive in the northern hemisphere.
When I spoke, there were many situations which threatened to bring about the holocaust. As I said then, and as I now repeat, "I can see no material gain that is worth the cost for any participant in this war which threatens us. Neither do I see any moral satisfaction to be gained by anyone other than that of dying in a fight for the demonstrable and unequivocably clear purpose of establishing the rule of law based on justice and applicable universally to all mankind."
Everything I said at the United Nations was said for one sole purpose: to get the nations represented in the Assembly to realise their mortal danger, to urge them to reappraise their policies in the light of that danger, and to plead with them progressively to eliminate the causes of conflict and progressively to enlarge the areas in which disputes, including our own, would be settled on a basis of law and justice.
At the United Nations, I spoke as representing a nation that was free to urge a change in the policy of either the great groups of powers or any member of these groups without committing any of them to the acceptance of what I said. I endeavoured to speak understandingly and without rancour, but without fear or favour, to urge that certain positive but limited sacrifices should be made which would relieve international tension, and give an opportunity to negotiate real peace and prevent a suicidal war.
Like many other people I have long been convinced that the growing destructiveness of modern weapons demands and necessitates the establishment and enforcement of a world rule of law based on justice, not only in the interests of the small nations but in the interests of the great powers as well. Since the beginning of time reasonable men have advocated the acceptance of such a rule over ever widening areas and over increasing numbers of people as the striking power of weapons and military forces became more deadly.
When a man could bar himself in his cave and be reasonably certain of defending himself and his family he could afford to be a law unto himself, but with the invention of the bow and arrow men had to combine into clans, and accept the law making and law enforcement authority of the head of the clan. As weapons and military organisation improved, clans grew into principalities and principalities into nations. In our own time, groups of nations have combined into grand world wide alliances. As the present monster alliances are capable of mutual and total destruction, wisdom dictates that they should agree upon a single authority to decide their disputes on the basis of law and justice, and upon a combined authority to enforce the law.
It is impossible to foretell whether such a system will be agreed upon without one side grinding the other into the dust, but I feel deeply that it would be wrong and cowardly not to take the responsibility, and whatever unpopularity goes with it, of advocating the negotiation of such a system on the basis of reason. We are all only too painfully aware that seldom in human history has the rule of law been extended over a larger area without the use of overwhelming force. But as in our day and circumstances the use or attempted use of overwhelming force may lead to the total destruction of mankind, it is our duty to try to win acceptance for the extension on the basis of reason, and to pray that God may guide our endeavours.
There are, as Deputies are aware, many situations in the world which could lead to the explosion of general war if tension is not relieved forthwith. We have appealed to the leaders of the nations concerned, as the Taoiseach did before the last war, to make the limited sacrifices necessary to relieve tension, and allow negotiations to start. We have urged them to forget past hatreds, to overcome the desire for vengeance for past injustices, to abandon the never-never-never and unconditional surrender attitudes, and to reassess their policies in the light of the possibility that the over vigorous and uncompromising pursuit of them might lead to general war. We have urged them to put every policy to this test: whether they are quite sure that if it brought about a general war they would not regret when the gamma rays were shooting that they had not agreed to such delays and adjustments as might have prevented the slaughter.
It is particularly urgent, that this gamma ray test should be applied to the policies of all concerned in the dangerous situations in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and the Far East. As far as I can learn, the intercontinental missile in spite of the sputniks will have little relevance to the military situation for some time yet. But the short and medium range missiles with atomic warheads are already operational weapons. When they are mounted in strength on either side of the border of Russian-occupied Europe, some overwrought switch-happy commander, misinterpreting a message or hearing a false alarm, can send them roaring to the targets at which they are aimed, and so set in motion the war machines around the world.
I have discussed this situation with many people, and I have yet to hear any good argument for prolonging it, if an agreement, along the lines I suggested to the United Nations, can be reached, that is, an agreement that Russia should withdraw her 40 to 60 divisions out of East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Rumania, and the United States draw back her six divisions to France and Italy.
There is not now, and there never was, any secret as to what the step-by-step withdrawal meant. It is open to any junior officer to take a map of Europe and then to draw the line of Russian occupation, and on along a latitudinal line, to measure the number of miles it would take to get Russia out of Poland, and see, on the same latitudinal line, how far back the American troops would have to get to the West.
