AFTER TWO YEARS

With this issue Worldview completes two years of
publication, and it seems a good time to pause
and examine the journal's purpose, direction and
future plans.

This is “a journal of religion and international
affairs.” An editorial in its first number announced
that Worldview would be concerned with the

broad area of ethics and foreign policy “as a baffling

and heart-breaking problem, not an accomplish-

# ment. At all times, among all nations, a tension
between ethics and foreign policy seems inevi-
table. In the world of 1958, when thermonuclear
weapons have brought a new dimension of de-
struction into history, the tension is infinitely
heightened. Worldview will seek to explore the
implications of this fact.”

The tensions, of course, are no nearer “solution”
now than they were two years ago, and anyone
who has looked to this journal for ready answers
must surely have been disappointed. What World-

view has tried to do is to discover the problems
and to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas.
And it Ecteves that here it does not merely dupli-
cate the efforts of other magazines.

There are, for example, other journals that are
concerned, week by week and month by month,
with questions of religion and international affairs.
One thinks of Christianity and Crisis and The
Commonweal, or of America and The Christian
Century. But these publications are written and
edited from a specifically Protestant or a Catholic
point of view. Worldview is “interfaith” in the
mamost genuine sense of the term and thus provides
®mecting place for writers from the various re-
ligious traditions. This is its special function, and
Because of it the journal should be able to make
# unique contribution toward the clarification of
problems that are common to us all, and which
femand whatever illumination the various reli-
pous traditions can bring to them. We share a
fmmon fate, and our best hope lies in the sharing
our insights.

worldview

A JOURNAL OF RELIGION AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

We hope that in its first two years this magazine
has begun a process of intellectual exchange, of
dialogue, which can be steadily deepened. We
hope also that its range, both of writers and of
readers, can be significantly expanded. A publi-
cation like Worldview can never hope (indeed,
should never hope, if it is to maintain its character)
to reach a mass audience or directly to influence
popular opinion. But it can be of (perhaps great)
value to that smaller audience which is gs 4
concerned, either personally or professionally, wi
the issues of ethics, security and survival in the
modern world. It is for this audience that World-
view is written and edited; it is to this audience
that the journal must look for its influence and
future.

As we enter the decade of the 1960's it seems
clear that the post-war period has finally ended
and that an era of new perils, and new possibilities,
is about to begin. The world continues to hover on
the brink of nuclear suicide and the moral chal-
lenge of disarmament must continue to haunt us,
but it seems less likely now than in the past ten.
years that the two super-powers will choose to
solve their rivalry through the ultimate folly of

war.

What seems likely is that we are moving into

an era of fierce economic and political competi-
tion, a time when both the United States and the
Soviet Union will turn their major attention to the
underdeveloped areas of Asia and Africa, to prob-
lems of the world’s exploding population and the
measures needed to secure it from starvation and
disease and death.

The insights and imperatives of religion must
not be absent from this coming era, or irrelevant
to it. The forces of materialism and cynicism must
not be the only ones which shape this world. As
Worldview, in the new decade, begins its third
year of publication, it will hope to provide a con-
tinually more important forum where men of di-
vergent views, but of common concerns, can meet
to examine the great ethical challenges of their
time and place.

volume 2 number 12

3
|
JECEMBE) J

in the magazines

The November issues of Current History and Com-
mentary both contain articles by Hans J. Morgenthau
on the subject of Soviet foreign policy. In these
articles, Mr. Morgenthau makes the point that the
foreign policy of Nikita Khrushchev represents a
radical break with the past. “Much less a doctrinaire
Communist than his predecessors, he has set out to
accomplish the world-wide triumph of Communism,
not as the heir of Marx and Lenin, but as the
pragmatic competitor of the United States. He has
set out to do what Lenin and Stalin never at-
tempted: to defeat the foremost capitalist nation
at its own gamie of technological and productive
achievements.” Mr. Morgenthau describes Khrush-
chev’s “new imperialism” as having three distinct
motives. “[Khrushchev] offers the Soviet Union to
the other nations of the world as a model to emulate,
and especially to those who are underdeveloped and
uncommitted. He seeks to spread the influence of
the Soviet Union through foreign aid and trade. By
overtaking the United States in technological and

roductive achievements, he aims to reduce the
United States to the status of a second-rank power.”

These goals, Mr. Morgenthau suggests, are what
lie behind the Soviet Premier’s repeated—and admit-
tedly sincére—pleas for a relaxation of political and
military tensions. But he insists that “‘the end to the
Cold War’ in Khrushchev’s terminology amounts
really to the conduct of the Cold War on Soviet
terms. For as long as the non-Communist world
remains able and willing to put up resistance to the
professed Soviet aim to take over the world, the
Cold War must go on.”

In its winter issue, Cross Currents publishes a
translation of a report on “Christians and the Preven-
tion of War in the Atomic Age.” The report is the
result of “an ecumenical inquiry” by a sub-committee
of the Ecumenical Studies Commission of the French
Protestant Federation. Proposed for general stud
by the Federation, the report addresses the fol-
lowing four questions: (1) the theological foun-
dations for the Christian attitude to war, (2) the
ethical problems of the participation of Christians
in war, (3) the novel menace of the current situa-
tion, and (4) the role of the ee oy

The rt begins by remindin istians that
“all nities and conflict issue forth from .. . the
troubled depths of fallen man,” and that the re-

pentance to which the Gospel recalls us compels us

today ‘to “redefine the responsibilities of Christians
in regard both to their own nations and to all man-
kind.” The Christian response to the demands of the

2

both the Law of God and “the

State must
autonomy of politics.” Churches must “replace the fine
old appeals to submission [to “the authorities”] and
the simplist appeals to revolt with a —
to guide Christians over difficult paths where

must walk as adult citizens of a modern state.” The

ethical problem of war involves Christians in the
dangers of a “double morality.” As the authors of
the report write: “Every war poses in the same terms
the ethical problem of the conflicts of moralities . . .
Culpable before God whatever you do, Christian,
will you be objector or soldier?” But the authors see
quite clearly that modern war is likely to be different
in kind from every war of the past, and that the
totality of the nuclear threat has made appeals to
“patriotism” indefensible. “It is not enough to preach
‘Render to Caesar . . .’ when no one knows very well
any longer who Caesar is. It is not enough to recall
that the State has the duty of protecting society
against . . . attacks . . . when the least spark risks
causing a world conflagration.” Faced with these
problems, the Churches can best discharge their

responsibilities by means of a “political preaching.”

