By 1955 it was vividly apparent that the most vicious kind of political in-fighting was being waged in Moscow by the Communist contestants for Stalin’s throne. Already Beria and his aides had been shot. There were signs of vast power shifts behind the scenes and out of the rancor and roar of the secret battle in the Kremlin the personality which seemed to be emerging on top of the conspiratorial heap was Nikita Khrushchev.
Of all the contenders for power in Russia, Khrushchev was probably the least well known in the West. Therefore, a U.S. Congressional committee decided to get the Khrushchev story. They invited anyone who had known Khrushchev to come in and testify. A stream of witnesses responded, but the story they told was gruesome and ugly. The hopes of many Western diplomats for improved Russian relations collapsed as they heard the record of the Red leader with whom free men would now have to deal. Here was no ordinary Communist politician or party hack. Khrushchev was revealed to be a creature of criminal cunning with an all-consuming passion for power.
Many of the witnesses told of the early days when Khrushchev was first grasping for power and recognition. They revealed that his loyalty to Communism was the blind, senseless kind. Having been raised almost an illiterate; Khrushchev did not get his elementary education until after he had become a full-grown adult. As a boy he had been a shepherd, later learning the trade of blacksmith and locksmith.
At 17 he ran away from the obscure Ukrainian village of Kalinovka where he had been born April 17, 1894. For several years Khrushchev was a roaming itinerant worker but in 1918 he joined the Communist Party and fought with the Red Army during the Russian civil war. In 1922 he commenced his first formal education which lasted three years. By 1929 his dogged party loyalty had won him a berth in the Joseph Stalin Industrial Academy, and by 1931 he had become a local party official in Moscow.
Khrushchev soon won favor with Stalin by joining in a drive to purge Stalin’s enemies from the local party machinery. More than 500 men and women were turned over to the secret police for execution. Later Stalin said that while Khrushchev was repulsive to him, he was impressed with the Ukrainian’s capacity to kill or turn on old friends when party policy demanded it. Stalin therefore assigned Khrushchev the task of going back to the Ukraine and forcing his own people to live under the lash of total Communist suppression. The Red leaders had been using wholesale executions to stifle resistance. Khrushchev said he had a better way. He would use mass starvation! Witnesses to this man-made famine told of the suffering and death:
Nicholas Prychodoko: I observed covered wagons moving along the street on which I lived and also on other streets in Kiev. They were hauling corpses for disposal…. These were peasants who flocked to the cities for some crust of bread…. My personal friend… was a surgeon at a hospital in the Ukraine…. He put a white frock on me, just as he was in a white frock, and we went outside to a very large garage in the hospital area. He and I entered it. When he switched on the light, I saw 2,000 to 3,000 corpses laid along the walls.
Mr. Arens: What caused the death of these people?
Mr. Prychodoko: Starvation.
Mr. Arens: What caused the starvation?
Mr. Prychodoko: …We found some statistics in hiding places in the cellar of the Academy of Sciences. They revealed that the food in 1932 was sufficient to feed all Ukrainians for 2 years and 4 months. But except for about 10 percent, the crop was immediately dispatched from the threshing machines for export to parts outside of Ukraine. That was the cause of the hunger.
Mr. Arens: Why did the Communist regime seize the crops in Ukraine during this period?
Mr. Prychodoko: Because at all times there was… various kinds of resistance to the Communist government in Ukraine and the collectivization drive in Moscow….
Mr. Arens: How many people were starved to death by this man-made famine in Ukraine in the thirties?
Mr. Prychodoko: It is estimated to be 6 to 7 million, most of them peasants.{95}
Witnesses testified that after millions of lives had been destroyed under Khrushchev’s administration, the collectivized farms were finally set up. Khrushchev was rewarded in 1934 when Stalin appointed him to the powerful Central Committee of the Communist hierarchy in Moscow.
However, because of continued unrest and resistance to Communism, Khrushchev was sent back to the Ukraine as its political dictator in 1938. Once again the people were subjected to a vast purge. So violently did they react to this new barbarity that when World War II broke out and the Nazis moved in the Germans were welcomed by the Ukrainians as liberators. Nikita Khrushchev never forgave them for that. Before fleeing toward Moscow, he poured out his vengeance against them. Official reports show that when the Nazis arrived, they found numerous mass graves. In one area alone there were over 90 mammoth burial plots containing approximately 10,000 bodies of “peasants, workers and priests,” each with hands tied behind the back and a bullet in the head.
After the Germans were driven out in 1944, Khrushchev once more returned to the Ukraine grimly determined to annihilate “all collaborationists.” Whole segments of the population were deported, a complete liquidation of the principal Christian churches was launched, “people’s leaders” were arrested and executed, and the NKVD was turned loose on the populace with a terrible ferocity intended to terrorize the people and eliminate all resistance to the Communist reoccupation. “Hangman of the Ukraine” became the people’s title for Nikita Khrushchev.
By 1949 Khrushchev had so completely demonstrated his total dedication to Stalin that he was returned to Moscow as the secretary of the powerful Central Committee. He was then given the assignment of trying to make the sluggish centralized farms produce more food. Khrushchev used terror tactics to get more work and more produce, but he failed. Khrushchev could raise only enough food to keep the people at a bare-subsistence level. This was the status of Khrushchev at the time of Stalin’s death.
