town." Regardless of one's accomplishments and even a recognition of those accomplishments by the world his own people often do not appreciate him. I was prompted by a witness in St. Louis day before yesterday to make a statement which I would like to repeat today in your presence: I believe that the people of America are daily, monthly, and yearly, more and more, coming to understand and appreciate your service to them and your greatness as their President. I sincerely believe-and this belief is also based upon my own feeling and convictions particularly when I think of happenings in recent years that when the history of your administration and your service as President of the United States is properly written and evaluated, you will be referred to and revered as one of the truly great Presidents of all time. Mr. TRUMAN. You are very kind, but you embarrass me. You cannot say that about someone until he's dead, and I want to live a long time. Mr. FOUNTAIN. That is our trouble, Mr. President. We too often wait until people are dead before we say the things that ought to be said while they live. I wanted to say this now. Mr. TRUMAN. I appreciate that. Mr. CARNAHAN. Are there further comments from members of the committee? Again, Mr. President, we want to tell you how honored we are to have had you spend this time with our committee. Mr. TRUMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, you have been very kind to me, and I highly appreciate it. Mr. CARNAHAN. The committee will stand adjourned until 2 o'clock this afternoon. (Whereupon, at 12 noon, a recess was taken until 2 p. m.) AFTERNOON SESSION The subcommittee reconvened at 2 p. m., in the Jackson County Court House, Kansas City, Mo., Hon. A. S. J. Carnahan, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding. Mr. CARNAHAN. The committee will come to order. Our first witness this afternoon is Mr. Sheskin, Harry Sheskin. Mr. Sheskin, we are glad to have you. If you do not have a brief statement of personal background for the record would you give us that before you begin your statement? STATEMENT OF HARRY SHESKIN, REGIONAL PRESIDENT, ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA; CHAIRMAN, ZIONIST COUNCIL OF GREATER KANSAS CITY, KANSAS CITY, MO. Mr. SHESKIN. Thank you, gentlemen, I will be very happy to. I am Harry Sheskin, a lawyer. I had my formal education here in Kansas City and at the Kansas City School of Law and Kansas University, also at the Junior College here prior to that, and I am a member of the Zionist Organization of America in the capacity of regional president, which covers five States, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and all of Illinois with the exception of the city of Chicago. I am also chairman of the Zionist Council of Greater Kansas City, which is composed of all Zionist groups in this area, and I am a member of the national executive council of the Zionist Organization of America. I am not an employee of any of these organizations. I am also a member of the board and one of the founders of the adult School of Jewish Studies of Greater Kansas City, and we have a Jewish community setup here known as the Jewish Federation and Council of Greater Kansas City of which I have been a vice president and am a member of its board of governors. I belong to a number of other organizations which represent communal, religious, and fraternal organizations, Masonic and others. I am a member of the program committee of the Kansas City Bar Association. Is that sufficient? Mr. CARNAHAN. That is sufficient. Mr. SHESKIN. I wish to talk about our foreign aid policy and program in relation to the Middle East because that is the vital area of the world to which the cold war has been shifted. That is where we now face the Soviet Union for control in our struggle for the understanding and cooperation of the not yet fully committed peoples; and our foreign policy will determine our victory or defeat. If we lose the Middle East to the Soviets, we may well have lost Africa and Asia, and democracy will be really locked in a desperate life-or-death struggle with totalitarianism, and that will mean a hot war for existence which will cost us many times what foreign aid in a cold war is costing us today. Our firm stands in the past, backed with swift action, such as in Korea, on Matsu and Quemoy, and right now in the moving of the Sixth Fleet into the troubled area of the Middle East, indicating a firm stand again, gave the Soviets pause, and I believe will in this instance, but unfortunately an arms race was started in the Middle East and gave them an excuse to infiltrate that area and to pour more arms into it than could ever be used for the trumped-up charge of aggressive and expansionist plans by democratic Israel, which wishes only to be left in peace to develop its economy and provide for its people. The real purpose of Soviet arms in the Middle East is not to strengthen democracy but to strangulate it. A war between the Arab States and democratic Israel is not inevitable. Although our past actions, as they have developed, indicate that that was our approach to the problem, it is most unfortunate that we regard it so; and that, consequently, we have emphasized a military approach to the Middle East problems; and that military approach has involved