“In the troubled and complex world of today,
owe their members a constant aid, a political ‘care of
souls’ which would keep in mind the great affirma-
tions of the Gospel and international reality.”

“What the Americans fail to realize,” write the
editors of The Spectator by way of introducing an
article on Spain, “is that when they accept Franco's
oe at they must give him money or there

ill be a Communist Spain, they are not in fact
choosing either Franco or the Communists: they are
choosing Franco and the Communists.” The article
“Francos Spain” is by Ian Gilmour and appears in
the issue of November 13. A lengthy analytical report
which covers every feature of the Spanish dictator-
ship, it should be of great interest to Americans,
especially—as the editors suggest—the authors of the
next Mutual Security Program.

Also current and worthy of note:

“Soviet-Chinese Relations” by Klaus Mehnert, In-
ternational Affairs, October.

“NATO, the Bomb and Socialism” by Peter Sedg-
wick, Universities and Left Review, Autumn.

“Moral Rearmament: the Answer to Communism?”
by Robert A. Graham, S. J., America, November 2.

PAMPHILUS

I
t
t
t
r
a

BS

BR

THE POWER TO NEGOTIATE

Our Approach Should Be from the Standpoint of Vital National Interest

E. Raymond Platig

The Cold War objectives of both the United States
and the Soviet Union are basic factors in any possible
negotiation of differences. A third, perhaps more
tangible, factor is the distribution of power between
the two blocs. Ever since Sputnik I took to space
there has been much speculation concerning the
relative power positions of the Communist powers
and the West.

One immediate but not too well-defined reaction
to Sputnik I was that we ought to get down to serious
negotiations with the Soviet Union immediately,
since we seemed to have lost the race for military
power. This approach to foreign policy is as dan-
gerous as that of the crusading moralist. For the
proposition which lies behind this position is that
we can successfully negotiate with the Soviets from
weakness. Successful negotiation from a position of
weakness can be contemplated only if the nation
with whom you are negotiating can be assumed to
be magnanimous enough to grant you those minimum
interest objectives you seek even though you do not
have the power to demand them. It seems obvious
that the present Soviet leaders are not capable of
such magnanimity.

(This initial panic response has by now pretty
much passed, though one wonders if it is not still
present in the attitude of an Administration which
seems more concerned with the cost of armaments
than with the need for armaments. )

Most observers today seem to be in agreement
that we have not yet lost the race for military power
but are in some danger of losing it. Observers dis-
agree as to how much national effort is required in
what length of time to assure that we do not lose the
military race. It is somewhat disturbing to note that
a great many observers not committed to a defense
of the Administration’s actions are highly critical of
those actions on the grounds that we are doing too
little, not fast enough. Be that as it may, it seems

Mr. Platig is a staff member of the Social Science
Foundation and Associate Professor of International
Relations in the University of Denver. The first
part of his article was published last month.

to me that the most accurate description which can
be given to the present distribution of power be-
tween the blocs is to say that we have a balance of
uncertainty.

The scales in which statesmen and analysts weigh
relative national power are never delicate instru-
ments, and the weights which they put into the
scales are never clearly marked. This constitutional
uncertainty of the whole process of power calcula-
tion is exacerbated today by the uncertainty of the
weights to be assigned to the rapidly developing
weapons systems of modern military technology.
The margin of possible error in current power cal-
culations is thus quite large, large enough to make
it unlikely that either side would commit itself to a
policy which required a clear superiority of power.
Thus we have the balance of uncertainty, a balance
which may well continue for many many years. On
the other hand, one cannot discount the possibility
that the balance may be completely upset by some
spectacular breakthrough in military technology by
one side or the other, or by some decisive victory in
the non-military aspects of the Cold War. In any
event, there are only three conceivable positions
of power from which we might negotiate. One is a
position of weakness, another a position of balance,
and the third a position of strength.

I have already indicated my belief that we cannot
expect to have satisfactory negotiations if we find
ourselves in a position of weakness. It is tempting
to think that if we found ourselves in a position of
strength we would still be willing to negotiate and
that indeed we would display that magnanimity
toward the vital interests of the Communist states
which we cannot anticipate that they would display
toward us. I would like to think that this is true.
However, our own tendency to adhere to a crusading
moralism and our lack of success in bringing about
successful negotiations in the period when we had
a clear superiority of military strength do not en-
courage this hope. It would appear, then, that the
distribution of power which would be most conducive

3

to successful negotiation would be a distribution
which puts the two sides essentially in balance, even
though that balance may be a balance of uncer-
tainty and a balance of terror.

It should be evident from what we have said that
the one configuration of these three factors which
would be most conducive to a negotiated settlement
of the Cold War is as follows. First, the attitude of
the United States would have to be a non-crusading,
non-moralistic one that would permit the nation to
pursue only those limited objectives which would
clearly serve to assure the survival and reasonable
well-being of the United States. Two, the attitude
of the Soviet Union toward the Cold War would
also have to be one which led it to pursue a policy
of objectives limited by a concern for its vital in-
terests. The same can be said for other Communist
states, especially Red China. Three, the distribution
of power between the blocs would have to be one of
essential balance.

