Speech #840136164

You can well understand that every success the Communists score in this redefection campaign serves a twofold purpose: First. it cuts down the desire of others in the satellite countries to take the dangerous course of attempting to escape to the West. second. it makes those living in the satellite countries less dissatisfied with their lot. since they come to believe that living conditions are not very enviable elsewhere either. There are other purposes of this redefection campaign. The Communists succeed in causing a sense of insecurity among refugees and exile governments by having letters reach them from behind the Iron Curtain just when they think they have successfully escaped from Communist control and taken up new lives. The mere fact that the Communist conspiracy has followed their movements and knows of their new address is disconcerting. But I think the main purpose of this campaign is the one I have describedof getting a few defectors to return for propaganda purposes. The significance of this campaign for our foreign policy is clear. An editorial in the New York Times of January 25 stated this quite well. The Times said. in part: Some 220.000 refugees from Eastern Europe are now living in camps in West Germany. The problem of providing for their needs. of integrating as many of them as possible into a free society as productive members of that society. is a serious one. It is a challenge to the conscience of the free world. It is also a political problem. since the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites have chosen to make it one. They are now and have for over a year been conducting an intensive campaign to induce these refugees to return to their native lands. The obJective of this campaign. of course. is to use these refugees as "proof" that the Soviet way of life is preferable to that in the free world. Any largescale success for this Communist effort would be a propaganda defeat for us. as well as a sign that our implicit obligation to these people had not been fulfilled. So. Mr. President. the importance of our programs to aid refugees and escapees is not merely humanitarian. The humanitarian purpose is sufficient for me and I amsure for most other people. We feel -that we should help these uprooted people to find new homes and establish new lives.