When Stalin died March 5, 1953, he left a bristling nest of problems for his quarreling Communist comrades. Each Red leader carefully eyed his competitors, weighing the possibility of seizing power. Khrushchev immediately went to work maneuvering for a position of strategic strength. Compared to the other Red leaders, Khrushchev was described both inside and outside of Russia as “low man on the totem pole.”
The first in terms of strength was Malenkov, secretary of Stalin, who had charge of all secret Communist files. It was said he had collected so much damning evidence on the others that they tried to curry his favor by pushing him forward as the temporary head of the government.
The second in line was Beria, hated leader of the secret police and an administrator of the nuclear development program, all of which gave him a hard core force of 2,000,000 armed men.
The third in line was Molotov, intimate Bolshevik associate of Stalin himself and the most shrewd, deceptive diplomat Soviet Russia had ever produced.
The fourth in line was Bulganin, official representative of the Communist Party in the Red Army and therefore the Army’s principal politician.
The fifth in line was Khrushchev, head of the State collectivized farms.
Many people did not take Khrushchev seriously. They thought of him merely as the paunchy, bullet-headed hatchet man of Stalin. But Khrushchev took himself seriously. Doggedly and desperately he pushed for every possible personal advantage. His method was to use an old Communist trick which is the very opposite of “divide and conquer.” His technique was to “unite and conquer.”
First he united with Premier Malenkov. He convinced Malenkov that Beria was his greatest threat, his greatest enemy. In December, 1954, Beria and his associates were arrested and shot.
Now Khrushchev united with Bulganin to get rid of Malenkov. Khrushchev told the bearded political army leader that he (Bulganin) should be premier instead of Malenkov. Bulganin heartily agreed. Immediately there was a shift of power behind the scenes which permitted Bulganin to replace Malenkov by the spring of 1955.
Molotov was the next to fall. He had no machine in back of him but had depended upon his prestige as Stalin’s partner. Suddenly he found himself exiled to the Mongolian border.
Now the partnership of Bulganin and Khrushchev began running the entire Communist complex. But Khrushchev was not through. His next step was to persuade Bulganin to force Marshal Zhukov of World War II fame into retirement and to demote other key officials in the government. Some of these officials were the very ones who had originally sponsored Khrushchev’s promotions in previous years. Suddenly they found themselves politically emasculated. By destroying his friends as well as his enemies, Khrushchev felt he was preventing them from regrouping and ousting him the way he was ousting them.
Finally Khrushchev was prepared for the big step—to oust Bulganin. By forcing Bulganin to get rid of Marshal Zhukov, Khrushchev created a rift between Bulganin and his main source of support, the Red Army. This allowed Khrushchev to move into the breach and fill powerful key positions with his own followers. By 1956 Bulganin found himself the captive puppet of Khrushchev. For two more years Khrushchev ran the government through Bulganin, but there was no question whatever as to who was in line for Stalin’s throne.
Such was Nikita Khrushchev’s slippery and dangerous ascent to the summit.
But all of these battles in the Kremlin and the resulting shift of power had not solved the terrifying economic problems which continued to plague Soviet socialism. Nowhere—in China, Russia or the satellites—was Communism proving successful. Uprisings had been occurring for over three years in the Communist-controlled countries. Heavy Soviet armament had to be maintained in all of them.
Just as Khrushchev was consolidating his power in 1956, a major satellite cut loose and struck for freedom.
While bargaining for American lend-lease during World War II, Stalin had promised that any nation coming under the domination of the Red Army during the war would be allowed free elections and self-determination after the war. Hungary was the first nation to demand self-government and the overthrow of the Communist regime.
Perhaps no better historical example exists to illustrate the extreme treachery to which Khrushchev would extend himself than the Hungarian Revolution.
On the 23rd of October, 1956, a massive but peaceful demonstration took place in Budapest with thousands of people participating. The people said they wanted to end Soviet colonial rule and set up a democratic government with free elections. When the crowds refused to disband, the Russian secret police were ordered to fire on them. Thus the revolution began. The first major action of the revolution was toppling down the huge statue of Stalin, the symbol of Soviet domination. The freedom fighters then hoisted the Hungarian flag on the stump. Soviet occupation troops were immediately ordered in to smash the revolution, but they were resisted by Communist trained Hungarian troops who defected and joined the Freedom Fighters. Many of the Soviet occupation troops also defected. As a result, the remaining Soviet troops were beaten in five days. Then General Bela Kiraly describes what happened:
“To avoid annihilation of the Soviet units, Khrushchev himself carried out one of his most sinister actions. He sent to Budapest his first deputy, Mikoyan; and he sent Mr. Suslov from the party leadership. These two Soviet men sat down with the revolutionary government. They found out they were defeated. After talking with Khrushchev by means of the telephone—and by the approval of Khrushchev they concluded an armistice…. Diplomatic actions were further developed…. It was positively declared that the aim of further diplomatic negotiations (would be) how to withdraw the Soviet troops from Hungary and how to allow Hungary to regain her national independence.”{96}
The Soviet representatives proposed that final details be drawn up at the Soviet headquarters in Tokol, a village south of Budapest. The entire Hungarian delegation was therefore invited to come and discuss the precise date when Soviet troops would leave Hungary. In response to this invitation, the elated and victorious Hungarians went to the Soviet headquarters. To their amazement they were suddenly surrounded, seized and imprisoned. Simultaneously a new all-out attack was ordered by Khrushchev against the whole Hungarian population.