At the present time it is clear that the only one
of these conditions which is met is the last one; that
is, we are in a position of essential balance, although
I must admit that I for one would feel a little more
easy if the balance were a bit more clearly uncer-
tain in our favor. My interpretation of Soviet ob-
jectives, as I have already indicated, is that they are
not limited solely by a concern for the vital national
interests of the Soviet state, and this is a highly dis-
couraging aspect of the present situation.

We have, however, much more control over Ameri-
can objectives than we do over Soviet objectives
and it is in this area that I think we most need to
straighten out our thinking in order to prepare for
the time when—assuming Soviet objectives do change
—it will be feasible to enter into serious negotiations.
There is, however, more to be gained from this
process of defining American vital interests and
deciding upon the objectives which will serve them
than merely being prepared to negotiate at some
future date with the Soviets. It seems to me that
by the very fact of our engaging in such a process we
would do a great deal to put pressure upon the
Soviets to change their objectives, and also to make
the balance of uncertainty less uncertain in our
favor.

If I am correct that vital national interests provide
a level of discourse which is universally apprehended
and understood, then I think it follows that we
would find ourselves for the first time speaking to
the world’s statesmen and peoples in terms that they
could understand. It is no secret that today Ameri-

4

can motives are much suspect in a large part of the
world. Part of this suspicion can be laid to Soviet
propaganda, but still a larger part of it can, I be-
lieve, be traced to the fact that the uncommitted
nations and peoples of the world, and even our allies,
are highly reluctant to be involved in a great Ameri-
can crusade which they see, and I think rightly, as
ending in nuclear holocaust. If we could make it
clear to these people that our objectives were
limited, that we were willing to settle the Cold War
on terms that would respect the vital interest ob-
jectives of the Communist powers, then it would
become clear to them also that the Cold War had
its roots in Soviet ambition and intransigence.

Such a display of genuine concern for arriving
at arrangements which would protect the vital in-
terests of the Soviet bloc countries would inspire
more serious thought about the nature of Soviet
objectives, thought which at once would be more
serious and more critical of those objectives. I am
convinced that such an approach by the United
States would face the Soviet leaders with the neces-
sity of defending what is really indefensible, and
that is their expansionist ambitions. I am convinced
that with such an approach we would at one and
the same time greatly increase our prestige in the
non-Soviet areas of the world and put increasing
pressure upon the Soviets to take a much more
reasonable approach themselves.

Now at this point it may be objected that this
is nothing more than the old game of power politics.
The objection is to the point. I would, however,
defend myself, and power politics, on two counts.

First, I would insist that I am talking about power
politics with a conscience; a conscience which is
sensitive to the vital interests of other nations as
well as to those of one’s own nation. I have the
concept of vital national interests rather than the
bare concept of national interest because it seems to
me there is an important ethical difference between
the two.

Mr. Webster suggests that a suitable synonym for
interest is advantage. If we pursue a policy dedicated
to maximizing the national advantage in all situa-
tions, with no thought as to the impact of our policy
upon the vital interests of others, and with no at-
tempt to limit our own objectives to those necessary
for protection of national security and the integrity
of our national way-of-life, if, in other words, we
pursue a policy designed to serve the national in-
terest in its narrowest meaning, we will be in the
position of identifying any self-serving national be-

hi
tc

nA co.

havior as morally acceptable. To do so seems to me
to deprive ethics of its key role as a factor limiting
self-serving behavior.

I do not mean to imply that a foreign policy con-
ducted by a statesman whose conscience is sensitive
to the vital interests of other nations is a foreign
policy which is ethically perfect. I think there is al-
ways an unbridgeable gap between the morally per-
fect and desirable act, on the one hand, and the
real and possible act on the other hand.

Morally sensitive men live their lives in the tension
created by this gap. In neither his private nor
political role can man perform the totally good act;
the best he can hope for is the wisdom, the moral
sensitivity, and the courage to choose the least evil
of the alternatives open to him. And in his foreign
policy acts the statesman cannot forget that he acts
not on his own behalf but rather on behalf of a nation
of many people, a nation whose vital interests he is
sworn to defend. He cannot forswear success for his
own nation—defined in terms of the vital interests
of that nation—in favor of a morally more satisfying
but nationally disastrous course of action.

I do not, therefore, mean to leave the impression
that this approach to the ethical problem in foreign
policy assures the peaceful solution of all problems
among states. It clearly does not. Even if all of the
world’s statesmen adopted this approach there would
still surely be instances in which the vital interests

of State A would conflict with the vital interests of
State B. In such instances, victory would go to the
more powerful and astute state. There would also
still be instances in which the vital interests of two
large powers could be protected only by sacrificing
the interests of a smaller power—Korea and some of
Py qe of Eastern Europe may well be examples

My point is not that this approach dispels all of
the tragedy of international affairs. Rather, my point
is that such an approach provides a base from which
we can understand the tragedy, and from which the
morally sensitive statesman can judge the extent of
his inevitable guilt.

The second count on which I would defend my
position on power politics can be more briefly put.
I would claim that only power politics informed by
conscience provides us with an approach to inter-
national relations which maximizes the use we can
make of such elements of social control as exist in
international society, namely the reason and moral
insight of statesmen. To discredit the need for ra-
tional power calculations and for a conscientious
recognition of the vital interests of all parties con-
cerned in a headlong effort to save the world with
grandiose schemes for world law, world government,
world public opinion, or a codification of the moral
law, is to ignore the problem and comfort ourselves
with our own good thoughts.

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5

nuclear weapons

RIGHT AND WRONG CALCULATION

Paul Ramsey

“Calculation is the life blood of politics,” writes
Ernest W. Lefever, “and the heart of ethics” (“The
Ethics of Calculation,” Worldview, October, italics
added). This statement should be subjected to
thorough scrutiny, and searchingly criticized.

