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美国经典演讲
麦克阿瑟：
《老兵不死》
（英文原版及翻译）
President, Mr. Speaker, and
Distinguished Members of the Congress:
I stand on
this rostrum with a sense of deep
humility and great pride -- humility in the
weight of those great
American architects of our history who have stood
here
before me; pride in
the reflection that this home of legislative
debate
represents human
liberty in the purest form yet devised. Here are
centered the
hopes and
aspirations and faith of the entire human race. I
do not stand here as
advocate for any partisan cause, for
the issues are fundamental and reach quite
beyond the realm of
partisan consideration. They must be resolved on
the highest
plane of
national interest if our course is to prove sound
and our future
protected. I
trust, therefore, that you will do me the justice
of receiving that
which I
have to say as solely expressing the considered
viewpoint of a fellow
American.
I address you with neither rancor nor
bitterness in the fading
twilight of life, with but one purpose
in mind: to serve my country
. The
issues
are global and so
interlocked that to consider the problems of one
sector,
oblivious to those
of another, is but to court disaster for the
whole. While
Asia is
commonly referred to as the Gateway to Europe, it
is no less true that
Europe
is the Gateway to Asia, and the broad influence of
the one cannot fail to
have
its impact upon the other. There are those who
claim our strength is
inadequate to protect on both fronts,
that we cannot divide our effort. I can
think of no greater
expression of defeatism. If a potential enemy can
divide his
strength on two
fronts, it is for us to counter his effort. The
Communist threat
is a
global one. Its successful advance in one sector
threatens the destruction
of every other sector. Y
ou
can not appease or otherwise surrender to
communism
in Asia without
simultaneously undermining our efforts to halt its
advance in
Europe.
Beyond pointing
out these general truisms, I shall confine my
discussion to the general
areas of Asia. Before one may objectively assess
the
situation now existing
there, he must comprehend something of Asia's past
and
the revolutionary
changes which have marked her course up to the
present. Long
exploited by
the so-called colonial powers, with little
opportunity to achieve
any
degree of social justice, individual
dignity
, or a higher standard of life
such as guided our own
noble administration in the Philippines, the
peoples of
Asia found their
opportunity in the war just past to throw off the
shackles of
colonialism and
now see the dawn of new opportunity
, a
heretofore unfelt
dignity
, and the self-
respect of political freedom.
Mustering half of the
earth's population, and 60
percent of its natural resources these peoples are
rapidly consolidating a new
force, both moral and material, with which to
raise
the living standard
and erect adaptations of the design of modern
progress to
their own
distinct cultural environments. Whether one
adheres to the concept of
colonization or not, this is the
direction of Asian progress and it may not be
stopped. It is a corollary
to the shift of the world economic frontiers as
the
whole epicenter of
world affairs rotates back toward the area whence
it started.
In this situation, it becomes vital
that our own country orient its policies
in consonance with this
basic evolutionary condition rather than pursue a
course
blind to the reality
that the colonial era is now past and the Asian
peoples
covet the right to
shape their own free destiny
. What they
seek now is friendly
guidance, understanding, and support --
not imperious direction -- the dignity
of equality and not the shame of
subjugation. Their pre-war standard of life,
pitifully low, is
infinitely lower now in the devastation left in
war's wake.
World
ideologies play little part in Asian thinking and
are little understood.
What
the peoples strive for is the opportunity for a
little more food in their
stomachs, a little better clothing on
their backs, a little firmer roof over
their heads, and the realization of the
normal nationalist urge for political
freedom. These political-social
conditions have but an indirect bearing upon our
own national
security
, but do form a backdrop to
contemporary planning which
must be thoughtfully considered if we
are to avoid the pitfalls of unrealism.
Of
more direct and immediately bearing upon our
national security are the
changes wrought in the strategic
potential of the Pacific Ocean in the course of
the past war. Prior thereto
the western strategic frontier of the United
States
lay on the literal
line of the Americas, with an exposed island
salient
extending out
through Hawaii, Midway
, and Guam to the
Philippines. That salient
proved not an outpost of strength but
an avenue of weakness along which the
enemy could and did attack.
