BERLIN
CONGRESS
721
Koreans. The applause was tumultuous. Of this applause Trevor-Roper,
who hates all ex-Communists and regards Togliatti as a "humanist," in
a garbled report to the
Manchester Guardian
wrote: "It was an echo
of Hitler's Nuremberg"-unconsciously revealing his own judgment of
American foreign policy.
Burnham's paper, in his customary provocative style, drove home with
relentless logic the absurdity of contemporary pacifism and the self–
defeating character of the position that a Europe, devoted to the ideals
of freedom and human welfare, could remain neutral in the crusade of
the Kremlin for world power. Burnham asserted that he was not opposed
"under any and all circumstances" to the use of atomic bombs. "I am
against those bombs, now stored or to be stored, in Siberia which are
designed for the destruction of Paris, London, Rome, New York and
of Western civilization generally. I am, yesterday and today at any rate,
for
those bombs made in Los AlaIllPs, Hanford and Oak Ridge and
guarded I know not where, which frir five years have defended-have
been the sole defense of-the liberties of Western Europe."
To which Andre Philip replied, with the approval of the audience,
that when atom bombs fall, they do not distinguish between friend and
foe, enemy or lover of freedom-a proposition which, of course, is true
for all bombs, not merely atomic ones. Philip called for the economic
unification of Europe as soon as possible, and compared Europe to a
sick man kept alive by American penicillin against the pathogenic bac–
teria with which the Soviet Union was infecting him. Because Burnham
had not mentioned what measures on the domestic front had to be taken
to build up the immunity of the patient, Philip and some others assumed,
with little logical justification, that he did not regard them as necessary.
Kogon underscored Philip's position by saying that the Soviet Union
would not attack the West if Europe became, with American help, an
economically healthy, federated, socialized community. Mayor Reuter
and Melvin Lasky closed the discussions by pointing out that the two
approaches-a strong military defense and a strong welfare economy–
were complementary to each other.
The panel on "Art, Artists and Freedom" was jammed, the papers
were interesting and had varied viewpoints but there was no opposition
to the positions taken by Silone, Robert Montgomery, de Rougement,
Herbert Read, Borghese, Nabokov, Schuyler and others. The session
terminated with a denunciation of Franco and Spanish totalitarianism
by a Basque priest.
It is hard to estimate the achievements of the Congress because many
of its projects have yet to be realized.