Indeed, calculation is the heart of ethics as Mr.
Lefever understands it. For this reason, there is for
him no particular difficulty about making ethico-

litical judgements; and there is little to disturb or
limit the “moral-political calculations” of which he
speaks, since the heart of morality was already as-
sumed to be calculative. Research the facts and
weigh them tg wale this is about all that is needed
in politics; and, happily, also about all it is the busi-
ness of ethics to do.

Of course, uniquely ethical terms are used at
decisive points in this analysis; and they have to
be understood and not dismissed for not playing an
effective role. What is meant by the statement that
“principles, goals and values are inescapably involved
in all political decisions”? It seems clear in the
context of the whole article that the words “prin-
ciples” and “values” the same function and
have the same place in relation to political decision
and action as the word “goals.” Mr. Lefever writes
that “no statesman can make policy from principles
alone”; and this sentence is followed immediately
by: “He must relate goals and ideals to the political
facts of life.” It is not wrong to regard the second
sentence as bearing a relation of “Hebrew paral-
lelism” to the first; and to conclude that the word
“principles” means the same as the words “goals”
and “ideals.”

We may reach the same conclusion from consider-
ing Mr. Lefever’s assertion about George Kennan’s
“disengagement” proposals: “They emerged from a
rational attempt to relate facts to values, which cer-
tainly included a calculation of the probable con-
sequences of competing policies.” Here, it may be
allowed, not all “consequences” are “values”; but still
values are always only among the consequences, and
there is no value (or moral “principle”) that is not
among the consequences and therefore correctly
related to action through calculation. A “principle”
operates in this analysis of politics in the same way
as a “value”; and a “value” means a “goal” or “ideal”
—perhaps even a “dream.”

Mr. Ramsey is Chairman of the Department of
Religion in Princeton University.

This means that, in Mr. Lefever’s opinion, ethics
is wholly future-facing; and therefore, since nh i
calculation is future-facing, ethics and political cal-
culation go nicely together, and in fact calculation
is the heart of ethics. Far from this being the case,
we must affirm to the contrary that a wholly tele-
ological view of ethics amounts to the suspension of
ethics. This is the case whether our goals are spiritual
or material, whether the ideals or values we seek are
believed to be on earth or in heaven. If no more can
be said about the morality of action than can be
derived backward from the future goal, thus un-
rolling toward the present the path that we shall
have to tread by deeds determined by calculating
their utility, ethics has already more half-way
vanished, i.e., it has become calculation of the means
to projected ends.

Of course, these ends, goals, values toward which
“moral-political calculation” is directed may them-
selves be high and mighty important ones, and it
does make a great deal of difference what are the
goals or values a society seeks. Still, this is to sa

at there is nothing that should not be done whi
a future-facing calculation seems to require; and no
action which can be calculated to produce the de-
scribed result which should not therefore be defined
as good. Such a view has to be rejected as the sus-
pension of a great part of ethics, without in any
sense minimizing the significance of calculation for
both ethics and politics.

Protestant Christian ethics today comes from a
long line of prudent people. The pacifism which be-
tween the world wars spread widely in the non-
peace churches, the non-pacifism which bee.
overcame this as World War II approached and
which continues today, the increasing pragmatism
of the Niebuhrians, the rejection of natural law and
“middle axioms” in favor of contextualism and the
study of “decision eae —all this has been largely
a matter of determining the “lesser evil” or perchance
the “greater good,” and, by a calculation of the
facts, finding the path along which action should be
directed in order to defend or secure some sort of
values at the end of the road toward which action
reaches, yet never reaches. This is an ethic well
calculated to reduce every present reality—people
and principles no less than facts—altogether to what
they may do to bring in the future. Against this,
it should be affirmed that “prudence” has rightly
to be understood to be in the service of some prior
principle, whether in application of natural law
principles or (if, as I believe, these alone are in-
adequate) in application of divine charity.

No one can read the so-called Dun report of the
Federal Council of Churches (“The Christian Con-
science and Weapons of Mass Destruction”, Decem-

les
Ke
nu
ha
sta
ab
ga

ax

ber, 1950) without fee the moral confusion
beneath its weak rejection of “total” war. The “sense”
in which total war was repudiated was there defined
as “war in which all moral restraints are thrown
aside and all the of the community are
fully controlled by sheer military expedience”; and
this clearly meant, in the main, wanton killing or a
savagery that kills without reckoning: “We cannot,
therefore, be released from the responsibility for
doing no more hurt than must be.” In other words,
the main consideration effective in this report was the
sigue balancing of effects, of greater against
evils.

“ When prudence stands so nearly alone, and only
in the context of a teleological ethic, it is not surpris-
ing that for long stretches of the way, with the
exception of a few unassimilated sentences about
the moral immunity of non-combatants, this
sounds rather like a statement of standards for the
Housing, Care and Surgical Handling of Laboratory
Animals. After all, in the latter case no one coun-
tenances wanton cruelty, and the teleologically sus-
pended ethics of the code of the S.P.C.A. is quite
capable of ruling that it is “immoral” to use methods
that cause laboratory rats more pain and maiming
without commensurate medical or scientific decisive-
ness. This outlook has not yet come upon any crucial
moral considerations.

Robert L. Calhoun, therefore, was quite correct
when in his minority statement he wrote concernin: ng
the majority opinion: “The norm of practically ef-
fective inhibitions turns out to be, after all, military
decisiveness; but beyond ruling out wanton destruc-
Christian Ms time seems

ve chiefly the effect ( inly important but
scarcely decisive ) of making Christians do reluctantly
what military necessity requires.” Not only a pacifist
like Calhoun should be able to say this, but anyone
from whose conscience the principles of the just war
doctrine have not been completely eroded, as against
mere future-facing calculation of consequences. The
morality of means referred to in the “justified” war
theory meant more than the inert weapon as such; it
meant the conduct of war as such, the action as a
whole and its nature, which had a morality or an
immorality not wholly swallowed up in consequences
or in motive to ends believed to justify any action
that may be thought to have military decisiveness.

