V roce 1949 James Forrestal, náměstek ministra obrany USA, skočil z okna s výkřikem „Rusové přicházejí!“.

#159153: -

#159153:

1) James Forrestal, memorandum sent to Clark Clifford (6th March, 1947)

There is a serious, immediate and extraordinarily grave threat to the continued existence of this country.

These are the facts:

1. The present danger which this country faces is at least as great as the danger which we faced during the war with Germany and Japan. Briefly stated, it is the very real danger that this country, as we know it, may cease to exist.

2. From 1941 to 1945 we won a war by enlisting the whole-hearted support of all our people and all our resources. Today we are losing a comparable struggle without ever having enlisted the strength of our people and our resources - and the consequences of our loss will be the same consequences that would have followed if we had lost the war of 1941-45.

3. Of the strategic battlegrounds of the present struggle, we have already lost Poland, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, and a number of others; Greece is in imminent peril; after Greece, France and Italy may follow; and after France and Italy, Great Britain, South America, and ourselves.

4. We lost strategic battlegrounds in the war of 1941-1945, also-but even while we were losing some battlegrounds, we were planning the offensives by which we were to win the ultimate victory. And we won the victory by pressing home our attacks - by landing our troops at Guadalcanal, North Africa, Guam, Iwo Jima, Normandy, the Philippines, and a host of other places.

5. This country cannot afford the deceptive luxury of waging defensive warfare. As in the war of 1941-45, our victory and our survival depend on how and where we attack.

6. By providing outstanding economic leadership, this country can wage its attack successfully - and can thereby build the foundations of a peaceful world. For the only way in which a durable peace can be created is by world-wide restoration of economic activity and international trade.

7. In order to be successful, our product-our economic leadership-will have to prove its superiority to the commodity which Russia has lately been so successful in peddling. Russia has a product which is skillfully tailored to appeal to people who are in despair-and thanks to German and Japanese aggression, Russia has had a wealth of customers who are sufficiently desperate to turn to anything. Moreover, the accomplishment of Russia's aims has been greatly simplified by the fact that we have heretofore offered the world no practical antidote for the Russian poison.

8. What we must do is create the conditions under which a free world society can live. With that as our object, a group of our most competent citizens should be called together in order to enlist the full support of all elements of our economy in the accomplishment of this basic American task. For only by an all-out effort on a worldwide basis can we pass over from the defense to the attack. In making our all-out effort, we will be forwarding not only world stability but also our national interest-which includes, of course, business interest, labor interest, and public interest.

9. As specific examples of the sort of thing which we must do, the following may be enumerated:

(a) Japanese assets amounting to some $137,000,000 are presently impounded. If these assets were set up as a revolving fund with which Japan could import raw materials for its industries, Japanese exports could again enter the channels of world trade-and Japanese workers would have employment and something to eat.

(b) A similar revolving fund could be set up for Germany, for a durable peace can rest only upon a Germany that, while militarily impotent, is industrially active.

(c) Financial support should be provided for local enterprises in those countries where a struggling economy needs a helping hand-but the furnishing of such support should in every case be handled by competent American personnel, in order to assure that the money goes into productive enterprises that are of direct use both to the country involved and to world trade. (Wherever possible, private capital in this country should render the necessary financial assistance-for this is essentially a business task, in which government's greatest contribution is the creation of favorable conditions under which business can work.)

10. The group referred to above should be called together promptly. It should consist of our best brains-from, management, from labor, from both the executive and the legislative side of the government, from any source that has a contribution to make-for the issues to be faced are crucial, and we must attack if we are to survive