Our only hope lies in the Congress which _is_ responsive to public will, when that will is fully and insistently expressed.
Every time I suggest that aroused citizens write their Congressmen and Senators, I get complaints from people who say they have been writing for years and that it does no good.
Yet, remember the Connally Reservation issue in January, 1960. The Humphrey Resolution (to repeal the Connally Reservation and thus permit the World Court to a.s.sume unlimited jurisdiction over American affairs) was before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Chairman of this Committee was J. William Fulbright (Democrat, Arkansas) a Rhodes-scholar internationalist, determined to repeal the Connally Reservation. Leaders in Congress and in the Administration were determined to repeal the Connally Reservation, and so was the invisible government of the United States--which means that the vast thought-controlling machine of the CFR (radio and television networks; major newspapers and magazines; and an imposing array of civic, church, professional, and "educational"
organizations) had been in high gear for many months, saturating the public with "world-peace-through-world-law" propaganda intended to shame and scare the public into accepting repeal of the Connally Reservation.
But word got out, and the American public positively Stunned Congress with protests. Fulbright let the resolution die in committee.
The expression of public will was ma.s.sive and explosive in connection with the Connally Reservation, whereas in connection with many other equally important issues, the public seems indifferent. The reason is that the Connally Reservation is a simple issue. It is easy for a voter to write or wire his elected representatives saying, "Let"s keep the Connally Reservation"; or, "If you vote for repeal of the Connally Reservation, I"ll vote against you."
What kind of wire or letter can a voter send his elected representatives concerning the bigger and more important issue which I have labeled "Invisible Government"?
The ultimate solution lies in many sweeping and profound changes in the policies of government, which cannot be effected until a great many more Americans have learned a great deal more about the American const.i.tutional system than they know now.
But there is certain action which the people could demand of Congress immediately; and every Congressman and Senator who refuses to support such action could be voted out of office the next time he stands for re-election.
1. We should demand that Congress amend the Internal Revenue Code in such a way that no agency of the executive branch of government will have the power to grant federal tax-exemption. The Const.i.tution gives the power of _taxation_ only to the Congress.
Hence, only Congress should have the power to grant _exemption_ from taxation.
Instead of permitting the Internal Revenue Service of the Treasury Department to decide whether a foundation or any other organization shall have federal tax-exemption, Congress should exercise this power, fully publicizing and frequently reviewing all grants of tax-exemption.
2. In addition to demanding that Congress take the power of granting and withholding federal tax-exemption away from the executive agencies, voters should demand that the House of Representatives form a special committee to investigate the Council on Foreign Relations and its a.s.sociated foundations and other organizations.
The investigation should be conducted for the same purpose that the great McCarran investigation of the Inst.i.tute of Pacific Relations was conducted--that is, to identify the people and organizations involved and to provide an authentic record, of the invisible government"s aims and programs, and personnel, for the public to see and study. Such an investigation, if properly conducted, would thoroughly discredit the invisible government in the eyes of the American people.
There is, however, only _one sure_ and _final_ way to stop this great and growing evil--and that is to cut it out as if it were cancerous, which it is. The only way to cut it out is to eliminate the income-tax system which sp.a.w.ned it.
The federal income-tax system suckles the forces which are destroying our free and independent republic. Abolish the system, and the sucklings will die of starvation.
That is the ultimate remedy, but before we can compel Congress to provide this remedy, we must have an educated electorate. The problem of educating the public is great--not because of the inability of the people to understand, but because of the difficulty of reaching them with the freedom story.
If the federal government, during the 1962 fiscal year, had not collected one penny in tax on personal incomes, the government would still have had more tax revenue from other sources than the _total_ of what Harry Truman collected in his most extravagant peacetime spending year. Every American, who knows that, can readily understand the possibility and the necessity of repealing the federal tax on personal incomes. But how many Americans know those simple facts? The job of everyone who knows and cares is to get such facts to others.
Even if we did take action to divest the Council on Foreign Relations and its powerful interlock of control over our government; and even if we did reverse the policies which are now dragging us into a one-world socialist dictatorship--what would we do about some of the dangerous messes which our policies already have us involved in? What, for example, could we do about Cuba? About Berlin?
In some ways, the policies of our invisible government have taken us beyond the point of no return. Consider the problem of Cuba. Armed intervention in the affairs of another nation violates the principles of the traditional American policy of benign neutrality, to which I think our nation should return. Yet, our intervention in Cuban affairs (on the side of communism) has produced such a dangerous condition that we should now intervene with armed might in the interest of our own survival.
