WOULD RICHARD NIXON IMPROVE AMERICAN LEADERSHIP?

"The columnist Walter Lippmann yesterday endorsed the Republican candidate, Mr. Nixon, for the presidency because he feels 'the voters should oust the party which has cost the country so much'. In his regular weekly column... he wrote that 'there really is a new Nixon, a matured and mellower man who is no longer clawing his way to the top" - The Australian, October 1.

The endorsement of Mr. Richard Nixon by the notorious Fabian Socialist Walter Lippmann, who has been on the wrong side in nearly all the great issues of our times, will tend to confirm the views of those American observers who stress that there is practically no difference between Mr. Nixon and his Democratic opponent, Vice-President Hubert Humphrey - except that Mr. Nixon is desperately attempting to head off the rising Wallace challenge by insisting that if elected he will enforce law and order.
So far Mr. Nixon has managed to avoid saying anything too definite about Vietnam, his principal defence being that he does not wish to jeopardise the Paris talks. These talks began on May 13 and the Communists have held the initiative ever since. In the meantime the destructive fighting in Vietnam has continued.

Should Mr. Nixon become the next American President, it is important that Australians and New Zealanders should not become too carried away with the Republican leader's image as a strong anti-Communist and expect any improvement in American policy. It should be remembered that in his acceptance speech at the Republican Party Convention, Mr. Nixon mentioned Korea as an example of what he had in mind when he said he would bring peace with honor in Vietnam. Vietnam was the direct result of the failure of the Eisenhower Administration, in which Mr. Nixon was Vice-President, to win in Korea.

Mr. Nixon first made his name as a member of the Congressional Committee, which exposed Alger Hiss. But as Vice-President in the Eisenhower Administration, Nixon was one of those who deserted the late Senator Joseph McCarthy when that courageous anti-Communist sought to investigate Communist influences in Government. By 1959 Mr. Nixon was claiming that, "Domestic Communism is no longer a political issue". This was certainly not the way that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover saw it.

Speaking in London, Vice-President Nixon said in November, 1958 that the Free World should "speak less of the threat of Communism and ... adopt as our primary objective not the defeat of Communism, but the victory of plenty over want, of health over disease, of freedom over tyranny..."
Soviet leader Khrushchev described this as a "welcome statement".

It was natural therefore that the following year, 1959, found Vice-President Nixon welcoming Khrushchev to the United States. This was a major propaganda and psychological victory for the Communist conspiracy. It had a chilling effect on the millions of victims of the Communists, who in spite of the Hungarian tragedy of 1956 still had some hope that American leaders were for their eventual liberation. But again in 1959, this time when Nixon made a "good-will trip" to Moscow, the Vice-President revealed his friendly spirit towards the Communist criminals. He actually went so far as to tell Khrushchev that a recent Congress resolution commemorating Captive Nations Week was "foolish".
Mr. Nixon has been a strong supporter of the United Nations and American "foreign aid" for Socialist countries.

Because of the strong Wallace challenge on the "foreign aid" issue, Mr. Nixon is now attempting to create the impression that he had modified his views. American conservatives who argue that Nixon is more conservative than Wallace have had their attention directed to an article in the Wall Street Journal of July 29, 1960, in which it is stated that Nixon "will accept it as proper for the Government to intervene in the nation's business, to take on for the people some of the obligations which were once left to them individually - the path is straight from social security to socialised medical care. In that sense the Roosevelt revolution is complete: Mr. Nixon, if elected will not dismantle the welfare state".

Mr. Nixon was defeated by the late John Kennedy in 1960 and the welfare state has been progressively expanded. There is no real evidence that Mr. Richard Nixon promises to do anything effective to halt its further growth. The one real hope in the American situation is the growing grass roots revolt against Communism and Big Brother, at present being polarised by the Wallace campaign.
Irrespective of what happens in November, there is some encouraging evidence that the movement being led by Wallace at present sill continue to grow.

SOVIET PENETRATES AUSTRALIAN SHIPPING TRADE

"The Soviet ship was half-way through loading her 30,000 bales of Australian wool at 15 percent lower freight, when New Zealand farmers and shippers heard the kind of news that's temporarily impossible in Australia. Freights on New Zealand wool on Conference Lines ships will rise by 8.5 per cent from November 18. New Zealand… does not have the benefit of freight-cutting Soviet and Polish ships to discourage the tariff-raisers" - Rupert Lockwood in the Communist Tribune, September 25.

Soviet penetration of the Australian shipping trade is now well under way, and is a major part of the Soviet's strategy of economic and political penetration in South-East Asia. The Federal Government will be guilty of a major betrayal of Australia's national self-interest unless it takes an immediate firm stand against this development.
As usual the Communists are shrewdly exploiting the woolgrowers' problem of rising costs. And also dangling the carrot of increased sales before the eyes of the Australian woolgrowers.

In his article in the Tribune, Mr. Lockwood states that "Rejoicings at the freight saving (by the use of Soviet and Polish ships) should have been natural in Government circles.... The old threats (by the traditional shippers), once so effective, will prove to be empty unless the Gorton Government betrays national economic interests".
What Mr. Lockwood does not explain is that the Communists are able to reduce shipping freights primarily because they are using ships which have delivered weapons to North Vietnam through Haiphong, and would otherwise be returning to Europe with ballast only.

