 It's time for the Lawn Jean Chronoscope, a television journal of the important issues of the hour brought to you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, a presentation of the Lawn Jean Wittner Watch Company, maker of Lawn Jean, the world's most honored watch, and Wittner, distinguished companion to the world-honored Lawn Jean. Good evening. This is Frank Knight. May I introduce our co-editors for this edition of the Lawn Jean Chronoscope? Larry Lissert from the CBS Television News staff and August Hector, chief editorial writer for the New York Herald Tribune. Our distinguished guest for this evening is the Honorable Charles J. Kirsten, United States representative from Wisconsin. Representative Kirsten, you're the author of the Kirsten amendment to the Mutual Security Act, the amendment that looks forward to the liberation of the Soviet Union's captured territories. May we ask you tonight just what's happened to that amendment? Has it ever been implemented? Well, Mr. Lissert, this amendment was adopted about three years ago, and nothing was done during the first two years. I think the amendment is under study at the present time. Well, just what does that amendment take up? It's a hundred million dollars for the formation of military groups out of refugees from the communist countries, is that right? Well, one of the major objectives of the amendment is to form military units, national military units, from escapees from behind the Iron Curtain countries, for example, Polish units, Hungarian units, Czechoslovak units, and so forth, with their own distinctive uniforms and flags of their own free countries, attached to NATO or to the American forces. Would the idea be that these would be used in the countries of their origin in some future war? Well, the chief idea, Mr. Heckscher, is that they might be magnets of defection. Presently, there is a disposition, a rather important disposition, on the part of many of the members of the armed forces in these countries to escape, but there's no place to escape to. These would provide a place for them to escape to. Representative Kirsten, twice now, I believe, the Soviet Union has brought up charges against the United States on the basis of the Kirsten amendment, charging that we are inferring in the internal affairs of the so-called people's democracies. How do you answer that? Oh, that's correct. They have brought up these charges twice, Larry. The exact opposite is true. This is not interference in the internal affairs of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and so on. It is the communists who have interfered in the internal affairs of these countries, and for the communists to say that anything that might be done to aid in the freedom of these people is interference in their internal affairs, is much like the burglar who, in the process of throttling a victim in a victim's home, and if a friend of the victim appears at the window, the burglar shouts, don't interfere in the sanctity of this home. Well, Mr. Representative Kirsten, you're also the chairman of the Seven Man Baltic Committee of the House of Representatives, having to do with Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Do you get any information out of those captured territories now? Well, of course, the information coming from these three small countries that were absorbed forcibly by the Soviet Union back in 1940, the information coming from them now is very sparse. A great deal of very interesting information came from them during the course of the past several years that our committee will have access to, in the form of documents and witnesses who have escaped from these countries. Is this information that comes primarily to your committee, or is it come through the Central Intelligence Division, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the system, and the intelligence system of the government? Well, I think the major portion of it, Mr. Heckscher, will come from the Baltic peoples themselves, who escaped from these countries at various times, many of whom have documents, some Russian documents, which they picked up when the Russians fled from these countries in June of 1941. You recall the Nazis drove the Soviets out in June of 1941, and there was a period there of several weeks and several months in some areas where the Baltic peoples were able to seize many of the documents that the NKVD had when they were in there. Some of these documents we will have access to. Representative Kirsten, are many people escaping from behind the Iron Curtain now that you have access to or can talk to? From these countries, very few, although there have been some very dramatic escapes within the past year, and I've talked to some of those. For example, one man that escaped earlier this year in a bolt, and about a year ago, there was a family that escaped. Of course, the greatest number of escapees come through East Germany, that is from Berlin, from mostly East Germany and some from the other captive nations. Representative Kirsten, your planning, I think, to investigate the whole manner in which the Baltic states were originally taken over by the Communists and have been subjugated to their rule. Is that right? That's correct, Mr. Heksher. What do you expect to find out from an investigation of that kind that will be useful either in legislation or in the work of the Congress? Well, Mr. Heksher, when the Communists planned to take over the Baltic states, they entered into non-aggression pacts with them. They were engaged in negotiations with them. They had a lot of peace propaganda, and behind that facade, they were all the time preparing for very ruthless aggression. So I think it's very valuable to our times that we know how the Communists act in distinction to their propaganda. I think by showing the facts of their aggression in these three defenseless countries, we can show the operation of the Communist conspiracy