Radio age research, manufacturing, communications, broadcasting, television (1941)

Suggests Ways To Wage Peace //; Address to Naval Engineers, General Sariioj] Kraliiates Perils C<)nfr()tili)iii the World IX a forthright evaluation of the perils confronting the world through the cold war, the spread of Tommunism and the creation of such formidable weapons as the H- bonib, Krig. General David Sarnoff, Chaii'man of the Board of the Radio Corporation of Ame'-ica, in an ad- dress before the American Society of Naval Engineers in Washington, D. C. on April 28, declared that if the cold war remains in deep freeze for the next decade, we may never see another world war. General Sarnoff offered six ways to wage peace. The first way, he said, was "to make aggression on a global scale an act of suicide for the aggressor nation." President Truman, he added, wa; unerringly correct in ordering Iha vast ma- chinery of research to be set in motion for the production of the H-bomb. "The world crisis must be met on many fronts," he said. "There are no "pink pills' for peace. There is no easy or speedy road to its attain- ment. It is a long, hard journey." Pointing to the fact that the whole alphabet of Russia's cold war has been compressed into four C'^ of r(mfusion. Collapse, Chaos and Communism, General Sarnoff said that for every problem the cold war places at America's door, Russia faces five greater ones, gorged as she is by the conquests of her pene- tration in Europe and .•\sia. World peace, he asserted, must come fi'om the hearts of men. We must lead from strength, not from weakness, he said, for power is the only lan- guage which the aggressor under- stands. Six Ways to Peace The six ways to peace suggested by General Sarnoff were as follows: 1. Adequate military prepara- tion that would enable us to hit back hard and at once with such power as would detei- any but mad men from striking the first blow. 2. The removal as far as pos- sible of the tensions arising from mutual fears and suspicions, from miscalculations or misunderstand- ings now existing between the two great power groups, and thus keep the cold war from getting hot, before the stockpiles of horror weapons reach a critical mass. .3. A strong and positive policy against step-by-step aggression— a policy by which the world may know the limits of our toleration. The problems that now confront us, he said, will not solve them- selves automatically. 4. An economically and in- dustrially strong America. The greatest gift to global commu- nism would be a serious recession in our own economy. 5. Our leadership and contri- bution in restoring the shattered economy of the free world and its full confidence in fi'ee institutions. 6. Spreading the message of America on both sides of the Iron Curtain, so that our investment in peace and the maintenance of a free world front will not be lost. "Much of what I have said," con- tinued General Sarnoff, "rests on the pillars of education. We cannot hope to win the cold war of Soviet Russia without an alert and in- formed public opinion in our own country." Persuasion and menace, he point- ed out, were the twin instruments of Russian propaganda, with rumors of peace talks always combined with threatened or actual acts of aggi'es- sion. ".■\n informed and effective pub- lic opinion in a democracy like our own is not merely the responsibility of self-education," he continued. "It is also the re.sponsibility of those who guide a free press and a free radio; of public leaders who influ- ence our policy, and of those who control the agencies of Government. "The predictions and contradic- tions of public leaders and scien- tists on the new and total danger to civilization threatened by the re- centlv harnessed forces of nature are not conducive to public confi- dence. There can be no denying the speculation of scientists that our physical discoveries have opened up the possibility of world annihila- tion; just as there can be no deny- ing the philosophical implication that the same forces may prove a blessing in disguise. Out of the necessity of controlling, limiting or channeling such forces, from de- structive into constructive energy, eventually may come the outlawry of war and w(,rid-wide peace." Leaders' Responsibility at Peak At no time in our history, Gen- eral Sarnoff declared, have the lead- ers of industry had a greater re- sponsibility to our total economy. In these circumstances, it was ironic, he said, "that in our own country attacks continue on bigness in industry, solely because big in- dustry is big. With something like 400,000 manufacturers in the United States, there are those who preach fragmentation here, as again.st the five and ten year plans and the vast installations which a ruthless power abroad is intent on building to effectuate its own plans." General Sarnoflf urged that "the Voice of America" be greatly strengthened. "It seems to me," he said, "that in addition to Marshall aid we need to find methods to ex- port the purposes of the Marshall plan as well; for it includes ideas as well as goods and money. "I emphasize this because I note from foreign reaction that our friends, as well as our potential enemies, have not taken too much trouble to make clear to their peoples our purposes and policies in straining our resources to give European aid. We should not allow the opinion to be built up abroad that Uncle Sam has limitless re- sources. "We should make it clear that, in seeking agreements to remove ex- change and other barriers, we are seeking that measure of unification which would make our help to Euro- pean recovery truly effective. We should inform our friends abroad that, in our efforts to make greater the Voice of America, we would welcome its expansion to the voice (Continned on page 32) TRADIO AGE 25]