It was pointed out in the New York Times on the morning after I had spoken — and this is one of the most authoritative daily newspapers on political matters in any part of the world — that my proposals, if fully accepted, would mean that if the Russian troops would get out of all these countries I have mentioned the American troops would still be in fifteenth-sixteenths of France and in nineteen-twentieths of Italy, and that the number of their strategic massive retaliation bases would be untouched.
In the Fine Gael statement of October 9th, which falsely and irresponsibly alleged that I had advocated the withdrawal of United States forces from Europe, it was also said "it is little wonder that this proposal obtained the support of the Russian Government." So far as I know the Russian Government has not approved of my proposals. Some of them passed off newspaper inquiries by saying that the proposals were "constructive," or "worth looking into". But I sincerely hope that both the United States and the Russians will have the wisdom to agree on these or some other proposals which will relieve the ever increasing tension before it is too late.
As the proposals for a diplomatic drawing back in the Middle East and for the ending of situations such as Algeria have, so far, not been the subject of the ‘profound disagreement' of the Fine Gael Party, I have nothing to add to what I said at the United Nations regarding them. Neither have I anything to subtract.
I may turn, therefore, to the vote in favour of putting on the agenda for discussion an item entitled "The representation of China in the United Nations", which has been the subject of divided opinions. It has been the subject, too, in a by-election pamphlet, issued by Fine Gael, of an ugly and contemptible effort to play upon the deep religious feelings of our people for Party political purposes.
During the recent Dublin by-election, the Fine Gael Party reprinted and circulated in the constituency and throughout the country their "profound disagreement" statement. In the same pamphlet they reprinted and circulated as a Party political document a letter from a missionary priest, who had undergone great suffering and long imprisonment in Communist China. On the basis of whatever report reached him in the Philippines, the missioner made a violent denunciation of my vote and a charge of being soft on atheistic Communism. I am not blaming him: I do not know what report he got. He wrote:—
"Think of what a mockery this vote of the Irish delegation in New York makes of that angelic Vox Hiberniæ which the wide world has traditionally identified with Christian fidelity to spiritual ideas, Christian fortitude and perseverance with Christ and His Church under rack and rope. Is that voice, that has ever been raised on behalf of the down-trodden and the oppressed. now, all of a sudden, to go on record, before a surprised world, to champion the most barbaric system of slavery that history records?”
Fine Gael did not add underneath that letter that they were not accusing me of Communism. In another part of the letter, he asked:—
"Well, let us put it this way — for the parallel is identical — does Mr. Kadar and his Government represent the Hungarians?"
Although the Fine Gael Party used the emotional and unequivocal denunciation of the Reverend Missionary Father in their election pamphlet, they did not themselves denounce my vote in favour of putting "the representation of China" on the agenda as a mockery of the traditional Irish Christian fidelity to spiritual ideas. Nor did they say it was championship of Communist barbarism and persecution.
They will wash their hands of such allegations. They printed them only in an election pamphlet. They did not say they reprinted them and circulated them only around the country. I do not know whether they did not send it also to other countries to show that they were Defenders of the Faith against Fianna Fáil Communism. They did not even say that my vote was "gratuitously hostile to the United States policy", although they did use that phrase later in relation to my actions and speeches in the Assembly.
In fact, in expressing disagreement with my vote they were as delicately cautious as a cat stealing fish. My vote, they said, was "at this time" a wrong one — merely "a wrong one" at this time, not a "startling divergence" from Fine Gael policy as they said later on in their profound disagreement pamphlet. "No doubt," they said, "the Assembly, sooner or later, will have to debate this issue". But this was "not the time" because it was a question "on which large States friendly to this country are divided". They didn't identify one of the "large States friendly to this country" as Great Britain, and for their own very good reasons they studiously avoided saying themselves that I voted on the same side as Communist Russia and its satellites to have the representation of China put on the agenda for discussion.
In order that Deputies may decide whether they should approve or disapprove of voting to put the question of Chinese representation on the agenda, let me review briefly the relevant facts of the situation.
For the last nine years, the Communist Government has dominated the mainland of China, and the Chiang Kai-Shek troops withdrew to the Island of Formosa. Both the Government at Peking and the Government in Formosa claim to be the legitimate Government of the whole of China.
In 1951, Chinese and North Korean troops armed with Russian guns, tanks and planes attempted to conquer South Korea. A United Nations force, consisting largely of American forces, drove back the invaders from South Korea and finally made an armistice with them. North of the dividing line the Chinese and North Korean Communist troops are in control. The American forces are still in the south. The truce was made in spite of the fact that there was a deep division in the United States on the matter. Indeed, many Americans at the time advocated a continuance of the war to drive the Chinese forces out of North Korea, and some went as far as to advocate an all-out atomic war to overthrow the Communist Government in China.
