HIROSHIMA WEIGH ON HIS CONSCIENCE?
“As a gentleman farmer, retired after a spectacular career in the art of mass butchery of human beings, and now concerned about his memoirs, General Eisenhower gives evidence of a most unexpected ‘Symptom = something like a conscience stirs in hin.
In a book The White House Years, to be published next month, the General confesses for the first time that in 1945 he believed that dropping an atomic bomb on Japan was “completely unnecessary./
In a previous book Crusade in Europe, Eisenhower had, intimated that he had been of this-opinion, He now states flatly that his view was that Japan was "already defeated" and that the United States should "avoid shocking world opinion,'
‘Eisenhower claims that he expressed his opinion to the late Henry L. “Stimson, then Secretary of War, apparently ten days before the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
Eisenhower's efforts to now disclaim any°moral responsibility for the decision that spelled the destruction of two immense cities should be weighed against the following facts: Co
(1) He never made his views public at the time and did not even put up a fight for them in top army circles.
(2) In early 1953, after he had become president on the promise of ending the war in Korea, he considered using nuclear weapons in an all-out attack on North Korea and Manchuria, The suggestion, according to Eisen~ hower, came from General Douglas MacArthur when they met in New York shortly before Eisenhower took office. ”
"Tf we decided upon a major new type of offensive, the present policies would have to be changed and the new ones agreed to by our Allies," Eisenhower writes. "Foremost would be the proposed use of atomic weapons. un
In another place he explains one of the calculations involved: "., .. to keep the attack from becoming overly costly, it was clear that we would have to use atomic weapons,’
One of the primary considerations against going ahead was anticipated opposition from such allies as Britain, Eisenhower-discloses that Church ill reacted sharply when Eisenhower told him that if the Korean war were resumed, "we would feel free to use the atomic bomb ,oeeinst military targets, whenever military. advantage dictated its use,"
Fortunately, the Chinese and North Koreans agreed to certain terms demanded by the American forces and Eisenhower shelved the proposal to use nuclear weapons,
“PRACE=LOVING" PRESIDENT
Under President Kennedy, military budgets have risen 25 per cent, The current annual rate is 51, 000,000,000.
me 1 Que
NEVILLE ALEXANDER CASE ». The case.of Dr, Neville Alexander, placed on trial in South Africa on charges of."sabotage" [reported in World Outlook October 4 and October 18] has aroused considerable - indignation in Germany and Belgium where this Negro scholar is well known, A circular, distributed by his Belgian friends, provides the following information about his background:
Dr. Neville Alexander won two doctorates with very honorable mention in German philology, the first at Cape University, the second at Ttibingen in Western Germany for a thesis on the German playwright Gerhardt Hauptmann, He was the first colored South African student to ever receive a scholarship from’the well-known Aléxarider Vori Humboldt-Stiftung Foundation and the first colored South African scholar to win a doctorts degree in Germany in German philology. . ‘During his stay in Western Germany he won the sympathy and affection of a wide circle of professors and students both for his exceptional intel= lectual capacities, his attractive friendliness and his sympathy for humanitarian and progressive causes, above all those connected with the freedom movement of the colored peoples.
In South Africa, before leaving for Germany, Dr. Alexander was_one of the outstanding young militants in the Non-European Unity Movement [NEUM], one of the most representative movements of the indigenous South African population which was led by the writer Tabat and which sought universal suffrage and the pourehcats economic and social emancipation of the South African people. Pe Bas
The NEUM was banned by the Verwoerd government under the law passed to "suppress Communism, " but it was- reconstituted under the name of the African People's Democratic Union of. South Africa [AFDUSA]. Its Leading figure Tabat recently sought refuge in Tanganyika and was met with a warm official greeting by the government of that country at Dar-es~Salem, i The sympathy which Dr. Neville Alexander won in German university circles is now evident in the big movement egainst his arrest, Among the _ participating organizations:
-- The Verband Deutscher Studenten, the confederation of all student organizations in Germany. oa. c= The ASTA [self-governing student bodies] of the universities of Hamburg, West Berlin, Frankfort and Ttibingen.
-~ Some thirty professors of the University of Ttibingen.
-- Students of the Theology Faculty of the University of Gdttingen.
~- The Alexander Von Humboldt-Stiftung Foundation,
In addition, the big German trade union of metal workers, IG-Metall, has publicly protested the arrest of Dr. Alexander. a
.iIn Great Britain the arrest of Dr, Neville Alexander has likewise aroused protest among liberal, labor and antisegregationist circles.
Dr. Neville Alexander was a close friend of another distinguished young colored South African, Dr. Kenneth Abrahams, the only doctor in the Rehebeth district in South West Africa, whose case was a recent world-wide sensation, Dr. Abrahams, it will be recalled, escaped to Bechuanaland after being arrested, There he was kidnapped by Verwoerd!s secret agents and smuggled back to South Africa. Through diplomatic pressure, the British government succeeded in securing his release and return to Bechuanaland.
The case of Dr, Neville Alexander, like that of Dr. Abrahams, casts a harsh light on the thesis of Verwoerd according to which the policy of apartheid permits the "separate but equal" economic and cultural develop~ ment of the indigenous people of South Africa in segregated territories called "Bantoustan," |
The truth is that Verwoerd is persecuting in the most ferocious way all the colored intellectuals and scholars in South Africa, inasmuch as he believes that they are the most likely to offer leadership to their people in the struggle against the inhuman regime of exploitation and oppression inflicted on them under apartheid... ~ ,
MORE NEWS