Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part-V-B-3d.djvu/182

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Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011

18. The United States could, without fear of loss of position, allow its Asiatic policy to be guided by the consensus of the vital interests of the Free World nations of the area, vis-a-vis Communist China and the Asiatic USSR. This does not mean that today there exists an agreed consensus of the common interest o these free nations. At this time, these nations have never attempted to derive a statement of these common security interests. Their criticism of U.S. policy and U.S. methods of handling its policies are unilaterel criticisms. The critical comments may have certain points of similarity, but basically they are competitive among themselves as well as critical of the United States. As long as the U.S. continues to try to persuade the countries in the Far East to support the position of the United States, rather than demonstrating that resistance to the Sino-Soviet Bloc is in their own enlightened self interest; and as long as the United States does not show clearly why it is in basic disagreement with the Soviet Union and Communist China over Asia, it can expect to be the target of a continuous clamor of criticism form its friends.

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