◆ SpookStack

“~, tee is to consider, on a continuing basis, current “~. For many years the United States in company and long-range problems of our relations with Latin America and to make recommendations thereon to the Secretary of State. The members of the Committee accompanied President Eisen- hower on his trip to South America? earlier this year, and part of the current meeting will be de- “voted to a review and assessment of the results of that trip. United States Plane Downed . in Soviet Union Following ts a series of statements and the text of a US. note on the subject of a US. plane al- leged to have been shot down over the Soviet Union on May 1. STATEMENT BY SECRETARY HERTER, MAY 9 Press release 254 dated May 9 On May 7 the Department of State spokesman made a statement with respect to the alleged shooting down of an unarmed American civilian aircraft of the U-2 type over the Soviet Union. The following supplements and clarifies this statement as respects the position of the United States Government. Ever since Marshal Stalin shifted the policy of the Soviet Union from wartime cooperation to postwar conflict in 1946 and particularly since the Berlin blockade, the forceful takeover of Czechoslovakia, and the Communist aggressions in Korea and Viet-Nam the world has lived in a state of apprehension with respect to Soviet intentions. The Soviet leaders have almost complete access to the open societies of the free world and supple- ment this with vast espionage networks. How- ever, they keep their own society tightly closed and rigorously controlled. With the develop- ment of modern weapons carrying tremendously destructive nuclear warheads, the threat of sur- prise attack and aggression presents a constant danger. This menace is enhanced by the threats of mass destruction frequently voiced by the Soviet leadership. * Fbid., Mar. 28, 1960, p. 471. 816 eliminate this threat from the life of man so that he can go about his peaceful business without fear. Many proposals to this end have been put up to the Soviet Union. The President’s open- skies proposal of 1955 was followed in 1957 by the offer of an exchange of ground observers be- tween agreed military installations in the U.S., the U.S.S.R., and other nations that might wish . . to participate. For several years we have been seeking the mutual abolition of the restrictions on travel imposed by the Soviet Union and those which the United States felt obliged to institute on a reciprocal basis.. More recently at the Geneva disarmament conference the United States has proposed far-reaching new measures of con- trolled disarmament. It is possible that the Soviet leaders have a different version and that, however unjustifiedly, they fear attack from the West. But this is hard to reconcile with their °- continual rejection of our repeated proposals for effective measures against surprise attack and for effective inspection of disarmament measures. I will say frankly that it is unacceptable that the Soviet political system should be given an opportunity to make secret preparations to face the free world with the choice of abject surrender or nuclear destruction. The Government of the _ United States would be derelict to its responsi- bility not only to the American people but to free peoples everywhere if it did not, in the ab- sence of Soviet cooperation, take such measures as are possible unilaterally to lessen and to over- come this danger of surprise attack. In fact the United States has not and does not shirk this responsibility. In accordance with the National Security Act of 1947, the President has put into effect since the beginning of his administration directives to gather by every possible means the information required to protect the United States and the free world against surprise attack and to enable them to make effective preparations for their defense. Under these directives programs have been developed and put into operation which have included extensive aerial surveillance by unarmed . Civilian aircraft, normally of a peripheral char- acter but on occasion by penetration. Specific missions of these unarmed civilian aircraft have Department of State Bullefin With ‘its ‘allies has~ sought to —lessen—or-even--to.___} + f I i