In the Opening Segment, ER and Elliott Roosevelt Respond to a Listener's Question About US Relations with Communist Yugoslavia
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THE ELEANOR ROOSEVELT PROGRAM January 22nd, 1951 Description: In the opening segment, ER and Elliott Roosevelt respond to a listener's question about US relations with communist Yugoslavia. In the interview segment, ER's guest is producer and director Arch Oboler. Participants: ER, Elliott Roosevelt, Arch Oboler [ER:] What have you today? [Elliott Roosevelt:] Well, I think I have a very interesting question today which I'd like to hear you discuss. Do you think the United States should be helping countries apparently friendly to us, and yet communist? Yugoslavia, for example. Particularly when there are so many others who fought with us who need the same help? [ER:] Well um, that question and-and the evident slant is that we should not be helping Yugoslavia. I think uh, that the person who wrote it was not taking into account the situation as it faces us in Europe today. Eh you have to remember when you are deciding a policy, uh just exactly what the whole situation you face is. Now, there are many people in Europe who fought with us and many people in Europe whom we fought against, all of them need help both those who fought with us and those who fought against us. Uh we are helping those who fought against us because we feel that um it's better to have free nations in the central part of Europe. They voted not to arm Germany, eh and I, personally, think that may be a wise uh thing. And--but I think they must be free and able to stand on their own feet um otherwise they're always a prey to communist ideas. Now, in the case of Yugoslavia, we have a communist nation, a nation that did not start with communism, but uh during the war the communists were always very well organized underground, but the ones who retreated into the mountains and emerged as the defenders of independence in Yugoslavia, and they were on our side uh because [ER and Elliott Roosevelt overlap] they were fighting. [Elliott Roosevelt:] Yes, that's a point that I'd like to point up that I think it is-is a mistake in principle in this whole question, and that is that Yugoslavia fought against us. Yugoslavia and the communists in Yugoslavia fought on the same side that we did [ER: Of course they did.] during the war [ER: During the war] so did the Russians [ER: So did the Russians.] [Elliott Roosevelt laughs]. [ER:] Um, at that time we all fought together against Nazism [Elliott Roosevelt: Mhm] and fascism [Elliott Roosevelt: Mhm] against Hitler, and they were the communists. And we have to remember that it was communists in France in the underground who were the best organized and who did the most, and that's why today they still have considerable influence because in many European countries it was that small nucleus of well-trained communists that helped the other freedom-loving people, and frequently they were great friends. There were men together who had different ideas, but who became fast friends through their work in the underground together. [Elliott Roosevelt: Yes.] You had to trust each other, you had to live in the fear of death practically every minute. Now, um we find um Yugoslavia, at the end of the war, drifting away from the democracies and being with um the Soviets. [Elliott Roosevelt: Mhm]Then there comes a difference because the people of Yugoslavia are very independent and Tito finds that he is unable to put over some things in the same way that they are put over in the USSR, and we finally have a country that is communist, but has certain differences, is perhaps first nationalist. Um, though economically and ideologically eh they are communist, [Elliott Roosevelt: Mhm] and um the question arises whether it isn't vastly to our advantage to have a nation uh in that very troubled spot of the Balkans that is growing closer to the democracies, because of its love of freedom even though it is communist, and whether it is wise for us to encourage that nation on the side of freedom not on the side of the belief of communism. Um if they stick to that forever and if they believe in it, well that's because it suits them and there's nothing--we're proving there that we can live in the same world with people who do believe in communism, um but they must be free. [Elliott Roosevelt: Yeah um] They must be free people, there must be, and it's interesting it may be that it will become um the same kind of despotic regime um because it is a police state, but there seems to be at present a chance to encourage freedom, and perhaps that's the thing to do. In any case, it's the thing to do to strengthen even a communist state which is not willing to be completely subservient to the type of communism that exists in the USSR and particularly in that area of the world, where we have always had um an unrest, and where at present uh the-the question of how much will be turning to communism and how much will not um is of very burning importance. So that um I suppose you could say that one finds one's self um making allies of um people of different ideas, but that's because one has to meet each situation that arises and take the point of view that looks at the whole situation and sees on the whole what is the best thing to do. (6:45) [Elliott Roosevelt:] All right. Well now, how would you feel uh what is implied here is that we should not help--spend much money, for instance, to uh support the Germans? Uh what do you feel uh-uh [ER and Elliott Roosevelt overlap] in that case? [ER:] Well now, I-I feel, of course, that um much of the later money, the money that we've just been giving to Yugoslavia, is given because of the drought, it's given for humanitarian purposes. It will help in their military uh buildup, but um I think in any case where people starve because of um a situation that has arisen in their country on account of drought or flood or anything like that, uh your humanitarian instincts would make you want to save the children, if you could, the hardships that that means, even if you can't save the whole nation from those hardships. Older people are better able to stand them. Now, as far as Germany is concerned, I think it vital that we help the German people, who now seem to have a desire not to be built up as a military nation, to get back on their feet economically, eh to live decent and satisfied lives because in that way they will help us to combat the ideas that lie back of the type of police communist state that the Soviets are at present. (8:25) [Elliott Roosevelt:] Mhm All right. Well now, uh you just said that that you thought that the money that we were sending--the goods and supplies and so forth that we were sending to Yugoslavia of late was mostly to--uh for humanitarian purposes. [ER:] Well it's not all, but I said that to--in great part [ER and Elliott Roosevelt overlap] it was to alleviate- [Elliott Roosevelt:] Well what about--what about uh Red China where they have uh a great famine uh threatening [ER and Elliott Roosevelt overlap] the population today? [ER:] Well, at the present moment as long as Red China is actively fighting against us, I don't think we should do anything for Red China. Um it's unfortunate--because I hate to see um this country not aid when there is a-a real um uh catastrophe which affects the people of a country, but as long as they are actual aggressors I don't think we can, but the minute aggression stops I think we should. (9:26) [Elliott Roosevelt:] Well, what would you do with regards to the Soviet Union if they had uh a drought there and uh the population was in dire straits? [ER:] I would help the population without any question because we are not at war with the Soviet Union at present, except in a surreptitious way which is their way of going to war. But, that is the Kremlin's work and not the people, and if there was a catastrophe which threatened the people, I would feel that we would gain by showing them um how democracy feels about the individual and the individual's rights. (10:08) [Elliott Roosevelt:] Well, of course, I feel that if we gave help to the Soviet Union or we gave it to Red China uh when there was no actual aggression going on that those governments would just take those supplies and use them for their own propaganda purposes. [ER:] That might well be and there might be a way eh of um changing the propaganda, um of-of making it a condition, I mean of sending in certain people and-and being able to do things. I remember very well that when we uh sent things at another time to Byelorussia, one of our people who was distributing them said that "nobody could change the knowledge of the people, that those cans of food had USA on them." [Elliott Roosevelt:] Mhm.