DBQ: U.S. Participation in NATO - Short Answer Questions

SOURCE A: Senator Tom Connally (D-Texas), Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations, in an address before the United States Senate (1949): It is obvious that the United States gains much by declaring now, in this written pact (NATO), the course of action we would follow even if the treaty did not exist. Without a treaty, we were drawn into two world wars to preserve the security of the North Atlantic community. Can anyone doubt that we would become involved in a third world conflict if it should ever come? ...From now on, no one will misread our motives or underestimate our determination to stand in defense of our freedom. By letting the world know exactly where we stand, we erect a fundamental policy that outlasts the daily fluctuations of diplomacy, and the twists and turns of psychological warfare which the Soviet Union has chosen to wage against us. This public preview of our intentions has a steadying effect upon the course of human events both at home, where our people want no more Normandy beachheads, and abroad, where men must work and live in the sinister shadow of aggression. ... The greatest obstacle that stands in the way of complete [European] recovery is the pervading and paralyzing sense of insecurity. The treaty is a powerful antidote to this poison. It will go far in dispelling the fear that has plagued Europe since the war.

SOURCE B: Walter Lippmann, political journalist, a letter to Thomas Finletter (April 18, 1949): Here there doesn't seem to be any doubt that the Senate will eventually ratify the Atlantic Pact (NATO), but on the question of money for arming Europe there is going to be a great big fight. ... If the budget has to be increased after the Pact, it will be very hard to answer the feeling that it doesn't inaugurate a still more intense phase of the race of armaments and that rather 'knocks into a cocked hat' the argument that the Pact works for security. I myself am convinced that if the Russians were intended to start an overt war, they will not start it when it is certain that they cannot win the war unless they defeat the United States. Therefore, the security of all Europe is greater than it was once the Pact has been ratified....

SOURCE C: Senator Robert A. Taft (R-Ohio)—addressing the United States Senate about the potential NATO treaty (1949): So, Mr. President, I am opposing the treaty.... This whole program in my opinion is not a peace program; it is a war program.... We are committing ourselves to a policy of war, not a policy of peace. We are building up armaments. We are undertaking to arm half the world against the other half. We are inevitably starting an armament race. The more the pact signatories arm, the more the Russians are going to arm. It is said they are armed too much already. Perhaps that is true. But that makes no difference. The more we arm, the more they will arm, and the more they will devote their whole attention to the building up of arms. The general history of armament races in the world is that they have led to war, not to peace.