For sixteen years, we have seen the disastrous fallacy of trying to handle the foreign affairs of our great nation through international agencies. This leaves us without a policy of our own, and makes it impossible for us to take any action in our own interest or against the interests of communism, because communists have more actual votes, and infinitely more influence, in all the international agencies than we have. At the same time, our enemies, the communist nations, set and follow their own policies, contemptuously ignoring the international agencies which hamstring America and bleed American taxpayers for subsidies to our mortal enemies.
America must do two things soon if she expects to survive as a free and independent nation:
(1) We must withdraw from membership in all international, governmental, or quasi-governmental, organizations--including, specifically, the World Court, the United Nations, and all UN specialized agencies. (2) We must act vigorously, unilaterally, and quickly, to protect vital American security interests in the Western Hemisphere--particularly in Cuba.
We have already pa.s.sed the time when we can act in Cuba easily and at no risk; but if we have any sane, manly concern for protecting the vital security of the American nation and the lives and property of United States citizens, we had better do the only thing left for us to do: send overwhelming American military force to take Cuba over quickly, and keep it under American military occupation, as beneficently as possible, until the Cuban people can hold free elections to select their own government.
The other nations of the world would scream; but they would, nonetheless, respect us. Such action in our own interests is the only thing that will restore our "prestige" in the world--and restore American military security in the Western Hemisphere.
What should we do about Berlin?
The Berlin problem must be solved soon, because it is too effectively serving the purpose for which it was created in the first place: to justify whatever programs the various governments involved want to pursue.
It sometimes looks as if the Kremlin and Washington officialdom are working hand-in-glove to deceive the people of both nations, turning the Berlin "crisis" on and off to cover up failures and to provide excuses for more adventures.
Berlin will cause a world war only when the United States is willing to go to war with the Soviet Union to free Berlin from the trap it is in.
If we won"t defend our own vital interests against the aggressive and arrogant actions of communists 90 miles from our sh.o.r.es, what would prompt us to cross the ocean and defend Germans from communists?
The cold fact of the matter is that we should not defend Berlin. This is a job for Germans, not Americans.
The Germans are an able and prosperous people. They are capable of fighting their own war, if war is necessary to protect them from communism.
It is inaccurate to refer to the eastern part of Germany as "communist Germany." That part of Germany is under communist enslavement; but the Germans who live there probably hate communists more than any other people on earth do.
The uprisings of 1953, and the endless stream of refugees fleeing from the communist zone in Germany, are proof enough that the communists could not hold East Germany without the presence of Soviet troops.
There is enough hunger and poverty and hatred of communism in eastern Germany to justify the conclusion that even Khrushchev knows he has a bear by the tail there. If we would do our part, Khrushchev would either turn loose and run; or the bear would pull loose and destroy Khrushchev.
What part should we play? We should do exactly what the President and the State Department a.s.sure the world they will not do: we should present the Soviets with a _fait accompli_, and an ultimatum.
We should call an immediate conference with the governments of France, England, and West Germany to explain that America has devoted 16 years and many billions of dollars to rehabilitating and defending western Europe; that Europe is now in many ways more soundly prosperous than we are; that the 180 million Americans can no longer be expected to ruin their own economy and neglect the defense of their own homeland for the purpose of a.s.sisting and defending the 225 million people of Western Europe; and that, therefore, we are through.
We have no need, at home, for all of the vast stores of military equipment which we now have in Europe for the defense of Europe. What we do not need for the defense of our homeland, we should offer as a gift to West Germany, since we produced the material in the first place for the purpose of resisting communism, and since the West Germans are the only people in Western Europe who apparently want to resist it.
We should give the West Germans (and the other western powers) six months to train whatever manpower they want for manning their own defenses. At the end of that time, we should pull out and devote ourselves to defending America.
With or without the consent of France and England, we should sign a peace treaty with the government of Western Germany, recognizing it as the lawful government of all Germany and imposing no restrictions on the sovereignty of Germany--that is, leaving Germany free to arm as it pleases.
Immediately following the signing of this treaty, we should announce to the world that, when we pull out of Europe at the end of six months, we expect the Soviets to pull out of Germany entirely. If, within one week after we effect our withdrawal, the Soviets are not out--or if they later come back in, against the wishes of the German nation--we should break off diplomatic relations with _all_ communist countries; deny all representatives of all communist nations access to United Nations headquarters which are on United States soil; and exert maximum pressures throughout the world to isolate all communist countries, economically and diplomatically, from all non-communist countries.
That is an _American_ plan, which would solve the German "problem" in the interests of peace and freedom.
Many Americans, who see what the solution to our grave problems ought to be, have lost hope that we will ever achieve such solution, because, in the end, the solution rests with the people.
It is the people who must compel their elected representatives to make a thorough investigation of the Council on Foreign Relations and its interlock.
It is the people who must compel Congress to deny administrative Agencies of government the unconst.i.tutional power of granting tax-exemption.