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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 14, No. 1. February 28, 1951

'You'll Get Your Fingers Burned' — Dulles Visits the Antipodes

page 4

'You'll Get Your Fingers Burned'

Dulles Visits the Antipodes

"Mr. John Foster Dulles is in many ways a dangerous man," said the Right Reverend E. H. Burgmann, Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn, rebuking the Australian Council for the World Council of Churches for extending fraternal greetings to Dulles on the occasion of his visit to Australia. "He is probably an honest Christian, but we don't want to commit this country to anything he does, or any of his political ideas. We don't want to commit this Council to anything in the way of U.S. national politics at present, or we will get our fingers burned."

It is common knowledge that the purpose of his visit to Australia and New Zealand is to erase bitter memories of the last war from the popular mind, as a preparation for the rearming of Japan. In the "Dominion" of February 15 he is quoted as saying, "I consider that there is a good probability that Japan can become a good neighbour to us in the Pacific, and a bulwark against the rising threat of Soviet and Chinese communism.'"

Mr. Dulles is an old hand at building bulwarks against communism, and against the independence of Asian peoples.

Child Prodigy

His grandfather John Foster was Secretary of State about the turn of the century, and helped to hand over Formosa to the Japanese in 1895. At the Hague Conference in 1907, the Chinese Government was forced to accept two Americans as members of the Chinese delegation—one was grandpop Foster, the other was 19-year-old John Foster Dulles, who could not speak a word of Chinese, but still acted as secretary for the delegation. Through them, China was forced to accept the Japanese terms for the ending of the Sino-Jap war.

Learning his international politics at grandpop's knee, he entered the well connected New York law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, it was this firm that worked out cartel agreements between U.S. Steel, Aluminium Corporation of America, Dupont De Nemours, and the Nazi German Trusts I. G. Farben and Verainigte Stahlwerke in the period before World War II. In 1939 Dulles represented Spanish despot Franco in a U.S. court over the recovery of 10 million U.S. dollars in silver purchased from the legal government of the Spanish Republic. Later, before U.S. entered the war. Dulles defended an I. G. Farben official travelling in America who had been exposed as a Nazi agent.

As well as his legal connections with international Trusts, Mr. Dulles is a monopolist in his own right. He is a director of the International Nickel Company (INCO) of Canada, which controls 85 per cent of the world's nickel production. A Senate Preparedness Sub-Committee charged this concern recently with having made secret agreements with other world suppliers including I. G. Farben. It is linked by inter-locking direcorates and inter-investments with Imperial Chemical Industries, DuPont, J. P. Morgan and General Motors. Interestingly enough, this latter firm has a large assembly plant in Japan which would profit handsomely from re-armament.

In 1939, on the eve of the war, John Foster Dulles wrote in his book "War, Peace and Change," his views on Hitler, Mussolini and Fascism generally: "Far from being sacred, it would be iniquitous even if it would be practical, to put shackles on the dynamic people (i.e., fascist governments) and condemn them forever to acceptance of conditions which might become intolerable. . . . Only hysteria entertains the idea that Germany, Italy or Japan contemplates war upon us."

Blessed Are the Peacemakers . . .

Quoted in a United Press dispatch of 18/5/46 as having "helped draft the plan for blockading Bolshevik Russia in 1919," Dulles has always been blindly anti-Soviet even to the extent of prejudicing U.S. national interests. We all know what resulted from building Germany and Japan as bulwarks against the Soviet in the '30's. . . .

Times have changed, but not John Foster Dulles.

Beginning his postwar campaign against Russia during the 'Frisco Conference in '45 by feeding U.S. columnists hate-propaganda against Mr. Molotov. Dulles ran for the Senate in 1948. So imbecile were his ravings that the electors handed him a resounding defeat. Among other things, he said: "If we don't (defeat the New Deal programme of the Democrats) . . . we will go down in the tide, and we will have our children and our grand-children fight their way back—a bloody way—against the all-powerful state."

His activities were not confined to the United States. On June 19, six days before general fighting broke out in Korea last year, Dulles addressed the national assembly of South Korea thus:

'The eyes of the free world are upon you. Compromise with Communism would be a road leading to disaster." Dulles assured his audience of "the readiness of the U.S.A. to give all necessary moral and material support to South Korea which is fighting against Communism." Syngman Rhee in reply said: "Should we not be able to defend democracy in the cold war, we will achieve victory in a hot war." On June 21 (four days before the "North invaded the South") Dulles announced "Korea does not stand alone. . . . My talks with General MacArthur will be followed by positive action."

Dulles: The Voice of America?

Dulles: The Voice of America?

Thus Dulles guaranteed military aid to Syngman Rhee for action against the North in preference to a peaceful solution for the unity of the country.

In the light of this record, you will wonder, with the Bishop of Canberra, at the action of the Australian Council of Churches in extending fraternal greetings to this person.

At the Feet of Gamaliel . . .

It must be admitted that not only does Mr. Dulles deal with worldly things like legal briefs, cartel contracts and international politics—but also in things of the spirit. He is prominent in the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ of America, and claims to be one of the leading Christian laymen of this world. When Dulles' machinations for the rebuilding of Germany became bolder and more open, liberal churchmen in the U.S. were outraged In October, 1947, an issue of "Social Questions," bulletin of the Methodist Federation for Social Action, exposed this Corporation lawyer turned international strategist. The editor, Rev. Alson J. Smith, did not hesitate to call a Nazi sympathiser just that.

"It may have been only a coincidence, of course," Smith said, "that the firm had such close relations with the Schroeder Bank, I. G. Farben, the infamous German law firm of Albert and Westrick; . . . Of course there may be no significance at all to the fact that Allen Dulles, brother of John Foster Dulles, and also a member of the firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, is one of the directors of the American subsidiary of J. Henry Schroeder Bank, London."

This same Allen Dulles, be it noted, was U.S. representative at secret talks with top-level Nazi Hohenlohe in Switzerland in February, 1943, to discuss the post-war settlement, according to documents discovered in the Nazi archives in 1945.

Summing up, Rev. Smith says, "When one hears John Foster Dulles, through the Federal Council of Churches, announce that the issue is a 'free world versus a police state,' one cannot help but wonder just what kind, of a 'free world' Dulles is talking about."

This hill-billy scrivener steps out of his luxury airliner in Wellington, is rushed by car to a secret conference with [unclear: Doidge] in a carpeted chamber in the Parliament Buildings. Here Dulles hopes to have approved his plans for rebuilding the fascist military machine of Japan. All this, while canting about one who wandered bare-foot around Galilee, exhorting all men to love one another. New Zealanders will not be the [unclear: Gadarene] swine that Mr. Dulles will ride downhill to destruction.

Despard.