Irrespective of any short-term financial advantages from using cheaper Communist shipping for Australian exports to Europe, the naked truth is that by accepting this Communist bribe, Australians are helping the Communists to lower the cost of delivering their weapons to Vietnam to be used against Australians.

If this disgraceful development does not stir the national conscience of Australia and result in a strong protest, then something serious has happened to the basic character of the Australian people. But we have every faith that that protest will be made.

IMMIGRATION MINISTER OPPOSES MULTI-RACIALISM

"If multi-racial or social pluralism was forced upon Australia it would amount to 'social masochism', the Minister for Immigration (Mr. Snedden) said yesterday. 'We wish to avoid the formation of enclaves of people who do not form part of the Australian community. People who do not have the characteristics of an Australian person', he said." - The Age, Melbourne, October 1.

If press reports of Mr. Snedden's address to Monash University students are correct, they indicate a change of emphasis from some of the Minister's statements. Mr. Snedden's blunt statement that he could see "no benefits at all" from a policy resulting in the creation of a multi-racial society in Australia suggested that he was replying to a recent appeal by the ex-Premier of South Australia, Mr. Don Dunstan, to create a multi-racial Australia (see On Target, No. 35)

During his recent tour of South Australia Mr. Eric Butler was greeted with applause and laughter when in referring to Mr. Dunstan's appeal that Australia should be prepared to accept large-scale migration from Fiji, he said that he thought one Don Dunstan from Fiji was enough.

It was encouraging to see that Mr. Snedden said that Australian policy in the future would not be to increase population by recourse to the immigration of non-Europeans. He continued, 'as we are committed to the maintenance of a homogeneous population we must rely on the traditional sources of immigration where the sociological and economic factors are closest to our own".

Mr. Snedden provided the interesting information that since March 1966, the Australian Government had received 918 applications from Asians wishing to become immigrants, of which 376 had been appointed. We agree that this rate of non-European immigration will have no effect on a homogeneous people of 12 millions, but we draw attention to Mr. Snedden's statement that "all those approved are people like doctors, scientists, university lecturers, and so on who have qualifications from which Australia can benefit". If Australia is benefiting from these people, then surely the countries from which these people are coming must be losing. This seems to be a strange way to help Asian and African countries!

MR. ROBERT McNAMARA'S WORLD BANK PROJECT

"A vast new effort to help reduce poverty in developing nations is to be launched by the World Bank. This was announced today by the new president, Mr. Robert McNamara, the former U.S. Secretary of Defence. He said the World Bank planned to lend $11,400 million to developing nations in the next five years. This equals the total it has lent in its 22 years" - The Sun, Melbourne, October 1.

Mr. McNamara's career to date suggests yet another disaster. And Mr. McNamara is the man for really big disasters, as witnessed by the F111 plane, which he insisted upon in the face of expert opposition. He is the man who destroyed the Skybolt project upon which the British had been relying.
As Secretary for Defence he was a stubborn opponent of American military leaders who wanted to end the war quickly in Vietnam. In particular he was opposed to blockading the main Communist supply line through the Port of Haiphong. And immediately he left his position as Secretary for Defence to become President of the World Bank, he made clear his support for the policies of the late Senator Robert Kennedy.
Even while with the Ford Company McNamara was a disaster.

The World Bank was one of the creations of Harry Dexter White, the top Communist agent who worked inside the American Treasury Department, and the Fabian Socialist Lord Keynes. The World Bank is little more than an instrument for subsidising "the underdeveloped nations" at the expense of the Western nations. Credits made available to the "developing nations" simply enable production from Western nations to be transferred to "the underdeveloped nations". There are few prospects of this loaned production ever being repaid. This is the extension of Socialism on an international scale. There are many bottomless sinks down which aid from the developed nations can be poured without any real economic progress in the countries to which the aid is being sent.

It can be predicted with certainty now that the massive spending by Mr. McNamara will produce more disasters. If poverty means a shortage of an adequate diet for healthy-living - and this is not an easy matter to assess as demonstrated by a leading expert, Professor Colin Clark - then what is required is not massive sophisticated production from advanced countries, but practical demonstrations to the peoples suffering poverty of how they can make use of their own resources (in most cases enormous) to help themselves.

FEDERAL ARMY OF OCCUPATION INCREASES

"The total Federal Public Service staff in Victoria eight years ago was 49,400. Despite transfers to Canberra, it stands now at 59,200. Over the eight-year period the pay bill for the Federal service has risen from $373.7 million to $704.5 million " - E.H. Cox in The Herald, Melbourne, September 28.

Attempting to justify the recent purchase by the Federal Government of the Cromwell Building in Melbourne, to house more Federal officials, the Minister for the Interior, Mr. Nixon, has repeated the old story about bureaucratic expansion being necessary to meet "community wants. The truth is the Federal Government is expanding into activities, which should be the responsibility of State and Municipal Governments. Or preferably, the individual.