صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

SYLVESTER'S REVIEW AUTHORITY

Senator THURMOND. Well, in the Defense Department, the changes that were made in the speeches there, do they reflect the judgment of the individual reviewers or do they reflect policy?

Mr. SYLVESTER. There, Senator, I would say that they represent the policy of various elements of the Defense Department as our reviewers obtain it by going to those elements and having them sign off on statements, speeches, or whatever the material may be.

Senator THURMOND. In other words, do you feel that the censors under you, and they are all under you in the whole Defense Department, aren't they?

Mr. SYLVESTER. No, Senator, they are not. The only men who are responsible to me are those in the Directorate of Security Review. And so that in any given speech, you would then find yourself dealing with maybe some two, three, four, five, six, whatever the number might be.

Senator THURMOND. Well, I thought we cleared that up this morning. In your position as Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, don't you have supervision of the screening of speeches in the Army, Navy, and Air Force?

Mr. SYLVESTER. As they come through Security Review, precisely, but not the screening procedure.

Senator THURMOND. In other words, you can reverse what has been done down there, can't you? You are the final say-so, aren't you?

Mr. SYLVESTER. I am the final say-so, but I don't operate in a vacuum or as a czar in our section.

Senator THURMOND. I didn't say you operate in a vacuum. Do you have the final say-so?

Mr. SYLVESTER. I would say I have, subject to appeal.

Senator THURMOND. Appeal to whom?

Mr. SYLVESTER. To the Deputy Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of Defense.

Senator THURMOND. So far as the Defense Department is concerned, do you have the final say-so?

Mr. SYLVESTER. I have normally, but if an officer or anyone chooses to appeal past me, his appeal would then go to the Secretary.

Senator THURMOND. Who would he appeal to if he went beyond you?

Mr. SYLVESTER. The Secretary of Defense or the Deputy.

Senator THURMOND. The Secretary of Defense. Would he go personally to the Secretary of Defense or his Deputy?

Mr. SYLVESTER. No. Under the appeal procedures spelled out, it is provided that he would go through me to the Secretary of Defense. Senator THURMOND. So in the Defense Department, then, you are the top man for handling this work, aren't you?

Mr. SYLVESTER. Subject to appeal over me.

Senator THURMOND. Subject to an appeal to the Secretary of Defense or his Deputy.

Mr. SYLVESTER. Correct, that is right.

Senator THURMOND. So if they don't appeal to the Secretary of

Mr. SYLVESTER. Correct.

Senator THURMOND. So far as the Defense Department is concerned. Mr. SYLVESTER. Yes, Senator.

EXTENT TO WHICH REVIEWERS FOLLOW POLICY

Senator THURMOND. Now, then, is it your judgment that the people who do this screening over there, from the experience you have had in the Army, Navy, Air Force, directly, or in any Department, do you think they exercise their own judgment or do you think they try to follow policy?

Mr. SYLVESTER. I think they try to follow policy in the light of their knowledge of it and through judgments of it throughout the whole establishment.

Senator THURMOND. Mr. Sylvester, do you consider part of your job as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs to insure that other agencies are not overzealous or incorrect in editing the remarks of speakers in your Department and have you at any time taken upon yourself to determine whether or not such overzealous or poorly informed editing and censoring has taken place?

Mr. SYLVESTER. Senator, the only other agency with which I would be dealing and do deal is the State Department.

Senator THURMOND. You haven't coordinated with any other agencies.

Mr. SYLVESTER. Under the law we coordinate with the Atomic Energy Commission.

Senator THURMOND. Well, have you exercised any supervision over the screening that is being done in the Army, Navy, and Air Force to form an opinion as to the manner in which they are doing it, or do you think they are following policy?

Mr. SYLVESTER. My observation, Senator, is that the people who are reviewing speeches or putting in policy in the various agencies of the Department of Defense are doing the very best job they can and know and since they are in many instances, all instances, the basic source of our information, we then are getting right down to the source.

Senator THURMOND. In other words, you think they are following policy as best they can; is that it?

Mr. SYLVESTER. I think they are completely dedicated and devoted to following policy and using their judgments within the confines of it to the best interests of the United States.

SYLVESTER SOUGHT JUDGMENT OF SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

Senator THURMOND. You speak about appeals to the Secretary of Defense or the Deputy Secretary of Defense or Under Secretary. Mr. SYLVESTER. Yes, sir.

Senator THURMOND. How many times have there been any appeals to the Deputy Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of Defense since you have been there?

Mr. SYLVESTER. There have been no appeals taken by the principals, but there have been one or two occasions in which I initiated on my own, and sought the judgment of people beyond me.