Mr. Lefever’s reduction of ethics to calculation
leaves him unable properly to understand George
Kennan’s recent pronouncements on nuclear tests and
nuclear weapons, and incapable of pointing out what
has been correct and what mistaken in Kennan’s
statements. He cites, for example, the latter’s remark
about the danger from nuclear fallout: “Whoever
gave us the right, as Christians, to take even one

innocent life?” This, Mr. Lefever says, illustrates
“Mr. Kennan’s nonchalant attitude toward facts and
calculation in the area of nuclear weapons.” Actual-
ly, this shows the one grave mistake Kennan has
made in the use of ethical principles; and this needs
to be corrected before Mr. Lefever or anyone else
launches upon a calculation of the facts which

K i to have r chalan
pie is supposed refused, non tly

The basic error in theoretical analysis is that in
what he says about the future innocents who may
die as a result of present tests, Mr. Kennan treats
the probable effect of our present actions as if it
were a means at present employed to obtain the
ends we desire. The time-sequence of the acts put
forth by men or nations cannot be reversed in fis
way. action thrusts toward the future, and
or most actions have double or multiple effects or
consequences in the future; and this raises questions
of a different order from the ethics of the means or
the nature of the present action as such.

Granted that the death of one child from man-
made leukemia will be evil in itself, there is a
significant distinction still to be made between
whether this is an effect among many other good
and evil effects that will result from our present
course of action, or whether it is a means which,
intentionally and in and of itself, objectively as well
as subjectively, is ordered to the ro OE of some
choice-worthy goal.

While the end may never justify the means, one
effect justifies another effect, in the sense that an evil,
unavoidable effect may be produced if that is the
only way, by action not wrong in itself, to secure
some very good result. Now we come, and only at
this point, do we come, to the proper work of cal-
culation, in the comparison of effects, weighing their
gravity, estimating the sufficiency of the reasons for
them, and balancing greater against lesser goods or
lesser evils.

To no one Mr. Lefever will it seem that
Kennan’s “implied judgment that all bomb tests under
all circumstances are mo wrong seems to be
based in part upon a picture of fallout danger that
bears little resemblance to the findings of leading
research institutions in this country and abroad.
How can it seriously be ested that Kennan cal-
culated, or miscalculated, his way to the absolute
judgment about not taking one innocent life? If this
was mistaken as applied to nuclear tests, it was a
mistake in principle, in not distinguishing between
taking human life as a means, and unavoidably
taking human life as one of the indirect effects of
action, to some good end.

Presumably there will be a degree of genetic
the cases of leukemia, to result from joint under-

ground nuclear explosions, recently proposed by Mr.
7

Selwyn Lloyd, since a “negligible” amount of radia-
tion will leak out Genaghe cracks in the mountain,
but a possible result may also be a greater likelihood
of agreement on banning future tests because the
nations may learn how oe ae the instruments
for detecting them. Mr. Lefever should say to Mr.
Kennan: this good and that evil have to be calculated
and weighed the one against the other; and your
refusal to pay proper attention to the facts results
from your failure to see that a possibly evil effect
that may follow along with good effects from any
action is not to be understood as an immoral means
causally conducive to one of these other effects as
an end.

Then only will the ground in morality be made
secure beneath Mr. Lefever’s own contentions: (1)
“Genetic damage resulting from tests or general war
or both, like the number of automobile deaths in the
United States, is well within the range of what a
civilized society is prepared to tolerate.” (2) “A
policy designed to save ten thousand persons from
possible future death by radioactivity which had
the actual effect of inviting the death of ten million
persons today could hardly be called morally re-
sponsible or politically wise.”

No one should wince at these statements, provided
it is clear that a society engaging in these calcula-
tions as to the indirect effects of action would already
have become uncivilized if it engages at all in a
like calculation at another point, ie., if it might
under certain circumstances be persuaded that the
life of one or the lives of ten or ten thousand may
be directly repressed simply as a means that good
may come of it.

But Mr. Lefever jumps altogether over the mo-
rality of action when at another point he becomes
absorbed in calculations—calculation which is always
only a subordinate part of moral judgment and to
be entered upon logically only after the ethical guide-
lines of action have been fixed. “According to the
best projections available,” he writes, “the maximum
beard re loss of life from a general nuclear war
involving the full present capacities of the Soviet
Union and the United States would be about twenty
percent of the earth’s population. The number killed
might well be considerably less. There would be
practically no casualties of any kind south of the
equator . . . If calculations of those in the best posi-
tion to know are reasonably accurate, the worst
nuclear war possible now would leave eighty per-
cent of the earth’s population alive and healthy.”

It is not that this calculation in the case of nuclear
war, like David, has already killed its ten thousands,
while calculation in the case of nuclear testing, like
Saul, has already killed only its thousands. At its
heart, ethics counts not in quantities and, as Kant

said, you cannot do morality a greater disservice
than by deriving it from ience. It is rather
that the death and devastation contemplated in the
case of all-out nuclear war would be both direct
willed and directly done as a means, while the dea
brought about by nuclear testing as such is only
indirectly willed and indirectly done as one among
several effects of the tests.

The first is murder, the second tragic. In the one
case, death to the innocent is the instrument used
for defense or victory; in the other case, death to
the innocent is a foreknown side-effect of action
done in such a way as may be judged to be good,
or at least neutral, in itself, and to be necessary to
obtain great good results. The latter calculation
concerning nuclear tests may be wrong; but in the
former case it would be wrong to calculate and count
on the good or less evil consequences that may come
from a wrong done (acts of all-out nuclear war).