in any country that they would take over. You think of it as a kind of pilot operation, then? It was definitely a blueprint operation. The same type of aggression that they committed there, the same type of occupation practices that have occurred there, and they're still occurring, are put into force in the other countries. The same type of blueprint that they would apply in any country in the world. Representative Kirsten, I think before the election, Secretary Jealous said that we could never settle for a policy of containment with 800 million people behind the Iron Curtain. But very recently, in September of this year, he said to the United Nations that the United States creed does not call for revolution or inciting other countries' peoples to violence. Now, how does that jibe? Isn't that containment rather than liberation? I think if I'm not mistaken, he said that we would not export revolution. We don't have to export revolution. Potential revolution is in every one of these countries. We would not want to impose our ideas upon them. They have the idea. And I think it's a problem now of the free world helping them to realize this idea. The riots in East Germany and East Berlin certainly demonstrated this. And I think it changed the thinking of a lot of people in the Western world. Yes, but wasn't it true that when those riots occurred, we found that then we didn't want to take the measures, which might be called liberation, that we were afraid that whatever we did to assubate that situation might lead to a general war? Well, as a matter of fact, I think that Radio Rios and other information programs that were set in at that time helped to implement that. I think actually the Soviets were greatly jarred by that. The end of that uprising is not yet. I think that will stand as a very important, dangerous fact for communist control. The fact that people unarmed were able to rise up against Soviet tanks. The fact that a Polish officer under communist control is reported to have failed to shoot down rioting Germans. And the fact that apparently many Soviet troops had to be executed because they did not proceed against these rioters is very dangerous to the communists. This is something that must be studied on a broad scale and implemented on a broad scale, not perhaps immediately, but certainly it is of immediate and great consequence. Representative Kirsten, you said that Radio Rios, which is the German radio in West Germany, was helpful in the June 17th riots. And I take it therefore that you mean that information programs are helpful. But haven't we under this Congress cut down on the money being expended for the voice of America? There was a temporary cutback in this last session. But with a definite understanding that the program would be expanded next year with the proper type of orientation, I happen to have participated in the debate on that proposition. And Mr. Tabor, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, stated that the program would be fully supported when it was properly oriented. And I believe it is being properly oriented now. I believe that the information program should be fully supported. It should be expanded. It can be a great factor in the helping to win the Cold War. Representative Kirsten, isn't this new program which the administration has put in less in the direction of psychological warfare and more in the direction of plain information than it ever has been before? Isn't it a step back really from the policy of liberation or rollback? Oh, I don't think so, Mr. Heckscher. I think, for example, the recent disclosure of the terrible atrocities in Korea by the government, that is by the Department of Defense, was an illustration of what can be done with the truth and with facts. This is a very effective psychological warfare. If you want to call it that, it's an information program. But they are very hard, dangerous facts to people who don't know the truth about communists. That is, it gives the truth about communists, and it is very dangerous to the communists themselves. Representative Kirsten, as the last question may I ask is, do you apparently think that liberation can be accomplished without war by peaceful means? But tell me, do you think we can liberate the Iron Curtain countries and still reduce taxes? Well, I think that the only way taxes can be reduced, the only way that we can stop drafting American boys, is by adopting and proceeding upon a real policy of liberation by every peaceful means short of an all-out war between the free world and the slave world. I think a policy of liberation is a policy of peace. It's the communist line that liberation means war. Only, Mr. Lusser, if these people are abandoned, only if the free world forgets them, could there be an all-out World War III. Well, thank you very much, Representative Kirsten, for being with us here tonight. Thank you. The opinions you've heard our speakers express tonight have been entirely their own. The editorial board for this edition of the Laun Jean Chronoscope was Larry Lusser and August Heckscher. Our distinguished guest was the Honorable Charles J. Christen, United States Representative from Wisconsin. For that most important name on your Christmas gift list, the gift of complete acceptability is Laun Jean, the world's most honored watch. Throughout the world, no other name on a Christmas watch means so much as Laun Jean, the watch of highest prestige among the world's finest watches. The prestige of a Laun Jean watch as a Christmas gift transcends price. It springs from the countless honors which Laun Jean watches have won. For excellence and elegance, 10 world's fair grand prizes and 28 gold medals. For accuracy, highest honors in fields of precise timing. Yes, throughout the world, no other name on a Christmas gift watch means so much as Laun Jean, the world's most honored watch. 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