Senator THURMOND. Whose judgment did you seek?

Senator THURMOND. In other words, after you acted there has been no appeal taken from there. What was done was on your own.

Mr. SYLVESTER. What I am trying to say is that when I had doubts of what I should do or whether my judgment was good-on occasion I sought out that of my superiors whose judgment I wanted and needed.

EXAMPLES OF COMMUNIST DISTORTION OF STATEMENTS

Senator THURMOND. Now, Mr. Sylvester, in your opening remarks you referred to the Communist propaganda machine within and without this country, and that they are poised to distort statements of high government officials. Would you give us some examples of these distortions by the Communist propaganda machine within the country and by the Communist propaganda machine without the country? Mr. SYLVESTER. Well, Senator, that is based on experience I have had over the last 15 years in covering international meetings and conferences abroad. My observations of what appears in foreign newspapers, and within our own country the constant effort of identifiable Communists to distort everything is what I mean.

Senator THURMOND. Would you care to give an example of the distortion by the Communist propaganda machine within the country? Mr. SYLVESTER. I will look up for you and try to produce such. Senator THURMOND. Would you supply that for the record? Mr. SYLVESTER. I will try and do that, yes.

Senator THURMOND. Will you supply for the record distortions by the Communist propaganda machine without the country? Mr. SYLVESTER. Yes.

(The information is as follows:)

COMMUNIST EXTERNAL PROPAGANDA

BURKE'S STATEMENT ON BASES

Peiping NCNA radioteletype in English to Europe and Asia 1902 7/4/60 W JAKARTA, July 4.-Papers here today continue to condemn U.S. Navy Chief of Staff Admiral Burke's statement that the United States might be interested in building a military base in Hollandia, West Irian.

Harian Rakjat said editorially today that it was futile for spokesman of the U.S. State Department L. White to "deny" Burke's statement that the United States would build a military base in West Irian. Only the foolish will believe the "denial" of the imperialists. It continued that if the United States fails to withdraw its weapons supplied to the Dutch aircraft carrier Karel Doorman, Indonesia should treat U.S. capital in the same way as it did Dutch capital.

Bointang Timur pointed out editorially that U.S. Admiral Burke's statement concerning West Irian was an expression of flagrant hostility. A protest should be made against it. The paper demanded a resolute stand and a serious protest against the U.S. official's statements, which were by nature hostile to Indonesia. The editorial denounced some circles in Indonesia which defend U.S. imperialism on this question. It asked: "Why should they adopt a hostile attitude toward China, which had a good attitude on the stand taken by the United States on the question of West Irian by another criterion?"

Indonesian Foreign Minister Subandrio told the press on July 1, after his talks with U.S. chargé d'affairs ad interim in Indonesia, that reactions to this question "should be cautious."

Moscow, Tass, November 18, 1959

An AP correspondent reports from Edgewood, Md., that on November 17 Lt. Gen. A. Trudeau, Chief of U.S. Army Research and Development, defended

he sees no grounds for coming out against chemical weapons inasmuch as gas is used in the United States to execute condemned criminals.

Moscow, Tass, to Europe, May 9, 1958

Today the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee issued an abridged shorthand report of its secret session which took place on March 26 and at which the commander of the Chemical Corps of the U.S. Army, Maj. Gen. William Creasy, spoke.

As can be seen from Creasy's statement, the United States has been making active preparations for chemical, bacteriological, and radiological warfare for a long time. Judging by the excerpts from Creasy's statement quoted in the abridged report, the U.S. Defense Department issued as long ago as October 1956, a secret directive concerning large-scale preparation for chemical warfare. Creasy stated that the preparation for chemical and bacteriological warfare is carried out by the Chemical Corps of the U.S. Army with the cooperation of the Army Medical Corps.

** Creasy regretted that the present program of work on the new types of these weapons is "too limited." He insisted that it should be enlarged 10 times. Creasy stated that the Chemical Corps "would like to" work on a number of new "hopeful" projects. "For example, if we could produce something that causes temporary blindness," declared Creasy cynically, "this would be an ideal type of weapon."

COMMUNIST INTERNAL PROPAGANDA

[From the Worker, June 5, 1960]

WHILE LODGE TALKS THE GENERALS PICK THE BOMB TARGETS

(By Art Shields)

I could almost see the generals' grins when I heard Henry Cabot Lodge at the U.N.'s Security Council.

The U-2 was just a "nonmilitary, one-man plane" on a "harmless observation flight," said President Eisenhower's representative in the presence of a hundred newspaper men and women.

The U.S. delegate was pleading "not guilty" to the Soviet Union's charge of "aggression."