The recent utterances of George Kennan have all
been, not calls to abandon calculation, but to abandon
calculation in the wrong place, in the place of
fundamental moral principle. He has tried to recall
us to the only doctrine of civilized warfare the West
has known, to a reexamination as a “straight issue
of conscience” of the degree of acceptance of in-
discriminate bombing by nuclear weapons that is
present in our nuclear deterrence policy, and to call
us back from our apparent willingness to rest our
security (as he said recently to the Women’s Demo-
cratic Club in Washington, D.C.) on weapons de-
i to “destroy innocent noncombatant human

ife, including the lives of children, on a vast scale,”

back from “an infinitely costly and hopeless exercise
in reciprocal menace” by means which it would be
vastly immoral ever to use.

There can be no greater evil, I take Kennan to be
saying, than the act of using unlimited weapons all-
out; and the one thing worse than to suffer such
an evil would be to do it. Sophistry has always
opposed a Gorgias who declares this to be the case.
Kennan is quite right, no calculation taught him
this, nor should calculation be allowed to deprive
him or us of a forever valid moral judgment.

It is interesting that at one point Mr. Lefever
speaks of the lack of statesmanlike utility to be
found in “Mr. Kennan’s manners and principles.”
It is very true that the latter’s principles, like his
“sheer good manners,” would be falsified and dis-
pelled if either were sought to be leveled to the one
dimension of their future-facing consequences. Good
manners like good morals are never qualities wholly
teleologically oriented or derived; and while calcula-
tion is of servite to both, it cannot be the heart of
either. Manners and morals have, in different ways,
to do with the definition of right conduct and not

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only with the ends of action; with the how and not
only with what we do or the whither of our deeds.
Mr. Kennan has not confused manners with
morals or manners with policy, as Mr. Lefever as-
serts, unless the substance of policy and of morals
is supposed to embrace only “moral-political calcula-
tion” and to be exhausted in their teleological refer-
ence to the goals of action. It is altogether praise-
worthy that Kennan has emphasized that the prin-
ciples of political conduct, or the conduct of politics,
overn action as such in more ways than is required
2 a calculative utility. It is good also that Kennan,
experienced as he is the practice of diplomacy, as-
sures amateurs who are apt to believe such prin-
ciples to be reeds shaken by every wind that blows
from over our future goals, and apt also, as outsiders
to affairs of state, to believe realistic calculation af-
fords a greater surety and a clearer direction, that
a statesman’s “farsightedness and powers of calcula-
tion” alone may often not be worth relying on. He
calls us neither to policies guided only by principles

without calculation (as do some neo-pacifists) nor

(as do many of his critics) to policies guided only
Aa calculation and doubtfully controlled by
“ideals.”

In this sense, Mr. Lefever, not Mr. Kennan, is the
“idealist” in politics. The idealist is one who goes
on his way and finds his way under the lure of such
goals as the greatest good of the greatest number,
etc. A realist is one who knows that there are many
ways that reasonably may be supposed to lead
there, ranging all the way from the noblest to the
most wicked political decisions and actions; and he
reminds the calculative idealist that in politics he
had better know more than this about right and
wrong conduct.

We shall have to know more than this if mankind
in the state of modern civilization is going to make
it around the next turn. Those who say that it may
not be possible for us to limit warfare are almost
certainly correct. Surely war will never be kept a
just endurable human enterprise if it is sought to

kept limited only “by political objectives, and

therefore limited in terms of the weapons employed,”
and if fear alone is invoked to restrain the means.
Limited ends do tend to moderate the means ven-
tured and caused to be mounted in return, and the
cost paid and exacted in warfare.

But not only the military force made possible by
modern technology works against our being able to
achieve the control of warfare by aiming at modest
ends, but also the endless restless aspiration of the
human spirit, which displays its want of heaven
even in the towering attempts at grandeur and wick-
edness with which history is replete. Moreover, ends
and means int etrate; and this can be as well
read in the other direction: limited (or unlimited)
means or weapons are available and resolved to be
used, and therefore limited (or unlimited) political
objectives may be thought to be proper goals in
war. Calculative morality and politics cannot dis-
pene with exhortations to people to adopt only
imited goals, and therefore it must rely upon a
revival of this aspect of the moral tradition of
civilized warfare.

At the same time there is need for a re-creation,
in both thought and feeling, of the moral tradition
of civilized warfare as to the right conduct of war
and the moral limitation to be placed upon means.
Surely, the immunity of noncombatants from in-
discriminate, direct attack may come again to gov-
ern the consciences of men as readily or with as
great improbability as they will set limits to the
political objectives they pursue. nee

It would ill behoove churchmen, in this land
that so dramatically overstepped this moral limit,
not to follow the lead Mr. Kennan has given. For,
rightly understood, his is not a rejection of calcula-
tion in its proper place, nor a neo-pacifism based
on a new religious absolutism inserted into politics
where it is alien, but a reconstruction of the ancient
theory of “justified” warfare, which always supposed
that war for the wrong ends and war conducted
contrary to the natural (rational) law of war as a
just barely human enterprise (however immoral
means may be calculated to be required by political
objectives) was not so to be engaged in by either
just or good Christian men.

outstanding pamphlets in The Church

Peace Union’s publications series.
Quantity rates available upon request.

(1 MORALITY AND MODERN WAR
by John Courtney Murray, S.J.
23 pages 25 cents

(] ETHICS AND NATIONAL PURPOSE
by Kenneth W. Thompson
26 pages 25 cents

RELIGION AND INTERNATIONAL
RESPONSIBILITY

by Robert Gordis
21 pages 25 cents

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On Rendering to Caesar and to God

How to Serve God in a Marxist
Land by Karl Barth and Johannes
Hamel. Association Press. 126 pp.
$2.50.

Communism and the Theologi-
ans: Study of an Encounter
by Charles C. West. Westminster
Press. 399 pp. $6.00

by Roger L. Shinn

Recently, Western religion has
sometimes labored conscientiously
for peace; it has also led to im-
placable opposition to Soviet pow-
er. Occasionally, it has seemed
that the most religious people
were the least willing to see any
— in negotiation or in peace-
resolution of difficulties.