The new Soviet attack was in the form of a massive invasion, It involved 5,000 tanks and a quarter of a million soldiers. They poured in from Czechoslovakia, Russia and Rumania. On Sunday, November 4, 1956, the radio station in Budapest pleaded:
“People of the world, listen to our call! Help us…. Please do not forget that this wild attack of Bolshevism will not stop. You may be the next victim. Save us! SOS! SOS!”{97}
A little later the voice said:
“People of the civilized world, in the name of liberty and solidarity, we are asking you to help. Our ship is sinking. The light vanishes. The shadows grow darker from hour to hour. Listen to our cry…. God be with you—and with us.”
That was all. The station went off the air.
As the student of history contemplates those tragic days, he cannot help but wonder: Where was the conscience of the Free West? Where was the U.N.? Where were the forces of NATO? What had happened to the whole fabric of gilded promises of the U.N. made at San Francisco in 1945:
“…to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.
“…to reaffirm faith in fundamental rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.
“…to establish… respect for the obligations arising from treaties.
“…to ensure that armed force shall not be used.”{98}
As it turned out, the massacre of tens of thousands of Hungarians finally smothered into oblivion the heroic Hungarian fight for freedom. Prime Minister Imre Nagy was executed. Most of the other leaders of the revolution were deported to Russia and never heard of again. In the U.N. Security Council America’s Ambassador Lodge introduced a resolution proposing that Russia be censured for this atrocious Hungarian attack. Russia vetoed it!
This amazing and treacherous series of events was personally supervised by Nikita Khrushchev. Without any serious challenge whatever, he was allowed to carry them out in direct violation of the Yalta agreement, the Warsaw Pact and the first two articles of the U.N. Charter. It was the greatest opportunity the Western Bloc had ever had to show whether or not the mighty and strong had the courage to expel Russia and then put the high-sounding phrases of the U.N. to work.
Instead, the U.N. appointed a committee to gather the facts, prepare a report, and then submit it to the General Assembly.
This gave pro-Soviet forces an additional chance to pull sensitive strings in the U.N. and further obscure the vicious conquest of Hungary.
The average American has no conception of the deep Penetration of the Communist conspiracy inside the United Nations.
A Danish diplomat, Povl Bang-Jensen, said he began feeling strong Communist pressures soon after he started serving as the deputy secretary of the U.N. committee which was investigating the Russian attack on Hungary.{99} He claimed pro-Soviet influence came sweeping down upon him from the Secretary General’s office and even from many of the committee members.
Bang-Jensen did not know where to turn for help; Finally he started writing protests both to the committee and the Secretary General. He pointed out errors in the report which would allow the Russians to discredit it. He said the Committee Chairman had refused to correct these errors. He stated that important facts were being eliminated which established the official responsibility of the Russian government for what had happened. He also noted that the committee was going soft in its treatment of Janos Kadar who headed up the new Communist puppet government in Hungary.
But most of all, Povl Bang-Jensen was outraged when the Secretary General demanded that he reveal the secret list of Hungarian witnesses. He had been authorized in writing to tell the witnesses that their names would never be disclosed since this would bring cruel and immediate reprisal on their families in Hungary. Bang-Jensen stood by this commitment. He declared that turning over the names to the U.N. Secretariat would permit possible leaks to the Russians. The word was already getting around the U.N. that Russian agents were offering extravagant bribes to anyone who would get them the list.
Suddenly Bang-Jensen found the U.N. Secretariat and the investigating committee attacking him personally. Instead of dealing with the issues, high U.N. officials began describing Povl Bang-Jensen as “mentally ill.”
Three leading American employees in the U.N. participated in the attack on Bang-Jensen. They were Andrew Wellington Cordier, a former associate of Alger Hiss, who had become No. 2 man in the U.N.; Ernest A. Gross who had tried to get the United States to allow recognition of Red China; and Dr. Ralph Bunche, U.N. Under-Secretary, who was one of the first to put the “mentally ill” label on Bang-Jensen in an official memorandum.
Gradually Povl Bang-Jensen felt himself going down under the avalanche of opposition. When the U.N. officials could not force him to disclose the secret list of Hungarian witnesses, he was ordered to burn them in the presence of a U.N. representative. This he did. Then they fired him. Povl Bang-Jensen was discharged by Dag Hammarskjold on December 4, 1957. Nevertheless the U.N. pressure against Bang-Jensen as a mentally-ill person continued. Derogatory reports from the U.N. prevented him from securing several highly important positions.
For some time Bang-Jensen had also feared the possibility of physical harm. He had been a Danish underground fighter against the Nazis and Communists in World War II and was familiar with the technique of doing away with an enemy by making it look like a suicide. Therefore he wrote the following note to his wife on November 30, 1957:
“Under no circumstances whatsoever would I ever commit suicide. This would be contrary to my whole nature and to my religious convictions. If any note was found to the opposite effect in my handwriting, it would be a fake.”
