800.00B/3–1849
Off-the-Record Statement by the Secretary of State 1
Before I go into the main theme of what I want to talk about this morning, I might give you an illustration of the type of problem which [Page 811] we have to decide here almost every day. Yesterday we announced that we were issuing visas for official delegations from the Soviet Government, the Czechoslovakian Government, and the Rumanian Government to come here to the United States to participate in a conference which is being called in New York to discuss world peace. We knew, of course, when we made that decision that whichever way we decided it, we were going to be criticized. It seemed to us a very simple approach was necessary. If you are going to be criticized anyway, you might as well be criticized for doing the right thing as the wrong thing. Now, what was the right thing to do? It is not an easy matter to decide. We knew, of course, that these delegations are official Communist delegations. There is no secret about it, they are put forward by their own governments as representing exactly that. Therefore, they come to the United States to give the official Communist line, to spread the official Communist propaganda, and to attack American policy and American institutions. One might conclude from that that they should be excluded. It seemed to us that the basis of the decision is not what duty is owed to these people, because no duty is owed to them at all. The question is what is the duty that we owe to ourselves and to the principles for which we stand?
Now what are those principles? They are that we believe and have advocated, in international meeting after international meeting, the vital importance of freedom of information. We believe that that is essential. We also believe that moral and spiritual qualities do not grow in strength by being allowed to become atrophied. We believe, with Justice Holmes, that the best test of truth is the power of the idea to get itself accepted in the market place of the mind. We believe that we should be ready at all times to hear and answer the most fundamental criticisms and attacks upon our most fundamental [Page 812] beliefs. Therefore, we said we must approach this, not from a timid point of view, not from the point of view of saying, “you have put up an iron curtain against the world in your countries, therefore, we shall put up an iron curtain here,” but saying, “we can take it and we can dish it out; you send the toughest boys you have, let’s hear what they have to say and we will tell them what we have to say.”
Now, there may be simple-minded people in the United States who will be misled. Perhaps some people will be deceived by this, but by far the greater number will be strengthened by having exercised this power to meet criticism and to answer criticism. Now, that is the basis on which we proceed, and we will bear whatever chastisement comes to us, in a philosophical and humble way, but still firm in the belief—
- The Secretary of State made
this statement just prior to making an address to a session of the
National Conference of National Organizations meeting at the
Department of State.
The source text was an enclosure to a copy of a letter of April 6 from the Secretary to the journalist and writer, Dorothy Thompson. In the letter, the Secretary explained government policy on the issuance of visas to foreign delegates to the New York Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace as follows:
“In granting and refusing visas for this meeting we had a difficult practical problem to deal with. A distinction was made, as required by the terms of the Immigration Act, between persons who applied for visas as officials of foreign governments and those who applied as individuals. We granted official visas to those persons who, regardless of political beliefs, were named as delegates by their respective governments. These visas were cancelled at the termination of the business for which they were issued. We rejected the applications of Communists who applied as individuals, since under the terms of the Act we are required to exclude persons who are members of, or affiliated with, any organization which advocates or teaches the overthrow by force of the government of the United States. The only exception to this is on a finding by the Attorney General, on the recommendation of the Department of State, that admission would be in the national interest. We did not make such a recommendation,”
The Secretary’s letter was in reply to a letter of March 18, not printed, in which Miss Thompson had urged the Department of State to take measures to counter the Soviet propaganda likely to come from the Conference (800.00B/3–1849).
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