Петрова О.В. Введение в теорию и практику перевода

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Armed Services Committee.

Is the Monroe Doctrine outdated? Not by a long sight. It

cannot be possibly regarded as dead. Has it been put in the hands

of an inter-American committee? Or does it have the pristine vigor

with which President James Monroe challenged the threats of

banded European powers to recapture the colonies that had

revolted against Spain? That is one of the questions posed by the

Soviet presence in Cuba.

In 1825, President Monroe told the monarchs of the Holly

Alliance “that we should consider any attempt on their part to

extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous

to our peace and safety”.

The doctrine worked – with the blessing of the British fleet.

And when Napoleon III set up Archduke Maximilian an Emperor

of Mexico during our Civil War, it worked again, this time

supported by a 50,000 army of observation moved to the Mexican

border, as soon as the war had ended.

President Cleveland vigorously invoked the Monroe

Doctrine in 1895 against Britain in a dispute over the boundaries

between British Guyana and Venezuela, and the British consented

to put all the disputed territory under arbitration.

At this time Cleveland wrote that the doctrine “cannot

become obsolete while our Republic endures”. Perhaps not – but it

did change. Still its importance has been as great as that of any

principle in America.

Originally the United States did not object, in theory, when

European Nations resorted to debt collecting by force against

defaulting Latin American states. But it did not fail to grasp the

danger of such expeditions. The Caribbean became recognized as a

particularly sensitive area, and President Theodore Roosevelt in

1904 produced a variant on the doctrine, which became known as

the Roosevelt (or Caribbean).

Flagrant cases of chronic wrongdoing or governmental

impotence, said Roosevelt, may ultimately require intervention by

some civilized nation, and in the western hemisphere the adherence

of the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however

reluctantly, to the exercise of an international police power. The

power was exercised in a number of Caribbean nations – Cuba

(where it was provided for by the treaty of 1903), Santo Domingo,

Haiti and Nicaragua among them.

The idea of the United States as international policeman

was, of course, not popular in Latin America, and President

Franklin D. Roosevelt, dedicating the nation “to the policy of the

good neighbor”, moved rapidly toward the renunciation of “armed

intervention”.

So the Americas moved by degrees toward common

measures for defense and mutual assistance. In 1939, when the war

broke out in Europe, the Act of Panama set up a neutral zone on

the seas (sometimes called the Pan-American Security Zone, but

more commonly “chastity belt”).

Measures for defense against the Axis powers were

concerted (with some feet-dragging) and the destroyers-for-bases

deal with Britain was billed as a measure for hemispheric

protection.

With the war’s end, the hemisphere moved to a treaty of

mutual defense and establishment of the Organization of American

States. These provide for consultation and joint action. There has

been rather more consultation than action.

Feeling against intervention, joint or single, is strong in

Latin America, as well as fear of the Yankee “Colossus of the

North”. Some are afraid lest it should apply the Monroe Doctrine

independent of and even opposing the Charter of the United

Nations.

Text 9

THE GREAT DEBATE

The “captains and kings”

of the Commonwealth having

departed, the tumult and the shouting about the Common Market

are more likely to flare up than to die down. This is as it should be.

The Government’s pledges about the Commonwealth and EFTA

were not given to them. They were assurances given to the British

people. Whether the pledges have been kept or not, and whether

Britain will be in a position honourably to join the Six, will be for

Parliament to decide. Even more strongly is it for the nation

through Parliament to weigh the advantages and disadvantages, the

opportunities and the hazards, of such a step. The sooner the great

national debate can get under way the better.

It has always been unreal to believe it could be postponed

until after everything had been signed in Brussels. Now that the

talks threaten to go on for a further appreciable time the

Government will be forced to campaign if a national will to enter is

to be maintained. This is not merely a matter of the merits of the

case having to be kept in mind. A government that does not appear

“The Times”, September 24, 1962

Quotation from Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem “Recessional”

(последнее песнопение) written to celebrate the 60

anniversary of the

reign of Queen Victoria:

The tumult and the shouting dies.

The Captains and the Kings depart;

Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,

And humble and a contrite heart.

to be actively fighting for a cause it believes in is apt to find that

cause losing ground whatever its merits. The same thing is true

within the Conservative party. It is by no means unanimous about

the Common Market. The opponents will not match any official

restraints. Next month’s party conference could start a hardening

process one way or the other.

Mr Gaitskell is perhaps in the most difficult position.