It was Thanksgiving Day, 1959, that the body of Povl Bang-Jensen was found in a secluded area two miles from his home with a bullet hole in his head. A pistol and scribbled note were by his side.
He had left home 72 hours earlier to catch a bus. The coroner found he had been dead only a few hours. What had happened during that tragic interval of two days or more while Bang-Jensen was still alive?
Professional investigators suspected murder. If so, it was carefully executed to look like suicide. And suicide was the final, official verdict. Many remained unconvinced.
But by this time the U.N. investigation of the Hungarian Revolution had long since been completed. The expurgated, distorted and watered down report had been turned over to the U.N. and officially accepted by the General Assembly.
Communism has only one fragile excuse for all the unparalleled brutality, cruelty and crimes against humanity which it commits. This is the Marx-Engels-Lenin promise that it is the historical shortcut to a better life for all mankind. But even Communists are men with minds that seek tangible evidence for the faith they live by. The most bitter reality in the Communist hierarchy is the fact that after 40 years of all-out effort, numerous five-year plans, the purging, executing, torturing and liquidation of millions of human beings, the Communist Motherland has still produced little more than a dull and monotonous existence.
A five-year analysis of Russian economics revealed the humiliating fact that less economic progress had been made under 40 years of Communism than under the last 40 years of the Tsars!{100}
Although stealing technical knowledge from the West and kidnaping the scientists of vanquished foes has made it possible for the Communist leaders to make several spectacular crash exhibitions in the technical field, nevertheless the plain irrefutable fact remains that Russia just cannot compete with capitalism in massive production. This continues to be a nest of cockleburs in the craw of Communist leadership.
After 1955, when Americans were finally allowed to visit the Soviet Union, it was observed that the whole socialist production system sloppily squandered vast quantities of manpower. Often, for each man working, another stood idly looking on. Capitalistic work incentives had been introduced to create work motivation, but even so, monolithic socialized planning continued to hold back production schedules and production speed.
American tourists with eyes alert to such problems observed that Khrushchev was resorting to child labor to try to make up the difference. In fact, the Russian government admitted it was recruiting students from the schools to work for the farms and factories. Khrushchev announced his plan to limit most Russian youth to seven or eight years of schooling and said much of this would be at night. Only very select students would be allowed to go to college.{101}
As for the collectivized farms, even with half of the entire Russian population working on socialized farms the USSR had not been able to do more than feed the people at a bare-subsistence level. The fact that the American system permits a mere 12% of the people to produce more than Americans can either eat or sell stuns the comprehension of Red farm experts like Khrushchev. And he has made no secret of his resentment. Every so often he lashes out at the sluggish Russian farm program. These are direct quotes from his 1955 speech denouncing Russian agriculture:
“Lag in production.”
“Intolerable mismanagement.”
“State farms fail to fulfill their plan for an increase.”
“Hay fields remain unharvested.”
“No silo buildings are being erected.”
“Unfortunate situation has arisen with regard to seed.”
“For six years work has been in progress on the design of a tractor… and the tractor has not been designed.”
“Machinery is not being used on many collectivized farms.”
“There is considerable disorder on our state farms.”
“Cases of damage (labor sabotage) to trucks and tractors.”
“Absenteeism.”
“Undernourished cattle delivered to the State.”
“Serious shortcomings in pig breeding.”
“Production of milk decreased 10 percent.”
“Cows bearing calves amount to only 34 percent.”
“Weight of fattened pigs and wool clippings decreased.”
“Americans succeeded in achieving a high level of stock breeding.”
“In the United States this crop (corn) gives the highest harvest yield.”{102}
This was the reason Khrushchev abandoned the last Five-Year-Plan and substituted a Seven-Year-Plan. The latest plan is supposed to equal U.S. production by 1965, but in 1961 Khrushchev roared out his anger at the Russian farmers. There had been a continuous slump in farm production for five years!{103}
By 1958 Nikita Khrushchev had officially declared himself head of the Communist Party and the supreme dictator of all Russia. Nevertheless he had some cold, hard facts to face.
By that time the Red timetable of conquest was at a virtual standstill; the Iron Curtain was surrounded by NATO and SEATO defense bases with atomic warheads zeroed in to discourage Communist aggression.
Mao and Chou, the Red Chinese leaders, were becoming increasingly defiant, critical and independent.
It was taking more than six million soldiers and secret police to maintain the “state of siege” behind the Iron Curtain so as to give the appearance of “domestic tranquility.”
Russia had worn out her good offices in the U.N. and was beginning to feel the united pressure of the Western Bloc.
There was continued unrest in the satellites and large Red Army garrisons had to be stationed in each of them since the local armies were likely to join any uprising just as they did in Hungary.
There was also serious unrest in the Red Army where deep resentment against Khrushchev’s ruthless political decapitation of Marshal Zhukov still existed.
Khrushchev had been only partially successful in opening up the world market so that the Sino-Soviet Bloc could buy the things which its collectivized economy could not produce. He also faced the unpleasant fact that the Red economy was not in a position to pay for foreign trade because it was continually operating on the brink of bankruptcy.
