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contradiction between national interest and class interest as it did in
Europe, but, on the one hand, the reduction ofcomplex political issues
to
a simple moral juxtaposition with Communism and, on the other,
the spectacular demonstrations of moral obtuseness at home and
abroad . What confronted the nations ofWestern Europe in the after–
math of the SecondWorld War both as a threat and a challenge was the
military presence of the Red Army 100 kilometers east of the Rhine, the
political presence of large Communist parties within their borders, and
political , economic, and social structures and policies creating and
maintaining the cleavages on which Communism thrives.
American simplistic anti-Communism was adequate to counter
through containment the Soviet military threat. But, the counter–
subversive programs America operated in the democratic countries of
the West remained not only by and large ineffective but turned out
to
be counterproductive. What was difficult for the counter-subversive
technicians of the American secret services
to
understand was that the
hold which Communism has over large masses of the Western peoples
is not primarily, let alone exclusively , the result of the machinations of
Communist governments from abroad , but of indigenous conditions
exploited but not created from abroad. Thus, the rigid ideological
commitment to a dogmatic anti-Communism, reducing a complex
reality
to
a simple juxtaposition between good and evil, has been
demonstrated
to
be untenable on philosophical and historical grounds
and proven to be a political and moral disaster.
Committed in a largely revolutionary or prerevolutionary world
to a precarious if not doomed status quo, the United States was forced
by the very logic of the commitment to support or create the kind of
government whose antagonistic rhetoric left nothing
to
be desired and
who was willing
to
fight Communism by all means fair or foul. Thus,
the United States found itself supported by, and supporting, govern–
ments throughout the world whose political philosophy and practice
were completely at odds with what goes by the name of American
principles of government . The protection of the "free world" from
Communism became the main purpose of American foreign policy. In
its name, or its alias, national security policies were pursued and
outrages committed which could not pass muster before the moral
standards by which the theory and practice of the government had
been traditionally judged.
American moral and political commitment to anti-Communism