The Communist Government in China is, of course, an atheistic materialist government. It has persecuted, imprisoned driven out and deported Christian missionaries, including members of the Irish Mission to China. The Northern Koreans have acted in a similar manner.
When Chiang Kai-Shek withdrew to Formosa the question arose as to whether the Communist Government in Peking should or should not be recognised as the de facto Government of China. Of the 82 members of the United Nations to-day, more than half of the major countries have recognised the Communist Government in Peking, and many more have opened up trade relations with it. Of the 82 countries represented in the United Nations at least 75 per cent. of them have either recognised the Communist Government in Peking or are trading directly with the Chinese mainland under its control. Like a number of the smaller countries and like the great United States, we have not recognised the Communist Government in Peking nor have we a trade agreement with it.
The United States, unlike Great Britain and other major powers, has always been slow to recognise a revolutionary government, even though that government is in full de facto control. In the case, for instance, of Russia, we all remember that Britain recognised it quickly; it recognised the Communist Government in Moscow in 1921, shortly after certain outside troops were withdrawn. America did not recognise it until 1933. There is, of course, the difference between the two situations in that the White Russian refugees who escaped from Russia did not organise or maintain a government in exile. Chiang Kai-Chek, on the other hand, maintains his government in Formosa, and claims to be the legitimate government of all China. His government still retains its seat on the Security Council of the United Nations.
It was this situation that I voted to have discussed in the Assembly. My predecessor in the previous year had voted against discussion at that session, because, as he put it, of the world's "grief and horror at what it had witnessed in Hungary" a few weeks before. But he added:—
"We admit that there is a problem. We recognise that sooner or later in this Assembly we have got to make up our minds whether we are going to leave the de facto Government of over 500,000,000 people without representation in the United Nations, or whether we should try to come to some arrangement acceptable to the conflicting views which exist among us on this matter.”
That was not quoted in the Fine Gael election pamphlet. But they did quote the missionary father who denounced my vote to put a question described by my predecessor in these terms on the Agenda for discussion.
When I spoke at the present session the Hungarian Revolution, which we all deplored, and the repression of which was denounced by me at the United Nations, was more than just a few days old. It was over a year old —October, 1956. This year, I found that all the major powers were in diplomatic relations with the new Government in Hungary; indeed it is probably due to the presence of the United States Embassy in Budapest that Cardinal Mindzenty is alive to-day. It should be noted that the representatives of the new Hungarian Kadar Government installed by Russia in October, 1956, were admitted without question by any of the major powers to this year's United Nations meeting.
In the debate as to whether the United Nations should discuss the representation of China, I made a very short speech. Indeed, it would not have been too long to put on the Fine Gael election pamphlet because the back of it was blank. After making my short speech, I voted in favour of discussing this very important question. This is what I said, all of what I said and every word of what I said in the United Nations on that matter.
"Mr. President: Like many others here, we have no sympathy whatever with the ideology of the Peking Government. We condemn its aggressive policies in China itself and, particularly, its conduct in North Korea. No country has a greater horror of despotism, aggression and religious persecution than Ireland has. On all these grounds we reprobate the record of the Peking régime.
If merely by refusing to discuss the question of the representation of China in the United Nations we could do anything to improve the situation in China and in Korea, we would vote without hesitation in favour of that course. We are not, however, convinced that refusal to discuss the question can now serve such a purpose.
Our aim should be to win acceptance for the principles of the Charter in China and to secure self-determination for the people of Korea. The belief of my delegation is that in the present circumstances progress can best be made to these ends by having a full and open discussion of the question of the representation of China in this Assembly. We are voting, therefore, in favour of the amendment proposed by the delegation of India."
That ends what I said and, as I say, that short speech was all I said in relation to this matter.
Before the debate took place it was, of course, known that the amendment would be defeated. But it was not because I knew it was going to be defeated that I voted for it but because I believed a matter of such importance should be discussed as my predecessor had said that it should be discussed only that the Hungarian suppression by the Russian tanks was only a few days old.