Finally, and most important of all, Khrushchev lived under the constant threat of possible “regrouping” by disgruntled Red leaders to oust him from power the same way he had ousted Malenkov and Bulganin. Khrushchev felt a desperate need to boost his personal political status. He determined to achieve this by forcing the United States to honor him with an invitation to visit America.
Ever since 1955 Khrushchev had tried to get the United States to invite him to America, but failed. Finally he decided to accomplish it by creating a crisis over Berlin. In 1958 he issued an ultimatum that America and her allies must get out of West Berlin by a certain date or he would turn the Communist East Germans loose on them.
This demand was a flagrant violation of all existing treaties. When President Eisenhower announced that any efforts to force us out of Berlin would be met with military resistance, Khrushchev immediately said he didn’t really want war and that he thought the whole thing could be worked out amicably if he just came to the United States and talked it over with the President. He also mentioned on several occasions that President Eisenhower would be welcome to visit Russia.
At first President Eisenhower demurred. Bringing the Communist dictator to the United States was precisely what Secretary Dulles had warned against right up to the time of his death. However, President Eisenhower felt that such a visit might impress Khrushchev with the power of the United States and deter him from hasty military action. Furthermore, the President felt much good might arise from a visit to Russia by the President of the United States. It would be in furtherance of his own program of “people to people” relations. Therefore an official invitation was extended to the Communist dictator—making him the first Russian ruler ever to visit the United States.
American strategists on Communist problems immediately warned that a serious tactical error was being made. Several of them testified before Congressional Committees. Eugene Lyons, a senior editor of The Readers Digest, a biographer of Khrushchev and a former press correspondent in Russia, called the invitation to Khrushchev “a terrific victory for Communism.” Then he continued:
“It amounts to a body blow to the morale of the resistance in the Communist world. It’s a betrayal of the hopes of the enemies of Communism within that world, and their numbers can be counted by the hundred million.
“The announcement of the invitation was a day of gloom and despair for nearly the whole population of every satellite country and for tens of millions inside Russia itself.”{104}
When asked if Khrushchev’s visit to the United States might cause him to slow down or abandon his plans for world conquest, Mr. Lyons replied:
“It’s a childish fairy tale. The Communists in high places are perfectly well informed about our material prosperity and political freedom. Khrushchev is not coming here to confirm his knowledge of our strengths, but to feel out our weaknesses. The notion that he will be impressed by our wealth and liberty to the point of curbing Communist ambitions is political innocence carried to extremes….
“In the first place, the new Soviet boss, despite his homespun exterior, is one of the bloodiest tyrants extant. He has come to power over mountains of corpses. Those of us who roll out red carpets for him will soon have red faces.”{105}
Even while Khrushchev was on his tour of the United States, Americans felt the icy thrust of numerous snarling threats which crept out between his propaganda boasts, his quaint platitudes and his offering to swear on the Bible. The press observed that he was supersensitive and hot tempered about questions on any of the following matters:
• The ruthless and illegal suppression of the Hungarian revolt after all of Khrushchev’s recent preachments about “self determination.”
• Questions about his role as the “Hangman of the Ukraine.”
• Questions about Soviet jamming of Voice of America broadcasts.
• Questions about the continuous flight of thousands of refugees from satellite states.
The whole world-wide program of Communist aggression was swiftly accelerated as a result of Khrushchev’s visit. The Communist Party in the United States came boldly out into the open. It began a new recruiting program. It openly attacked the House Committee on Un-American activities and marked the FBI for early dismantling if it succeeded in destroying the Congressional Committees. Convicted Communists from the Hollywood cells moved back into the cinema capital and boldly began writing, producing and propagandizing through multi-million dollar productions. The president of the Communist Party announced the launching of a nationwide Communist youth movement.
The same thrust became apparent all over the world—in Japan, Southeast Asia, India, Africa, Cuba, Central and South America. Everywhere the Red tide ran stronger. The dire prediction of strategists like John Foster Dulles and Eugene Lyons had been literally fulfilled.
Nevertheless, the visit of the Russian Dictator to the United States also carried a certain penalty for Khrushchev. This was the devastating effect which could result from President Eisenhower’s reciprocal visit to Russia. Khrushchev was deeply impressed with the acclaim which Vice President Nixon received when he visited Russia and the satellites. He knew that if President Eisenhower were granted the same freedom of expression on radio, TV, in public meetings and in press interviews that Khrushchev had enjoyed in the United States, the pro-Communist tide could be reversed, Desperately, Khrushchev looked around for some semblance of an excuse to cancel the Eisenhower visit. Almost as though the Communists had planned it, a monumental excuse dropped into Khrushchev’s lap right out of the sky.
On May 1, 1960, Francis G. Powers, piloting an unarmed U-2 jet reconnaissance plane, were captured 1200 miles inside Russia. The Communist leaders triumphantly announced that they had shot down the U-2 spy plane with a marvelous new rocket. This story was discredited when the Russians displayed Power’s undamaged equipment and the U.S. monitors reported hearing the Russian pilots as they followed the plane in a forced landing. Government officials revealed that the U-2 plane came down because of a flameout.
In Washington the incident created consternation. Since Americans were not accustomed to spying, they hardly knew what to do when this plane was caught spying. At first it was simply claimed that the U-2 was a weather plane which must have “drifted.” Finally, it was rather clumsily admitted that the plane was in fact flying on an espionage mission with the highly important assignment of photographing Russian missile bases.