appeasement and compromise, a course which I deeply believe is beneath the dignity of our great Nation, a course which history has always proved to be very, very futile and dangerous and has led to war, a course which a ruthless Soviet interprets as weakness and exploits as a weakness in us; and that course does no justice to us in the eyes of our present allies nor to those allies whom we seek and whom we need. The Arab States are not united, not invincible and not beyond recall to a peaceful solution to the problems of the area. The overwhelming majority of the population are illiterate and economically depressed; dangerous breeding ground for Communist intrigue. To win the area, preserve world peace and promote democracy, our foreign aid policy for the Middle East requires a bold and imaginative shift in emphasis from military aid to economic aid and a mutual security program to implement the latter. The area is desperately in need of water, water for irrigation and for power, electrical power for industry, of course. Water for the land and the people is as important as oil for the rulers. An aggressive implementation of the Johnson plan for water for the benefit of all the peoples in this area will do more to strengthen democracy than the arms which can only help intriguing rulers. A bold swift program of building large oil tankers and of pipelines such as the one from Eilath on the Gulf of Aqaba across Israel to the Mediterranean and the vigorous development of atomic energy for peaceful uses can do more to weaken and overthrow or to bring to their senses rulers bent on personal power at the expense of their people and of world peace, and can do so more cheaply and more effectively, than a hot war which is the inevitable result of military emphasis alone. Such a program will indeed require a great outlay of money, but it is the surest and cheapest path to peace and democracy because it is the positive and constructive approach to assuring security for peoples, which is the foundation for peace. We must remain strong; but we cannot indefinitely spend for destruction. That path leads down the road to slavery. Our people will not complain if they see their dollars, wisely husbanded, buying the tools which will help peoples to bring themselves to the point where, in a free world, dividends will come back to us; and I don't mean dollars and cents. It has been cynically said that The world is in the hands of leaders who are giants in moralizing and pygmies in action confronting other leaders who are delinquents in morality and gangsters in action (Max Lerner, New York Post). Let the policy of our great Nation, for the sake of all humanity and for its own preservation spare no money to act as a moral giant in defeating ruthless gangsters. Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Sheskin. Mr. SHESKIN. There is appended a list of the organizations for which I speak. It was impossible to contact all of the organizations with whom I have contact. I mean by all, others not listed there with whom I have had contact on the local and national level, and who I feel heartily endorse the statement which I have just made. Mr. CARNAHAN. Do you wish the additional statement included as a part of the record with your statement? Mr. SHESKIN. If you will, please. Mr. CARNAHAN. Without objection it will be done. (The additional statement referred to follows:) The following individuals join Harry Sheskin in his statement before the House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting in Kansas City on Monday, April 29. Time did not permit clearance of this statement through the boards of the organizations which these persons represent, but the sentiments expressed by Mr. Sheskin are substantially those of the organizations. Mrs. Arvia Goldstein, 7431 Grand Avenue, Kansas City, Mo., president of Hadassah with five local groups in Kansas City. Jack Bohm, 7236 Madison, Kansas City, Mo., president B'nai B'rith Council with 8 chapters and lodges in Kansas City. Mrs. Lipman G. Feld, 607 West 58th Terrace, Kansas City, Mo., president of Abe J. Kaplan, 4764 Broadway, Kansas City, Mo., chairman, Jewish Community Ben N. Allmayer, 9407 Madison, Kansas City, Mo., president, Kansas City Zionist district. Mr. SHESKIN. I spoke, for example, this afternoon, in the absence of the president of the Rabbinical Association of Kansas City, which represents all of the Jewish congregations in Kansas City, with one of our rabbis, and read him the statement and he said, in the absence of the president who is in Toronto, Canada, he cannot speak for the entire Rabbinical Association properly, but he heartily approves my statement, and felt, as a former president and in close contact with his colleagues, that they will do likewise. Mr. CARNAHAN. Mr. Sheskin, in your statement on the second page you say we must remain strong. I presume, then, that you favor necessary expenditures for defense? Mr. SHESKIN. Absolutely. And when I say we must remain strong, I have the Soviet Union in my mind; but when I say that we should deemphasize military assistance and increase our emphasis upon economic aid, I have in mind the Middle East, because I don't feel that additional military aid in that area of the world does any good for the peoples themselves; and I mean that we