But the generals, who were listening in at their TV sets in the Pentagon, knew differently. For the generals were picking H-bomb targets that very day. And they made no secret about it. The facts about the target picking had been leaked out to the press. And I quote from a New York Times Washington story of May 22:

LISTING THE TARGETS

"The review of strategic war plans, now in its final stages at the Pentagon," said the Times, "is being conducted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It will offer for approval by Secretary Gates and ultimately the National Security Council, a new list of strategic targets in the Soviet Union." (Targets picked by Lodge's "harmless" spy plane.)

**

The "target" story continued: "The problem has several factors. One concerns the number of targets, and the priorities that must be determined. * "Secretary Gates must now allocate Soviet target priorities to the Polaris submarines. * * *"

This is the same Defense Secretary who staged the worldwide "combat alert" the day before the summit date. The combat alert was doubtless intended to wreck the summit. And Walter Lippmann sharply commented that "the timing of this 'exercise' was just a shade worse than sending the U-2 on its perilous mission 2 weeks before the summit." For a worldwide combat alert is "one of the preliminary stages" to "war," said Lippmann.

PENTAGON FIREBRANDS

Gates-a banker-represents the firebrand sections of Wall Street. He is playing with the idea of a "preventive war" against the Socialist lands, like Truman's Navy Secretary Matthews, another banker. And one remembers the people's alarm when Matthews made his reckless "Aggressors for Peace" speech

"*** To have peace," said Matthews, "we should be willing to declare our intention to pay any price even the price of initiating a war to compel cooperation for peace."

Matthews admitted that such a war would "cast us in a character new to a true democracy, as initiators of aggressive war." But he wanted the United States to start the shooting nonetheless.

Matthews had to resign soon after. The people's wrath was too great. And Gates-the Wall Street firebrand-should follow suit.

Unfortunately Gates isn't the only aggressive warmonger in high Government circles. The generals are rattling the saber every day. And some Army and congressional leaders are publicly hinting that they believe in "preventive war,” that is, in aggressive war, even when they speak against it. And I quote from the recent hearings of the Defense Subcommittee of the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee.

MORE SABER RATTLING

Gen. Thomas S. Powers, commander of the Strategic Air Command, which drops the big bombs, was testifying:

"I am not advocating preventive war," said Powers. "The mission of the SAC is deterrence. *** However, * ** I also submit that you will not deter a war unless you have the capability to start a war."

"Right," replied Representative George H. Mahon, the Texas Democrat, who presides over the Defense Subcommittee.

And Mahon added:

[ocr errors]

"I suppose you agree ** with me that all of this big talk * * that, no, we would under no circumstances start a war, we ought to say less and less about that. ***" (Quoted in I. F. Stone's Weekly.)

This sentence is tangled. But the thinking of the Dixiecrat leader stands out sharply nevertheless. And Powers, the H-bomb flight commander, appears to be tugging at the leash.

PRICE WE WOULD PAY

This is deadly talk. General Powers and Mahon knew that "preventive war" would bring a terrible counterblow. Cyrus Eaton, the Cleveland banker, has been conferring with nuclear scientists. And Eaton warns us that 75 million Americans would perish at once in a nuclear war. Fifty million more would die later from radiation poisoning.

What a price to pay for the target-picking flights that Henry Cabot Lodge calls so harmless today.

An unexpected glimpse into the mind of a rather typical Pentagon firebrand was given us in Washington several years ago. It came when the Washington Post published excerpts from the secret diary of the U.S. military attaché in Moscow, Maj. Gen. Robert Walker Grow.

"WAR *** NOW"

The diary had fallen into the hands of peace forces in Frankfurt, Germany. General Grow had left it in a hotel when he went out. It was published in a book by a former British Army major. And the U.S. Army spokesman admitted to John G. Norris, a Washington Post writer, that the quotes were authentic. "War as soon as possible, now," wrote General Grow in an entry quoted in the Post of March 6, 1952.

"It seems to me," added Grow, "that the time is ripe for a blow this year." "We must start (the war) by hitting below the belt," said this free-world defender. "This war cannot be conducted according to Marquis of Queensbury rules."

And Grow went on to advocate the "subversion," that Allen Dulles' Central Intelligence Agency boasts about.

undermine the loyalty of Soviet "*** Anything, truth or false

"We must employ every subversive device to subjects for their regime," the diary declared. hood, to poison the thoughts of the population." And General Grow tells of his search for "targets" in his rambles through Moscow. He gloats at the discovering of antiaircraft positions. And describes a bridge as a good "target" in a passage quoted in the former major's book.

General Grow was court-martialed and suspended for 6 months for his "in

« السابقةمتابعة »