Who Wants War?: How the Soviet Union Builds for Peace

Source: Who Wants War?: How the Soviet Union Builds for Peace: an eye-witness report, Hoover HC336 C53 1951

Cover of Who wants war? how the Soviet Union builds for peace

Staff Person: Ralph Scott

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The Korean War had “stabilized” by June 1951 following MacArthur’s landings at Inchon (Operation Chromite) in September of 1950. On April 11, 1951, President Truman removed MacArthur for disagreeing with U.S. war aims. MacArthur responded with his famous statement, “In war there is no substitute for Victory.” Some Americans urged all out war with the Soviets. This pamphlet from the Hoover Collection is typical of tracts distributed by the Soviets in the United States. Subtitled “How the Soviet Union Builds for Peace,” Who Wants War was written by Joseph Clark, the Moscow corespondent of the American communist newspaper, The Daily Worker. Clark, who was a World War II veteran, reported back to America on various peacetime public works projects in the Soviet Union. The pamphlet stresses Soviet peace proposals and the fact that the “Soviet people [could] look to a bright future.” It goes on to note that the soon to be President Dwight David Eisenhower “would ‘instantly’ use the atom bomb” if it promised to give advantage,” in a full scale war with the Soviet Union. Clark asks, “Are we Americans in danger as a result of what is happening in the U.S.S.R? Are Americans, dying on battlefields 5,000 miles from their homes because of anything going on in Russia?” He concludes that ‘Soviet aggression’ is a monstrous fraud upon the American people, designed to cover up the Truman-Wall Street drive toward a new atomic war.” In July of 1953 the commanders of the American, Chinese and North Korean armies agreed to an “Armistice.” This helped President Eisenhower fulfill a 1952 campaign promise to try to find out what he could do to end the war in Korea. South Korea never agreed to the “Armistice.”

Joseph Clark, “Who Wants War?: How the Soviet Union Builds for Peace (New York: New Century Publishers, June 1951) 16pp. Special Collections Hoover Collection HC336 C53 1951.

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