The Sunday Star (September 8, 1946)
Brown: New ‘Pearl Harbor’ held more likely to be internal
Danger of organized fifth column crippling war production declared greater than threat of external attack
By Constantine Brown
A group of Congressmen visiting our Pacific defenses has issued a warning to the United States about the possibility of another Pearl Harbor.
In responsible military quarters in Europe, intelligence officers are on the alert for a possible “strike” message to the Red armies massed in fighting formation from Stettin to the Mediterranean in the same secret manner as the “winds message” which was Tokyo’s signal for the attack on Pearl Harbor.
However, those whose job it is to follow the Russian trends believe that Moscow is counting today principally on the “fifth column” in the United States to neutralize America, whose war potential she knows is still great.
There is a parallel and a difference between the situation in 1941 and in 1946. The parallel is that while the military in the United States expected a Japanese aggression, we continued to remain disarmed.
The difference is that the American government had considered Japan as a potential enemy since the end of the World War when, on orders from President Wilson, we prevented the Tokyo war mongers from annexing Siberia and parts of China, including Shantung. Today, in spite of its toughening-up attitude toward Moscow’s demands, the United States still cannot believe that the USSR, a country helped in every conceivable manner militarily and politically, would repay our assistance by unleashing another war, with this nation as one of the immediate targets.
Reds could score at start
Ethical considerations are the basis for the hope of American diplomats and politicians that Russia will not behave in the same manner as the Japanese. Hard boiled and realistic Air, Army and Navy men still have some hopes for peace because they cannot imagine that Stalin and those who assist him can be so blind as not to realize that the inevitable ultimate defeat of the USSR could bring, about the collapse of their regime.
There is no question that at this time the Red Army is far better prepared than the combined forces of the western democracies. It is fully mobilized and has for the time being an overwhelming superiority over the Allied forces in Europe and in Asia. Although the Red armies do not possess the motorized equipment which the western forces considered essential for victory against the Axis, their strength is such that within a few weeks they could roll back the feeble American, British and French troops policing the area west of the Elbe and the Morgan Line.
The Russians could hike it to the Channel within a short time after receiving the go-ahead signal from the Kremlin. They could roll Gen. John R. Hodges’ troops in Korea into the sea in a few days and could rout Chiang Kai-shek’s forces and the Marines stationed in China soon after an offensive was ordered.
But initial successes are of little consequence. From September 1939 to November 1943, the Nazis were the unchallenged masters of Europe; yet they were defeated in the end.
Underground groups strong
Russia’s initial victories – should Stalin be blinded by his diplomatic successes and decide on a “holy war against the western democracies” – would be only temporary in the opinion of the best military minds in the United States.
Russia has managed, by its police state policies, to earn the enmity of all the nations in which she has placed satellite governments. There is an underground which many reliable observers consider more virulent and organized than that which existed during the Nazi regime in Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. In all these countries, where the Russians were received two years ago as liberators, there is a feeling of despair among the natives.
Men and women have taken to the mountains and the marshes and have organized themselves into bands called Chetniks, Hajducks, Comitadjis and many other names recalling the resistance movements of the old days. All these people have been under the yoke of the Turks, the Germans, the Austrians and the Russians for several centuries.
Although the methods of oppression of the USSR are far more effective than those of the sultans, the czars or the emperors of the last centuries, the people in Eastern Europe and the Balkans are attempting to cope with the new regimes as best they can. For the time being they are opposing their masters by a passive resistance. But should the Soviet armies become engaged in another real war, there is no question that millions of men and women would become active and harass the Red Army’s lines of communication. At the present they are poorly armed with only a few machine guns and rifles and a small amount of home-made ammunition.
In the event of a Russian aggression against the western world, they could be provided with the most up-to-date equipment, just as the Maquis and other “domestic secret armies” were equipped in the days when the Germans were conquerors.
The United States and Great Britain would require at least nine months before they could reorganize their demobilized forces, and particularly the aviation, which in the event of a conflict with the USSR would play the most important role. But from that time on Russia’s chances of winning the struggle would become slimmer and slimmer.
Those American officials who are studying the Russian strategy at close quarters believe that the Moscow war-planners are relying on the ability of Communist-controlled union leaders to paralyze the American war effort. They are said to believe that in the event of an attempt of the United States to reply to force by force, the transport and communications unions would declare a strike which would block all military efforts of this country for a long time.
Politburo is misled
The true fact that the American people don’t want to hear any more about the war and have shown a greater eagerness than any of the other war-weary countries to dismantle the nation’s military strength is being exaggerated, according to available reports in Moscow. The Politburo listens with eagerness to the thousands of reports received from the intelligence services in the United States.
The employes of the Soviet intelligence are describing the situation in America as it appears to them on the surface. They transmit to headquarters reports about what the so-called “liberal press,” the “liberal” radio commentators and the “liberal” politicians are saying. They inform Moscow about the growing feeling, intensified by a good propaganda among the people of this country, that Britain once more wants us to pull her chestnuts out of the fire.
They report that the overwhelming masses of American citizens are more interested in price regulations, the coming elections for Congress and the domestic difficulties due to slow reconversion rather than in Turkey, the future of Europe and China.
They are known to nave elaborated on the vociferous demands of the American “liberal” groups to withdraw all American forces from China and eventually the Far East in order to avoid trouble. These intelligence agents tell their principals that the American people are looking for a theoretical peace and are willing to let things drift, provided the United Nations resembles, if only vaguely, the organization it was intended to be, and fundamentally nine-tenths of the Americans don’t care a rap what is happening in the outside world.
Eyes on transport unions
The agents call this “neo-isolationism” an “isolationism” in which they describe America as remaining on the world stage and providing the world with all kinds of supplies, but being reluctant to do anything drastic against a determined aggressive policy. To this “laissez faire” of the American people must be added the activities of the leaders of the “sensitive unions,” many of whom have definite ties with the USSR.
The Communist Party in the United States has been assigned a definite and important role, particularly in connection with the situation in the transport and communications systems.
A wave of strikes is reported to be in preparation for this fall. How important the sensitive unions are is evidenced from a circular of the executive committee which says: “An intensive campaign must be undertaken to propagandize soldiers to cause them to refuse to obey any orders they may receive to intervene in any of the expected strikes or disorders incident to such strikes. Particular emphasis must be laid on propaganda to cause soldiers to refuse actually to operate facilities that are strike-bound, such as transport and communications.”
The Russians are relying strongly on a fifth column in this country, which is about as well organized and efficient as the Nazi fifth column was in France in 1940.
There is little likelihood of another unexpected attack as we suffered at Pearl Harbor. The developments in the last few months should have put all our military defenses on guard.
It is highly unlikely that we will suffer another sneak attack from the outside. The Pearl Harbor may, however, come from within.