14 JULY 1950, Page 20

Russian Aggression

SIR,—I have read, with the utmost consternation, the statement in the Spectator's Notebook of July 7th that the supreme task of the United Nations is to ban the atom bomb. Have not the experience of 1914 and the repeated promises of Hitler convinced you that prothises and treaties are absolutely worthless when entered into by unprincipled Governments ? I had the honour to serve as a King's Foreign Service Messenger for a quarter of a century, and, from my knowledge of Russia and the satellite Communistic States, I say deliberately that the one thing which has deterred a terrible outbreak has been the possession by America of a weapon which neutralises the enormous preponderance of Communistic man-power. To ban the atom bomb would leave the enormous air force, submarine fleet and overwhelming land forces of the Soviet free to overrun the whole of Western Europe. You would have Russian rocket installations on the Channel coast, you would nave Russian submarine bases on the Bay of Biscay, you would have certain nations within reach of Russia pulverised in a few weeks. However, it seems hopeless to convince the Press, in many cases, of the appalling menace of Communism, and the deadly infiltration of the poison in the form of fifth-column activity in . the democracies—and those who honestly hold Communistic views apparently swallow the appalling effrontery of the statement that the Korean outbreak is due to aggression from South Korea. Can you explain from whence came the 200 tanks of the North, when the South possesses none ?

Slowly and surely the history of 1939 is repeating itself. With America involved in Korea, France in Cochin China and ourselves in Malaya, an opportunity has arisen for Soviet aggression, and it has been

deliberately engineered.—Yours faithfully, ADRIAN PORTER. The Hampshire Club. Winchester.