Exactly how his party is split on the Common Market is hotly

disputed on another page. That it is split is obvious. However

much he may lean one way or the other, Mr Gaitskell cannot afford

yet to come off his fence. He declares the economic arguments are

evenly balanced. He is ominous about the political hazards. He

summons up the glow of our historic past generally and the gloom

of today’s Commonwealth on this particular issue. The one thing

he is forthright about is that the terms Mr Heath is likely to get will

not be good enough, the implication being that a Labour

Government’s negotiator would get better ones.

There is no need to warn so able a politician as Mr Gaitskell of

the dangers he runs. If a general election gave him office he might

find himself quickly having to justify his assertions. Either he

would have to negotiate, with no certainty of making good his

terms or he would have to turn his back on Brussels and lead

Britain in some other direction.

The national debate will be healthy only if in this matter of

alternatives certain questions are frankly answered. What are the

actual possibilities of Commonwealth trade being built up to be a

satisfactory alternative? How many Commonwealth countries

would be willing to mortgage enough of their economic freedom

for a sufficient number of years ahead and advantageously enough

for Britain to make this abandonment of the will to join the Six a

fair exchange? Most important of all, how long under such an

arrangement would Britain be able to remain a satisfying enough

market for the Commonwealth? The debate on the Common

Market must never be allowed to stray far from the state of the

British nation.

Text 10

WHY FLOG A DYING WHITE ELEPHANT

A galaxy of Ministers have gathered at the wake of Nato in

Paris for the last meeting of the Nato Council there before General

de Gaulle bundles the organisation and all its works out of France.

They are the Foreign Secretary (George Brown), the Defence

Minister (Denis Healy), the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Jim

Callaghan), and the Minister for Europe (George Thomson).

De Gaulle took France out of Nato some time ago, because he

said staying in meant being run by the United States and he wasn’t

having that.

VETO

By the same token he proposes once more to veto Britain’s

entry into the Common Market, because, in the words of the

Evening Standard Paris correspondent (December 14), “he regards

Mr Wilson as President Johnson’s stooge agent and so it follows

for him that Britain must not be allowed to stage any Trojan horse

staff for the Americans inside the Market”.

Meanwhile there was a considerable row in the House on

December 12, and, according to the press, another at the

Parliamentary Labour Party’s meeting two days later.

This was a result of George Thomson’s announcement that the

Government had agreed to “make no changes in their troop and

supply dispositions in Germany” and to go on talking with the

Americans and Germans at least until next July about our share of

Nato defence costs.

Morning Star, December 17, 1966

It had further been agreed that they would continue to “act in

concert with their allies and follow the prescribed Nato and

Western European Union procedures”.

CONSENT

These require the consent of our allies to reducing our

commitments in Nato, however tough our economic situation,

instead of cutting our Nato defence costs now and by our own

decision, as the Government has so often said it would do and as

the state of our economy says we must do.

The House was treated to the extraordinary spectacle of

Labour backbenchers cheering Sir Alec Douglas-Home when he

recalled the Chancellor’s pledge on introducing his budget last

May, that the Government would secure “relief from the whole of

the foreign exchange costs of keeping our forces in Germany”, and

concluded that therefore George Thomson’s statement represented

“a complete failure of the Government policy in this respect”.

FEEBLE

Michael Foot banged home that point: it was about time the

Government understood, he said, that many of us on the Labour

back benches “find the continued stalling of the German

Government on this subject, and the utterly feeble response of the

British Government to it totally intolerable”.

This was particularly so as when they introduced the wage

freeze on July 20 they had repeated that “part of those very

stringent measures involved severe cuts in the amount which we

spend on our forces in Germany”.

He warned the Government that if it did not do better than that,

it was going to have a first-class row on its hands.

“Manny” Shinwell, who as chairman of the Parliamentary

Labour Party and former War Minister is no longer often a rebel,

pointed out that ”this matter has been dragging on for many years”,

and that “Field-Marshal Lord Montgomery, who certainly knows

as much as anybody on either Front Bench about military matters,

has asserted that no more than 20,000 troops are required in

Germany” (instead of our present 55,000).

IMPOSSIBLE

On the former point, the Prime Minister told the House two

years ago (December 16, 1964) that the upkeep of BAOR meant “a

gap falling on our balance of payments of £55 million to £60

million. I am certain the House will agree that this is an impossible

situation”.

