Dear
Senator Jenner:1 As you were advised some time ago, the suggestions you made with respect to exposure of the Soviet Fifth Column have been under intensive and prolonged study in the Department of State.2
I attach great importance to your recital of the accomplishments of the Senate Subcommittee in tracing the network of Communist subversive activities in this country. It reinforces the conclusion reached in the Department of State and other agencies of the Government dealing with Communist activities in all countries that the work of the Soviet Communist Fifth Column does indeed constitute an international conspiracy. As you know, the Administration, working with the Congress, is determined to use every appropriate means to counteract it.
You may be aware that at the insistence of the United States an item entitled, "Intervention of International Communism in the American Republics" has been included on the agenda of the Tenth Inter-American Conference which is scheduled to be held in Caracas, Venezuela, beginning March 1, 1954.3 Under this general heading the American Governments will have an opportunity to examine the intervention of international Communism in the affairs of this Hemisphere, including efforts to weaken the fabric of Inter-American solidarity and subvert genuine national social and political movements to its own ends, and to consider what further steps the American Republics might take to combat the Communist menace.
In the United Nations, of course, where the spokesmen of a large number of states advocating many different points of view are heard, the problems involved in raising this subject are more complex.4 Consequently, we have in the past found it more productive as a rule to attack particular Communist subversive activities in individual countries, as for example in Korea, Greece, Czechoslovakia and China, and also to focus world attention on such Communist abuses as forced labor, atrocities against war prisoners, false charges of the use of bacteriological warfare, and the cruel detention of World War II prisoners.
Preparation for a broad-scale proposal of the type you contemplate would be a matter of months and would therefore have to be undertaken sometime before the General Assembly Session convenes. According to present indications the present General Assembly will adjourn early in December of this year. It is therefore not feasible to raise the issue this year, but we will give the most careful consideration to the possibility of including it on the agenda of the next regular General Assembly session.
Your kind offer to be of assistance in our continuing efforts to combat Communism through measures in the United Nations is greatly appreciated. You may be sure that your support will be welcome.5
With kind regard, Sincerely