In this lexing situation two
books throw new light upon the
Christian understanding of Com-
munism in a variety of situations.
Both, at the very least, confront
American Christians with views
radically different from the con-
ventional ones in our own society.

A well-publicized letter of Karl
Barth, written in August, 1958,
to answer some questions from
an East German pastor, gives the
occasion for the first book. Ameri-
can readers, finding a few of
Barth’s more sensational state-
ments in the press, wondered
whether he was drawing closer to
Communism. Now that the entire
letter is available in English,
Barth's thought appears to be
about the same as in many oc-
casional utterances since the sec-
ond World War.

Barth can be annoying enough.
He dismisses a challenge as dis-
honest without answering it or
looking for its meaning. He gives
advice on a loyalty oath which he
has never read. He comments
caustically about subjects on
which he has not bothered to get
information. And he treats glibly
Christians who try to live faith-

Mr. Shinn is a member of the
faculty of the Union Theological

Seminary in New York City.
10

fully with painful responsibilities

which Barth and the Eastern
astors, quite properly, do not
ve.

Yet, when that is said, it re-
mains true that European pastors
have responsibilities which we
may fail to appreciate. For Amer-
ican churchmen to neglect their
opportunity to influence foreign
policy would be a shameful re-
treat. East German Christians do
not have that responsibility; for
them to concentrate on it would
be irrelevant daydreaming. They
do have a dangerous ministry,
which some of them exercise
courageously in the midst of
frustrations that would destroy
any conventional faith.

When Barth tells them the

' Biblical message about faith in

times of ecution, he writes
meaningfully for any Christian.
He speaks profoundly about the
Christian’s relation to atheists:
“You must meet their unbelief
with a joyous unbelief in their
attempted atheism. You as Chris-
tians must confidently claim that
your atheists belong to God as
much as you do.”

Actually, Barth, despite many
sentences which imply the con-
trary, says plainly that he dis-
approves Soviet practices “just as
much” as he disapproves “the pow-
ers and dominions that rule over
us here in the West.” Elsewhere
he has expressed a Christian pref-
erence for “civil communities of
free peoples.” But he is reluctant
to say so now, lest he feed the
fires of anti-Communism. The
West, he thinks, is too likely to
succumb to insidious temptations
just because it sees Communism
as the main threat. On that point
Barth is unquestionably right. He
might be surprised to know that
American preaching frequently
says the same thing.

In the same volume with Barth’s
letter is an essay, “The Proclama-
tion of the Gospel in the Marxist

World,” by Johannes Hamel, a
pastor in East Germany. Writing
in terms of a Barthian theology,
he speaks out of vivid and dan-

erous experience. He answers

efeatism and despair by show-
ing that the rer which trusts
in Christ’s victory can always un-
dertake its mission in confidence.
He sees in Communism (as Isaiah
saw in the ians) the “rod
of God’s anger” against the in-
justices of Western society; he
acknowledges a validity of Com-
munist government; and he looks
for every opportunity to proclaim
the Gospel and exercise its heal-
ing ministry. An American, who
might disagree at points, is more
likely to be silenced by admira-
tion for Christian courage.

When Hamel extends his im-
mediate testimony into broader
theories of history and politics,
he is on shakier ground. He comes
dangerously close to the notion
of the “wave of the future,” which
accepts any powerful historical
movement as somehow God's
work, which should not be op-
posed or reshaped. This is not to
question Hamel’s vocation of
ministering within the Communist
regime; it is only to assert that
other Christians—perhaps Bishop
Dibelius or Chancellor Adenauer
—can find their vocations in per-
sistent Scriptural themes which
Hamel does not use.

Charles West’s massive study
of Communism and the Theolo-
gians raises similar issues in vastly
different style and scope. Instead
of the occasional writings by
Barth and Hamel, he produces a
thorough scholarly analysis of re-
lations between Communism and
Christianity, both in the lives of
people and in the writings of
eminent Christian thinkers.

West raises questions for any
Christian response to Communism
—questions which are likely to

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SRAESSYV SREB ALA?

be humbling to us in the West,
who usually face Communism
only in terms of a power struggle.
Does Christian t answer
adequately the Marxist challenge
that it is the ideology of the com-
fortable? Does Christianity show
appreciation for the revolutionary
ferment of our time, and can it
compare with Marxism in
urgency and direction to A gy
social change? Does the Christian
know how to use power, and how
to use powerlessness and suffer-
ing in today’s world? How does
the Christian exercise his ministry
to the Communist as a person?

West (unlike some of the theo-
logians he studies) is convinced
that resistance to Communism’s
tyrannical power is necessary.
But resistance is an incomplete
answer. For we live in a revolu-
tionary age. Communism is an oc-
casion for Christian repentance
and a prod to Christian revolu-
tionary activity.

In examining the many types of
Christian confrontation with Com-
munism, West deliberately omits
the obsolete attempts of a left-
wing Social Gospel to bring Chris-
tianity and Communism together.
He concentrates on thoroughly
contemporary materials. Here he
discerns, first, those Christians
who identify Communism simply
as the enemy. The chief of these
is Emil Brunner, but West also
mentions John Foster Dulles,
Charles Lowry, and Whittaker
Chambers. At the opposite end
of the spectrum are those who,
without confusing Communism
with the Christian revelation,
nevertheless see in Communism
the nemesis of an out-moded
civilization and the creator of a
new society in which the Church
must live. Among these West in-

cludes Josef Hromadka and Bish-

op Berecsky.

In both these extreme views
West generously acknowledges
elements of truth. But his verdict
is a smashing rejection.

In another position, which rec-
ognizes the Western failures that

prompt the Communist protest,
yet sees all the evils in Commu-
nism, West finds wisdom and
realism. Within this area he looks
at Tillich and Berdyaev, whom he
appreciates but refutes. Then he
concentrates on Reinhold Niebuhr
and Karl Barth. Toward these
men he shows great admiration
and affection, yet launches search-
ing criticisms.