Over a year and a half ago, on May 11, 1965, he told the Nato

Council that “a very high proportion of Britain’s balance of

payments problem is created by overseas defence expenditure, not

least within the Nato area…. I want my colleagues to realise that

we cannot and do not intend to continue to take this unfair share of

the economic burden”.

But ten days ago, on December 6, Foreign Secretary George

Brown told the House that the BAOR is costing us £94 million in

foreign exchange this year and the Bonn Government is offering

only £31 million by way of off-set payments.

RACKET

That means the “gap” is several million pounds wider today

than when the Prime Minister declared two years ago that the

situation was impossible.

On the second point – the value of Nato – Lord Montgomery

told the Lords on November 30, not only that 20,000 British troops

would be ample, but that “the real danger in Europe is Germany”,

and that Nato is well on the way to becoming a political racket.

Money is being chucked like water. Every nation is trying to grab

as much as it can. There are enormous military headquarters, from

Norway right across Europe down to Naples.

Parkinson’s Law is evidently working on an American scale in

Nato. It is working politically as well as financially: the more Nato

costs, the less sense it makes, and the wilder the reasons advanced

for trying to keep it going.

In the November 30 Lords debate the long-standing pretext

that Nato is necessary to protect us against Soviet forces marching

in to impose Communism was all but officially scuttled.

After all, not even their Lordships can swallow that stuff any

longer.

REVIVAL

Instead speaker after speaker agreed that we must not cut our

forces in Nato, because we want to enter the European Economic

Community (whereas our loyalty to the U.S. is going to keep us

out), and that we have to keep them there because of the revival of

Germany nationalism.

One Noble Lord said he had “always regarded Germany, and

not Russia, as our potential enemy”.

In view of the revival of German nationalism and neo-nazism

he thought we should keep all our forces in Nato to “guard against

possible trouble in Germany”. He was “profoundly glad that the

Russians are along the frontier”.

The logic of that muddled argument would be that Britain

should get out of Nato and join the Warsaw alliance.

OPPOSED

Instead, the Nato Council decided to admit West Germany to a

share in taking nuclear decisions.

On January 31 and July 3, 1963 Mr Wilson declared that the

Labour Party was utterly and unalterably opposed to such a policy,

on the double ground that it would whet the Bonn Government’s

nuclear appetite and make impossible any agreement with the

USSR on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

That is equally true today.

In any case it would make more sense to close with the

repeated Soviet offers to scrap both Nato and the Warsaw alliance

and conclude all-European agreements for disengagement and

disarmament, non-aggression and peaceful settlement of disputes

and collective security on lines consistent with the UN Charter.

That would, in effect, mean at long last acting on the policies

to which the Labour Party has been officially pledged ever since

1958, and on the principle, proclaimed as recently as in the

Government’s 1966 Defence White Paper, that defence must be the

servant and not the master of foreign policy.

Ay – there’s the rub; to do that would mean ceasing to flog the

dying white elephant Nato, owned and trained and entered for the

Armageddon Stakes by Uncle Sam.

LOYALTY

In other words, it would mean breaking with the policy

pursued by all three parties in Parliament ever since the war, of

basing our world position on all-in loyalty to the U.S. alliance,

which, because of the vast disparity of power, necessarily and

inevitably means total subservience to the U.S. Administration. It

is the United States in conjunction with Blimpish and arms

manufacturing interests at home which is forcing the Government

to go on playing the economically ruinous, military megalomaniac

“east of Suez worlds” role and to scrap our own policies for

making peace in Europe.

Anglo-American policy confounds the social and ideological

challenge of Communism which is real, with an entirely mythical

and non-existent threat of Soviet aggression. It reverts to type the

exploded fallacy, which nuclear weapons have made literally

deadly, that the way to preserve peace is to prepare for war –

through a balance of power sustained by the U.S. run alliance

Nato, Cento and SEATO and a crushingly costly race in weapons

of universal destruction, in service of President Johnson’s anti-

Communist crusade.

NUCLEAR

The American alliance has become a nuclear Holy Alliance, a

global successor to Hitler’s anti-Communist Axis.

The alternative is to take our stand on the United Nations

Charter in deed and not only in word.

That means co-operation on equal terms with West and East,

the U.S. and USSR; peaceful co-existence and co-operation with

both and not being allied with either against the other.

That is the policy to which Labour is pledged and in which

most of the party believes. It is the only policy which will work.