Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part-V-B-3d.djvu/177

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011

WITHIN THE UNITED STATES


9. The U.S. faces a delicate problem in presenting its Far Eastern policy to the world. A U.S. policy will not be very sympathetically received if it is presented in ha purely negative terms of preventing Communist expansion or the reduction of its power. At the same time, difficulties of the United States are multiplied by the way the Sino-Soviet Bloc reveals the over-all Communist policy to the world. For example:

a. The Sino-Soviet Bloc is a unicenter pover system similar to that of any totalitarian despotism. This system of control enables the USSR and the Chinese Communists to present a single picture, world-wide, at any given time and to shift rapidly its two faces that are presented to the world, from hard to soft and the reverse. This is in he Leninist tradition of presenting to the opponent calculated periods of tension and relaxation, thus testing the opponent's will to remain firm in the free of threats; and continually to disappoint non-Communists hopes for a peaceful solution to the problems between the two Blocs.
b. The government in Peking is making the area outside mainland China the battleground in conducting propaganda, subversive, political and military operations.

10. As a result, the Free World finds itself continually facing threats and Communist activity within its own territory without being able to penetrate into Peking's territory. The United States is further penalized by the fact that it must deal within the framework of a pluralistic society that at any given time may expose grave disagreements among its members to the world at large. It can be argued that the Cold War is actually being fought out under two or more sets of rules governing the activities of the opponents.

1215