should spend all these funds in our overall military establishment to remain strong, because only by being strong, and in addition to that, by adopting and following through the firmest possible attitude without quibbling or equivocation or varying from side to side, expediently doing this at one moment and something else at another, can we possibly maintain the leadership that we have and the respect of the uncommitted world. Mr. CARNAHAN. And you continue to say but we cannot indefinitely spend for destruction. Mr. SHESKIN. I think that is academic, as a philosophical approach, that we must try to force our greatest antagonists by every means possible to a conclusion of this destructive arms race, which is costing the billions of dollars that could otherwise go to the assistance of the men throughout the world who need that assistance, particularly the underdeveloped countries. Mr. CARNAHAN. Then, you feel that, if we must continue for a time to spend for strength or for defense, we must not neglect encouraging peoples throughout the world to build a type of life for themselves which they will defend? Mr. SHESKIN. Not for one moment, because it is for the benefit of our own preservation that we do that. We cannot live in a world, as Lincoln said, "half slave, half free.” Mr. CARNAHAN. Mr. Merrow. Mr. MERROW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You have emphasized the importance of economic aid very clearly and very well, and you have spoken about the military approach. Would you or would you not want one to conclude from the way you have spoken of the military and the economic aid that you don't think the Eisenhower doctrine is a proper policy for the Middle East? Mr. SHESKIN. A forthright answer is that I would not conclude that it is not a proper policy. It is a proper first step. Mr. MERROW. Yes. Mr. SHESKIN. And it is very necessary vis-a-vis the Soviet. But I wish to emphasize again that the Arab States do not need more arms, only sufficient arms for police force, to maintain peace in the area but not arms which they can only use in another round against Israel. But the Eisenhower policy is not a do all nor say all; it is, as I say, a first step and should be followed up by the economic aid and by other things which I have suggested. Mr. MERROW. I am glad you clarified that because you were speaking about the action of the Sixth Fleet, in which I was interested to hear you make a comment in that respect. Mr. SHESKIN. I am very happy to see the United States take a firm stand in this instance by ordering the Sixth Fleet, not as a threat of aggression on our part, for destruction or war, but to let the Soviet know that they dare not take another step in the direction of disrupting the peace of that part of the world and must stop the intrigue which is roiling the troubled waters at this moment. Mr. MERROW. Is it correct that you do not feel the amount of money proposed for mutual assistance is excessive? Mr. SHESKIN. I do not feel that the amount is excessive. To be practical and realistic about it we will have to spend a great deal more; and the great deal more, plus this amount, will be much less than what a war will cost us if we do not continue aid; but I do say that three things should be done: I think that the peoples for whom we are spending that money should be made aware that we are doing that through an intensified and aggressive activity on the part of the United States Information Agency, and other means. I think that we should simply not throw our money out without some strings attached as to what it is going for and whom it is going to. There is a great proportion of our population who raise their eyebrows and wonder at the legitimacy of giving a loan of $2 million to King Saud of Saudi Arabia when he has an oil income of a reported $300 million a year; and when they know 90 percent goes to his private use and only 10 percent for the use of the people of his country; so I think we have a perfect right without trying to impose our will upon those peoples. They must be permitted to be free to develop their economy and their way of government, be free to do so, but along the lines that we emphasize democracy; democracy, as they see it; peace and freedom as they see it, without harm to others; that is important. I think also, with reference to that spending of money, that our own people should have it explained. I think I have covered the three things: that the people there should know what it is about, that we should have the kind of strings attached to it assuring that it does not go down the drain; and that the people here should be more forthrightly informed about the life and death need for this spending. Mr. MERROW. Once I believe you said that this is a two-way street and to term what we are doing as a "giveaway" is not giving the picture clearly. Mr. SHESKIN. It is only because that picture has not been made clear that the people think it is a one-way street. Of course it is a two-way street. It is protection, too. Mr. CARNAHAN. I wonder if we might go to the next witness; we have several to hear, and then we will share the questioning with the other folks at the table. Thank you very much. Mr. SHESKIN. Thank you. Mr. CARNAHAN. Our next witness is Mrs. Bowker. Do you have a prepared statement? |