Khrushchev professed outraged indignation, criticized the “morals” of the American leaders for spying, and denounced the U-2 incident as an act of aggression. He also immediately announced that he was canceling President Eisenhower’s visit to Russia. A few days later he used the U-2 incident to scuttle the Paris Summit Conference.
Meanwhile, in America, citizens were peppering Washington with a multitude of questions:
• Was this an isolated mission or one of many espionage flights?
• Was it in violation of international law?
• What did such flights accomplish?
• Why hadn’t the Russians objected to such flights earlier?
• Should the flights be continued or terminated?
Since Russia had now captured one of the U-2 planes and all of its equipment, the U.S. Government felt justified in telling the inside facts on this rather ingenious American defense device which had been operating over Russia and China for more than 4 years. The May 1 flight was one of more than 200 which had been mapping offensive war preparations of the USSR.
It was revealed that the U-2’s had been ordered aloft in 1956 when the U.S. had first learned that the Communist leaders had officially adopted a mammoth “sneak attack” plan as part of their over-all strategy. The planes had flying over Russia at an altitude of between 12 and 14 miles—far out of reach of any jets or rockets which the Russians possessed.
Was this illegal? Since Russia had refused to negotiate any international law on air space, these flights were not illegal. Ernest K. Lindley summarized the views of Secretary of State Christian Herter:
“The altitude above the earth to which a nation’s sovereignty extends has never been determined by international agreement. The traditional rule is said to be that a nation’s sovereignty extends as high as it can exert effective control. By that rule, the U-2 flights were not illegal so long as the planes flew above the reach of Soviet air defenses.”{106}
Then how effective had the U-2’s been? The Defense Secretary told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
“From these flights, we got information on airfields, aircraft, missile testing and training, special-weapon storage, submarine production, atomic production and aircraft deployment.”{107}
How was this achieved? The Air Force revealed that it was done with high precision photographic equipment which performed miracles. This equipment could photograph a golf ball from 9 miles up. In fact a published photograph of a golf course taken from that altitude showed the greens, cars, club house and players. The picture caption read: “Even golf balls are clearly identifiable to photo-interpreters.”{108}
But Russia and China cover such vast territories. How could precision photography be effective over so wide a terrain? The Air Force answered this question by revealing that this photographic equipment not only had high precision qualities but was also extremely comprehensive. Officials pointed out those 2 jets carrying these special cameras could photograph one third of the United States in 4 hours!
During Khrushchev’s verbal blast against the U-2 flights, he let it slip that he had known about these planes for over three years. Some people wondered why he had not protested long before. Experts pointed out that if Khrushchev had complained, it would have exploded his propaganda boasts about the invincible strength of Soviets defenses. He had been claiming that Soviet radar, jets and rockets could prevent any nation from successfully attacking Russia.
U-2 photographs had revealed that Russian defenses were wide open to massive retaliatory attack. It was for this reason that Khrushchev had waited until he finally got hold of a U-2 plane so that he could claim the Russians had shot it down. The Communists even succeeded in getting Francis Powers to testify at his Moscow trial that he had been shot down at 68,000 feet. But when his father came from America to visit him, the U-2 pilot said he was not shot down. This seemed to confirm Washington military statements that the Russians had neither jets nor rockets that could reach 68,000 feet.
The question of future U-2 flights was finally settled when President Eisenhower agreed that there would be no more. He made it clear that this was not because the flights were illegal or unjustified but simply that the United States would soon have other means of staying informed about Russian bases. The U.S. successfully launched its first Midas satellite into orbit on May 23, 1960. This one carried a 3,000 pound payload of technical equipment designed to detect a missile launching anywhere in the world.
A few months later the U.S. launched its Samos satellite. The Samos was specifically designed to photograph Russia and China from 300 miles out as it made an orbital journey around the earth every 94 ½ minutes. Of course, from 300 miles distance, additional photo graphic miracles were necessary. The Air Force revealed that the cameras on the Samos would photograph and identify, any object larger than one square foot.
An American RB-47 reconnaissance plane disappeared over the Berents Sea on July 1, 1960. For several days Russia pretended to be helping in the search for the missing plane and then bluntly admitted that it had been shot down. All of the crew was killed except two. The Russians said they were holding the two survivors as prisoners.
The United States was shocked. President Eisenhower sent Russia one of the most indignant protests of his entire career as President. Russia claimed that the plane was shot down because it had violated Russian territory just like the U-2. The United States Ambassador said this charge was an absolute falsehood. He pointed out that the plane had been under British electronic surveillance and that the United States was prepared to prove the RB-47 had never been closer than thirty miles to the Soviet border.
On July 26, 1960, the United States demanded an impartial investigation by the United Nations to fix responsibility for this inexcusable and illegal attack which had resulted in the killing of four Americans and the kidnaping of two others. The request was referred to the Security Council. It was generally agreed that a U.N. investigation should be held. How else could the U.N. Charter be enforced unless investigations of alleged violations were conducted? But there was no investigation by the U.N. Russia vetoed it!
The Italian representative then moved that the International Red Cross be allowed to interview the two American survivors. Russia vetoed that, too.