If the Assembly had agreed to discuss the question of the representation of China there would, of course, have been several points of view expressed. Some representatives would have said that the Peking Government was Communist, and while it remained Communist it should not be admitted, and the question of its admission should not even have been discussed; that it was persecuting Christians and members of other religious faiths; that it was cruelly oppressing the Chinese people; that only a few years ago it had killed 35,000 United States troops in its invasion of North Korea; or, they might have used the phrases quoted by Deputy Costello against its admission, taken from Mr. Dulles. They would have said that it should not be permitted among law abiding nations in the Assembly; that to give it a seat in the United Nations would raise its prestige and encourage Communism among the people of Chinese extraction all over the Far East, in Burma, Malay, Singapore and the Philippines and elsewhere; that it was wrong to give up hope that Chiang Kai-Shek could not at some time reconquer the whole of China, and that the only hope for religious freedom in China depended upon his victory.
Delegates representing countries which had already recognised the Communist Government in Peking would have said that the Communist Government had firm control of the whole of the Chinese mainland; that like other dictatorships in the past any attempt to change it by outside force or pressure would only have the effect of confirming it in power, and of bringing on more stringent persecutions; that if given time it might, like Poland and Yugoslavia, evolve towards tolerance of religion; that it would be as wise to admit the Communist Government in Peking as to allow retention of membership by the Communist Governments in Moscow, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Poland and elsewhere; that no tto admit the Peking Government was to drive it further into the arms of Russia, and to forgo the advantage of keeping contact with the people of China.
Apart from these two sets who would have taken very violently opposing views, other delegates would no doubt have said, and I would have been one of them, that while they strongly reprobated the despotism, aggression and religious persecution practised by the Peking Government, they felt that an effort should be made to discover whether it was possible to get from the Chinese Communists not only the usual signed pledge which includes the promise that they would "practise tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours," but whether as an earnest of the pledge they have to sign they could be persuaded to give religious freedom to the Chinese people, withdraw from Korea, and allow a free united Korean Government to be elected, under United Nations supervision, for the whole of Korea.
But whatever might have been said during a full debate on the representation of China, and the related Korean problem, it is altogether unwise not to keep open for discussion a question so intimately and dangerously connected with world peace, and which, as my predecessor very rightly pointed out to the United Nations Assembly, affects the lives of about a quarter of the world's population.
Let us consider for a while the usefulness or otherwise of the United Nations, because as Deputies are aware, there is a good deal of controversy around the country as to whether a country such as ours should ever have joined or should now continue its membership.
The reasons I have heard against continuance are that the United Nations Assembly is merely a broadcasting station for violent propaganda; that its public discussions merely embitter difficult situations, which might otherwise be solved by normal diplomatic negotiations; that the name United Nations is a dangerous fraud, as there is no unity of purpose and there is irreconcilable and uncompromising conflict of interest; that members are allowed blatantly to flout the principles of national and personal freedom contained in the Charter, as Russia was in Hungary last year, and still retain their membership; that the prolonged discussions lull nations into a false sense of security; that the major powers dominate and rigidly control every word and action of their associates; that there is no real freedom of discussion; that the smaller countries are afraid to say what they think less "the heat be turned on them" directly or indirectly by the larger powers or their associates; that the control of block votes divides power from responsibility, which not only deceives the public but leads to the dangerous self-deception on the part of a major power that it is not to blame for a situation for which it is in fact solely responsible; that the veto prevents any real progress being made towards the rule of law based on justice, as the members of the Security Council will always use the veto to prevent action when they or their friends are guilty of a breach of the Charter.
But when all is said against it that can possibly be said, I am in favour of continuing our membership. Even though the United Nations is far from perfect, it is at least some sort of foundation for a better world order. Perhaps it would be more accurate to describe U.N.O. as a seed or a plant, for I think we must depend upon organic and almost imperceptible growth for its perfection, rather than upon a mechanical process of building according to elaborately prepared plans. This process of organic growth has already commenced. It was a United Nations force, even though for the most part American, which put a limit to Chinese aggression in Korea. It was the United Nations that stopped the attack on the Egyptians, and it is a United Nations force and armistice inspectors that are keeping the peace, even though an uneasy one, in Korea, between the Israelis and the Arabs, and between the Indians and Pakistanis.
Some people are inclined to despise the United Nations force as makeshift and ineffective, because it is merely able to keep the peace temporarily between the smaller countries, and is ineffective in situations like Hungary. But everything has to have a beginning. Democracy and the rule of law was a very gradual process in the older European countries. It took Great Britain many centuries to evolve from the dictatorship and religious persecution of Henry VIII and Cromwell to tolerance and adult suffrage. It is better also to have temporary peace than total war, and war between very small countries in certain parts of the world would almost certainly bring on a general war.