In Niebuhr, West finds “the
sharpest analyst of world Com-
munist power and of Christian
responsibility in the face of it.”
Niebuhr above all others brings
together “the way of love revealed
in Christ” and “the problems of
responsible social action.” But,
tracing Niebuhr’s shift from early
social radicalism to increasing
pragmatism and _ conservatism,
West sees the danger of ideologi-
cal thinking. For Niebuhr, rely-
ing more and more on the im-
portance of a heritage of Ameri-
can values, sees Communism as
a threat to a good social order,
and misses its powerful appeal to
those in the midst of social chaos.

From West's description one
might never guess that Niebuhr’s
writings have asked, in all seri-
ousness, whether East Germany
provides a more favorable en-
vironment for Christianity than
America. Nor would one realize
that Niebuhr has written penetrat-
ing comments on the problems,
both international and domestic,
of our economy of abundance.
But all of us who enjoy Ameri-
can security and prosperity must
admit vulnerability to West's
charge that we too easily acqui-
esce in our present way of life.

In Karl Barth, West finds the

hal contempo: theology
which best Christian
faith and most powerfully con-

fronts Communism.
Yet he finds Barth poorly in-
formed about Communism Pong
ilty of “ineptitude” in politics.
od Barth's
judgments about Communism are
ca y mistaken. In this area West

wishes that Barth might: learn

from Niebuhr. West himself turns
to Helmut Gollwitzer and Dietrich
Bonhoeffer to improve upon
Barth.

This discussion of Barth’s theo-

logy has some logical flaws. West

works laboriously but futiley to
show that this theology has a
built-in guarantee against ideolo-
gical bias, because it derives so
exclusively from Jesus Christ. But
theology works from some human
conception of Christ, which may
be tragically ideological. It is at
least possible that Barth’s rather
easy assumption of the victory
= Christ on evil is the ground

r an ideology of irresponsibility,
quite a Swiss thinkee
who need not participate in the
major —— struggles of our
time. Although West shows the
powerful nature of ideology, he
does not quite see its full danger
to all of us.

Another difficulty comes in
West's abstraction of theology
from human decisions. He con-
stantly talks about Barth’s ey
theology which is badly “applied”
to the world of political affairs.
This notion of theology as some-
thing to be fully developed, then
applied, is a curious one. One
might ask whether theology does
not spring out of the address of
the living Word of God to actual
situations, in such a way that the
so-called application is scarcely
necessary because it has entered
into the very meaning of —e

Finally, West, prompted by
love for both Barth and Niebuhr,
wants to show that the two are
closer together than most people
think. But his attempt has con-
vinced one reader that they are
farther apart than West or most
people think.

These criticisms refer to the

abstract parts of West's

arguments. When he deals with
the concrete confrontation of
Christianity and Communism, he
has brilliant perceptiveness and
powerful insight. Any American
can learn a great deal from this

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and
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to

current reading

Soviet Policy Toward the Baltic States, 1918-1940

by Albert N. Tarulis. University of Notre Dame Press. 276 pp.
$5.50.

The lost countries of the Baltic—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—
are a frequently neglected chapter in the history of Soviet im-
perialism. Dr. Tarulis, a native of Lithuania who witnessed the
Russian occupation, now tells the story in a thoroughly documented

version which dates the beginnings of annexation back to "the
Bolshevik duplicity" of 1918.

Triumph in the West
by Arthur Bryant. Doubleday. 438 pp. $6.95.

The second and concluding volume to be based on the personal
diaries of Field-Marshall Lord Alanbrooke covers the crucial
months between 1943 and 1946 and provides a provocative in-
sight into first-level strategy decisions and the men who made
them.

The Riddie of Roman Catholicism
by Jaroslav Pelikan. Abingdon. 272 pp. $4.00.

Written mainly for Protestants by a Protestant, this study displays
an intimate knowledge of the Catholic Church's history, structure
and doctrines, and can be read with profit by persons of all
faiths who seek an understanding of “the most formidable religi-
ous institution in the history of America and the world."

Controls for Outer Space

by Philip C. Jessup and Howard J. Taubenfeld. Columbia Univer-
sity Press. 379 pp. $6.00.

Citing as precedents the various types of experimental interna-
tional cooperation that have been developed in the past either
by sovereign states or under the aegis of the League of Nations
or the UN, the authors advance a series of proposals for similar
international administration of Antarctica and the province of
outer space.

Issues and Conflicts

Edited by George L. Anderson. University of Kansas Press.
374 pp. $5.00.

In a collection of essays, a number of American scholars and
historians examine the effects of twentieth century American
diplomacy on China, the Middle East, Asian nationalism, im-
migrant groups, Latin America and Germany.

Too Many Asians

by John Robbins. Doubleday. 214 pp. $3.95.

Malthus’ prophecy is bearing bitter fruit today in Asia, where
unprecedented growth in population now threatens the lives
and welfare of over half the world's inhabitants and raises grave
and immediate problems for the relatively secure West. This.
report provides an analysis of the population explosion, with
particular emphasis on China, India and Japan.

worldview

A JOURNAL OF RELIGION AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
volume 2, n0o.12 / December 1959

WORLDVIEW is published monthly by The Church Peace Union.
Subscription: $2.00 per year.
Address: 170 East 64th Street, New York 21, N. Y.

EDITORIAL BOARD
William Clancy, Editor

4. William Loos William J. Cook

John R. Inman

Editorial Assistant, Arlene Croce

CONTENTS
Editorial made
In the Magazines...
The Power to Negotiate.
E. Raymond Platig
Right and Wrong Calculation............
Paul Ramsey
BOOKS
God and Caesar by Roger L. Shinn.........-.
Opinions expressed in WORLDVIEW are and

met necessarily of The Church

Worldview
170 East 64th Street
New York 21, N. Y.

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