Most Americans missed the ugly significance of this entire U.N. fiasco. Once more Russia had violated the first two articles of the U.N. charter and gotten away with it. There were no particular protests from the press or the public. There was no sweeping demand that Russia be expelled. There was no stirring demand that the whole U.N. structure be completely re-examined. Across the country, school children continued to be told that the U.N. was the only hope for peace and justice among men.
In October, 1957, Russia electrified the world with her first Sputnik. Built on plans stolen from the United States after World War II, Sputnik I, with a payload weighing 184 pounds, was successfully launched into orbit October 4th.
Immediately the United States went into “panic production” to catch up. However, U.S. missile experts insisted on a broad range of experimental effort rather than single-focus crash programs such as the Russians seemed to be following. Long range, the American approach soon began to pay off. Russia continued to put up bigger payloads but America started getting far better scientific data. Gradually the U.S. satellite and missile teams began forging ahead.
By April 1, 1960, the U.S. had the highly successful Tiros I in orbit which circled the earth every 99 minutes at a height of 450 miles. This space vehicle had solar batteries which operated earth-controlled television cameras to transmit pictures of weather formations. This was the most successful picture-taking vehicle ever put into space.
On August 11, 1960, the U.S. was the first to de-orbit a satellite capsule from space. This one weighed 300 pounds. On August 12 the U.S. put an inflated balloon into space. It was as high as a 10-story building and was described as the “first radio mirror” for a huge satellite communications network. 1960 also marked the launching of America’s first inter-continental ballistic missiles from submerged submarines. This meant that never again could Russia plan a sneak attack on the West because massive retaliation could be launched from America’s moving missile bases at sea.
Officials revealed that future satellites would carry infrared sensors capable of detecting atomic explosions and ballistic missile launchings by the Communists. These also would be able to follow the trail of missiles in flight. America’s long-anticipated Midas and Samos satellites ranged into orbit during 1960 and early 1961.
Payload size also gradually became important to the U.S. as it neared the time when a man would be put into space. A 15-ton satellite was promised for about 1963. However, experts promised that there would be an American in space even before that.
Prodded by the unknown proportions of the Russian effort, American wealth and technology poured its strength into the space race. The score by 1961 seemed significant:
| Satellites | United States | Russia |
|---|---|---|
| Space launching to date | 32 | 7 |
| Still in earth orbit | 16 | 1 |
| In solar orbit | 2 | 1 |
| Still transmitting | 9 | 0 |
| Successful moon shots | 0 | 1 |
| Recovery from orbit | 4 | 1 |
The year 1960 saw a clear manifestation that the Communist time table of conquest for Africa was right on schedule. In 1953, the Communist leaders had promised themselves that during the 1960’s “a wave of revolution will sweep over the whole continent of Africa and the imperialists and colonizationists will be quickly driven into the sea.”{109} They also made it clear that the agitating and provoking of the “wave of revolution” was the Communist program for the capture of Africa.
However, by 1960, the European nations with colonies in Africa were already busily trying to prepare the people for independence and self-government by peaceful means. From a Communist standpoint this would have been a defeat. Red leaders knew that any well-ordered government of natives would undoubtedly resist Russian-Chinese domination. It was therefore decided to urge the natives to demand freedom immediately, before they had actually been prepared for self-government. The Communists figured that in the resulting chaos, they could probably take over. This is exactly what began to take place.
The 1960 chain of events in the Belgian Congo illustrated the devastating effect of turning self-government over to primitive people prematurely. The tragedy was compounded by the fact that the natives had already been promised independence by 1964. Consequently, their uprising was not so much for independence as for “freedom now.”
To see the big picture it is necessary to realize that 75 years before when the Belgians first settled the Congo, it consisted of around 120 cannibalistic tribes living on the lowest levels of human existence.
1960 the Belgians had created vast resources of wealth in the geographical heart of Africa. Most of it was concentrated in the province of Katanga which produced 7.5 % of the world’s copper, 60% of its cobalt, most of the world’s supply of radium and large supplies of uranium and zinc.
As with the French and British, the Belgians had hoped self-government could be developed among the Africans by having the natives learn technical skills and gradually assume responsibility for a stable government. Business leaders and investors were also willing to take the risk of a political transition providing the new government was well managed. In this rather cordial setting it was agreed that Congolese independence could be granted by 1964. The Belgians promised liberal loans to the newly planned government and also promised to keep their civil service staff working alongside the natives for several years until they could safely take over.
Then Patrice Lumumba came storming back from the conference chanting the current Communist theme: “Independence now, now, now!” Lumumba, a former postal clerk from Stanleyville, had been trained in the special Communist schools in Prague and had a brother living in Moscow. He had managed to become the head of the most left-wing political contingent in the Congo and, at the moment, enjoyed a popular following. The Belgian officials began to sense a threatening tone in his demands and saw the possibility of an Algerian type of civil war. Therefore the Government suddenly agreed to go ahead with the independence of the Congo by June 30, 1960, instead of waiting until 1964.
The Belgians thought this would satisfy Lumumba and therefore the government was turned over to him on the prescribed date. But no sooner had Lumumba become Premier than he began a volcanic tirade against “the whites” in general and “the Belgians” in particular. The whole structure of “peaceful transition” went out the political window overnight.
