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Show retired. He had tours of duty in the Far East from 1923 to 1935, was Deputy Chief of the Southeast Asia Command in 1943 and Commanding General of the U. S. Forces in China from 1944 to 1946. Gen. Wedemeyer believes that the best way to avoid war with China is by taking a firm stand, and being prepared to back it up with whatever it takes. Any signs of weakness or indecision, inde-cision, he thinks, would be an invitation to invade Formosa. "Probably," he writes, "the truth is that the Red Chinese leaders, who are shrewd men, genuinely believe that America is a paper tiger which can be bluffed into compromise or retreat. "Are they wrong? What does it look. like, as we read the papers and listen to the pronouncements of politicians ? It looks as though unreadiness and lack of knowledge and a natural desire de-sire for peace could ruin a too-long delayed strong policy." Few Americans, Gen. Wedemeyer thinks, have more than a vague idea of what is going on in that "vast and terrible experiment experi-ment which is Communism in China." Reliable information reveals that 97 per cent of all Chinese farming families have lost their land and stock and are now paid simply as laborers. They have been made into a new class of serfs. "They are the slaves of an all-powerful, totalitarian, ruthless ruth-less state. The people of China have not accepted this brutal regime, but like the people of Hungary, Poland and East Germany Ger-many are in continued revulsion against it. "The great question that faces our country and the world is: What shall be our attitude toward this appalling tyranny, Communism? Com-munism? At stake is our courage, fortitude and fitness to lead the forces of freedom. "At stake also is our own freedom and possibly our survival. sur-vival. In the balance is decency in all human relationships." GOP Foreign Policy Mess Although things at the moment seem to be good by comparison com-parison with a few months ago, American foreign policy under the Eisenhower administration still is in trouble. Sen. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, just back from a visit with top Russian officials, noted in a recent speech in Congress-made Congress-made before his historic trip to the Kremlin that "Our position of world leadership has been weakened by inept and faltering direction." This is especially true in the case of the Mid East and China. Take Red China for instance: The threat of war with Communist China is believed by many military and diplomatic experts to be greater than between the U. S. and Russia. They disagree, however, on how serious the threat is in both cases. What Red China has been trying to find out by shelling Quemoy and by other war-like actions is whether the U. S. really means it when Secretary Dulles and President Eisenhower say we will defend Formosa. Some Americans think that Formosa is not worth an all-out war, Chinese leaders flnow that, but what they don't know is how many feel that way and what their influence might be over Congress Con-gress and the President. Some Far Eastern experts think China may decide to gamble by sending troops across the Formosa Strait, just as they did in Korea. The thing that may be delaying such action could be the lack of assurance that Russia would join in such a war. Few Americans who are in a position to speak out freely on China know that country as well as Gen. Albert Wedemeyer, |