The United Nations, as I see it, is the only instrument through which the conscience of mankind can be brought to bear on an aggressor. Through it small nations, if they do their duty, can compel a hearing for their opinions and their desires. There is a great deal of criticism of the veto, but I believe it will gradually tend to disappear like the Divine Right of Kings provided we can stave off war and secure the opportunity to establish real peace based on law and justice, and to establish an effective United Nations force to enforce the law.
I want to return now to the Fine Gael "profound disagreement" statement, and to their allegations that my actions and speeches at the United Nations were "gratuitously hostile to the United States policy", as they put it, and that the drawing back of forces in Europe would, again as they put it, "immeasurably strengthen international Communism by breaking up the defence of the West".
The purpose of my actions and speeches was to suggest the introduction of some elasticity into the policies of the major powers. I believe that these policies must be reviewed in the light of the development in weapons since they were decided upon, some of them several years ago. Those who see the major powers making headlong for destruction, like two express trains speeding against each other on the same track, are in duty bound to put the danger signals on the rails.
Deputies will have noted in recent weeks that many frozen military and diplomatic policies are being urgently reassessed in the light of the situation to-day; and, by the light of the situation to-day, I do not mean the light of the Sputnik, but in the light of the situation on the ground and in the lower levels of the atmosphere. If it were true, as Fine Gael said, that my actions and speeches were "gratuitously hostile to the United States policy," then a great number of eminent Americans and eminent people in other countries are due for indictment on the same charge. However, I do not believe that, even to secure a political advantage against the Government, the Fine Gael Party will charge the Democratic Foreign Policy Committee with being gratuitously hostile to the policy of its own country. Neither do I think they will prefer that charge against George Kennan, Professor of History in the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton, and former American Ambassador to Moscow, an American who has made over a great number of years an intense study of Europe on both sides of the Russian occupied border.
After a meeting on September 28th — that is, after I had spoken on the representation of China in the United nations because I read the report in the following Sunday's New York Times— the Chairman of the Democratic Party Committee on Foreign Affairs, Mr. Dean Acheson, former Secretary of State, gave an interview on the work of the committee. He said that “the American administration had been lax in re-examining old policies and formulating new ones to meet a change of situation”. He commented on the China policy, and said: “there are many areas where trouble might occur abruptly and the United States should be prepared for each contingency.... The China policy is something that needs completely new study.” In fact, he agreed with my predecessor in External Affairs and myself.
Professor Kennan, to whom I alluded earlier, in a series of lectures given over the B.B.C. during the last two weeks, made a plea for an urgent reappraisal of the American policy in the heartland of Europe, as he put it, and in other parts of the world. Here are a few of the things he said:—
"It is true," said Mr. Kennan, "that armaments can and do constitute a source of tension in themselves. But they are not self-engendering. No one maintains them just for the love of it. They are conditioned at bottom by political differences and rivalries. To attempt to remove the armaments before removing these substantive conflicts of interest is to put the cart before the horse."
Read what I said at the United Nations and then read that on disarmament.
Again, he said:—
"A wise Western policy will insist that no single falsehood or distortion from the Soviet side should ever go unanswered."
Read the reasons I gave that the Americans should pick up Khrushchev's proposal to get out of Europe and that they should put a counter proposal to him and not let him get off with the propaganda that he was offering to free East Germany, Poland, Hungary and Rumania if the Americans would only get back to America. I think the Americans were very unwise to allow the prosposal to have been made and not to counter it with a reasonable proposal. George Keenan agreed with me and any other sensible man not seeking to make Party political points will agree also.
Professor Kennan went on:—
"The state of the satellite area to-day, and particularly of Poland, is neither fish nor fowl, neither complete Stalinist domination nor real independence. Things cannot be expected to remain this way for long."
Later on, he said:—
"I can conceive of no escape from this dilemma that would not involve the early departure of Soviet troops from the satellite countries. Recent events have made it perfectly clear that it is the presence of these troops, coupled with the general military and political situation in Europe, which lies at the heart of the difficulty. My proposal was to get them out of the heart of Europe."
Mr. Kennan continued:—
"It was plain that there could be no Soviet military withdrawal from eastern Europe unless the entire area could in some way be removed as an object in the military rivalry of the great Powers. That at once involved the German problem, not only because it implied the withdrawal of Soviet forces from eastern Germany, but because so long as American and other western forces remain in western Germany, it would be impossible for the Russians to view their problem in eastern Europe otherwise than in direct relation to the overall military equation between Russia and the west——"