The Congolese troops caught the spirit which Lumumba had exhibited and promptly mutinied against their white officers. Soon they became a roaring mob. They swept through the white sections of the principal cities beating, robbing and raping. As violence spread, the whites fled the Congo in terror. Some congregated temporarily in embassies, some rushed to the airports. At Leopoldville, doctors estimated that at least one out of every four women escaping to the airport had been raped, some of them a dozen times.
The evacuation of the whites left the Congo almost devoid of government, schools, hospitals, or business services. The native literacy rate was one of the highest in Africa, but in all of the Congo there was not one native engineer or doctor and only a few college graduates.
To avoid total collapse and to protect the fleeing whites, the Belgian government brought in paratroopers. Lumumba, however, treated them as enemies and demanded that U.N. troops be flown in. No sooner had the U.N. forces begun to arrive than Lumumba turned against them and invited Khrushchev to send strong Communist forces to take over the entire Congo. Soon Communist planes, trucks, equipment, technicians and propagandists were arriving. Lumumba began collectivizing the land and assembling an army to drive out both the U.N. and the Belgian troops. He also began acting like a fully disciplined Communist dictator by committing genocide against his own people. In the Kasai province, Lumumba’s troops wiped out the Balubas tribe while Lumumba’s cousin, Surete Chief Omonombe, personally directed the massacre of the Bakwanga tribe. Rescuers were prevented from bringing out women, children or the wounded.{110}
In spite of all this, the U.N. Secretariat continued to support Lumumba as the legitimate head of the government.
But this was too much for the Congolese. They felt they had been betrayed. On September 5th, President Joseph Kasavubu told the world he was ousting Lumumba as Premier. The very same day Lumumba’s own troops turned bitterly against him. The Army Chief, Joseph Mobutu, clapped the blustering Lumumba in jail and told his Communist followers to get out of the Congo immediately.
All of this looked like a healthy improvement to most people, but to the amazement of both Congolese and outside observers, Dag Hammarskjold continued to use his office as U.N. Secretary General to intercede for Lumumba. Responsible Congolese like Premier Moise Tshombe of Katanga began asking whose side Dag Hammarskjold was on!
In the beginning Dag Hammarskjolds’ personal representative in the Congo had been Dr. Ralph Bunche, an American Negro serving as Under Secretary of the U.N. But when Bunche failed in his attempt to get the Congolese to accept the Communist-dominated regime of Patrice Lumumba, he was replaced. The replacement turned out to be a U.N. official named Rajeshwar Dayal of India. Dayal had functioned for only a short time when President Kasavubu became equally alarmed with his policies. By January, 1961, Kasavubu had written two letters to Dag Hammarskjold begging the U.N. to remove Dayal because of his strong “partiality.”
During the latter part of 1960 and the early part of 1961, the violence of Lumumba’s forces continued to spread havoc in the central and northern sections of the Congo. Press dispatches told of the raping of nuns and other atrocities against whites. Then in early February, 1961, it was suddenly announced that Lumumba had escaped from Katanga and was believed to be heading back toward the central Congo to join his forces. Because Lumumba was the principal voice for both Communism and violence the Premier of the Katanga Province put a high price on Lumumba’s head. A few days later it was announced that Lumumba had been caught and killed by Congolese natives.
Immediately a cry of outrage came rumbling forth from Moscow and a storm of protest emanated from the U.N. President Kasavubu and Moise Tshombe could not understand why U.N. Secretary, Dag Hammarskjold, insisted on being so sentimentally concerned over Lumumba after the terrible blood bath he had inflicted on the Congo.
The Congolese were also amazed when Hammarskjold tried to force President Kasavubu to set up a Communist coalition government. This was exactly the way each of the East European nations had been trapped into becoming Soviet satellites. Tshombe was further outraged when U.N. officials tried to force him to terminate all relations with the Belgians and discharge his Belgian advisors. Tshombe accused Dag Hammarskjold of trying to drive out the Belgians so a U.N. power grab could be achieved. This actually took place in September, 1961. Dag Hammarskjold engineered an attack on Katanga with U.N. troops which temporarily forced Tshombe from the government. Tshombe was replaced by the right hand man of Communist leader, Antoine Gizenga.
However, Tshombe rallied the people under the battle cry of “Liberty or Death!” and the resistance to the U.N. conquest began. It was then that Dag Hammarskjold flew to Africa to negotiate a cease-fire before the U.N.-sponsored regime was overthrown. Enroute to Katanga, the U.N. plane crashed and Dag Hammarskjold was killed. In Washington, D.C., Senator Thomas A. Dodd told the U.S. Senate that Hammarskjold’s campaign had been turning the whole Congo into a Communist camp. He charged that the State Department had made a monumental blunder in using American money to back the U.N. conquest of the Congo.{111}
During all of this excitement many Americans thought the U.N. was actually trying to protect the Congo from a Communist take-over. They drew this conclusion from the fact that Khrushchev had been violently criticizing Hammarskjold’s program in the Congo. Now it appeared that the fight between Khrushchev and Hammarskjold was not on the issue of a Communist take-over since they had both been pushing for one. Their dispute was to determine who would control the Communist regime once it was in power.