The Pacific was a potential
area of advance for
any
predatory force intent upon striking at the
bordering land areas. All this
was changed by our Pacific
victory
. Our strategic frontier then
shifted to
embrace the
entire Pacific Ocean, which became a vast moat to
protect us as long
as we
held it. Indeed, it acts as a protective shield
for all of the Americas
and
all free lands of the Pacific Ocean area. We
control it to the shores of
Asia by a chain of islands extending in
an arc from the Aleutians to the
Mariannas held by us and our free
allies. From this island chain we can dominate
with sea and air power
every Asiatic port from Vladivostok to Singapore
-- with
sea and air power
every port, as I said, from Vladivostok to
Singapore -- and
prevent
any hostile movement into the Pacific.
Any predatory attack from
Asia
must be an amphibious
effort.* No amphibious force can be successful
without
control of the sea
lanes and the air over those lanes in its avenue
of advance.
With naval and
air supremacy and modest ground elements to defend
bases, any
major attack
from continental Asia toward us or our friends in
the Pacific would
be doomed
to failure.
Under such conditions, the Pacific no
longer represents
menacing
avenues of approach for a prospective invader. It
assumes, instead, the
friendly aspect of a peaceful lake. Our
line of defense is a natural one and can
be maintained with a
minimum of military effort and expense. It
envisions no
attack against
anyone, nor does it provide the bastions essential
for offensive
operations,
but properly maintained, would be an invincible
defense against
aggression.
The holding of this literal defense line in the
western Pacific is
entirely
dependent upon holding all segments thereof; for
any major breach of
that
line by an unfriendly power would render
vulnerable to determined attack
every other major segment.
This is a military estimate
as to which I have yet
to
find a military leader who will take exception.
For that reason, I have
strongly recommended in the past, as a
matter of military urgency
, that under
no
circumstances must
Formosa fall under Communist control. Such an
eventuality
would at once
threaten the freedom of the Philippines and the
loss of Japan and
might
well force our western frontier back to the coast
of California, Oregon
and
Washington.
To
understand the changes which now appear upon the
Chinese
mainland, one must
understand the changes in Chinese character and
culture over
the past 50
years. China, up to 50 years ago, was completely
non-homogenous,
being
compartmented into groups divided against each
other. The war-making
tendency was almost non-existent, as
they still followed the tenets of the
Confucian ideal of pacifist culture. At
the turn of the century
, under the
regime of Chang Tso Lin,
efforts toward greater homogeneity produced the
start
of a nationalist
urge. This was further and more successfully
developed under
the
leadership of Chiang Kai-Shek, but has been
brought to its greatest fruition
under the present regime to the point
that it has now taken on the character of
a united nationalism of
increasingly dominant, aggressive tendencies.
Through
these past 50 years the
Chinese people have thus become militarized in
their
concepts and in their
ideals. They now constitute excellent soldiers,
with
competent staffs and
commanders. This has produced a new and dominant
power in
Asia, which, for
its own purposes, is allied with Soviet Russia but
which in its
own concepts
and methods has become aggressively imperialistic,
with a lust for
expansion
and increased power normal to this type of
imperialism.
There is
little
of the ideological concept either one way or
another in the Chinese
make-up. The standard of living is so
low and the capital accumulation has been
so thoroughly dissipated by
war that the masses are desperate and eager to
follow any leadership which
seems to promise the alleviation of local
stringencies.
I have from the beginning
believed that the Chinese Communists'
support of the North Koreans was the
dominant one. Their interests are, at
present, parallel with those of the
Soviet. But I believe that the
aggressiveness recently displayed not
only in Korea but also in Indo-China and
Tibet and pointing
potentially toward the South reflects
predominantly the same
lust
for the expansion of power which has animated
every would-be conqueror
since the beginning of time.
The Japanese
people, since the war, have
undergone the greatest reformation
recorded in modern history
. With a
commendable will, eagerness
to learn, and marked capacity to understand, they
have, from the ashes left
in war's wake, erected in Japan an edifice
dedicated
to the supremacy
of individual liberty and personal dignity; and in
the ensuing
process there
has been created a truly representative government
committed to
the advance of
political morality
, freedom of economic
enterprise, and social
justice.
Politically, economically, and socially
Japan is now abreast of many
free nations of the earth and will not
again fail the universal trust. That it
may be counted upon to
wield a profoundly beneficial influence over the
course
of events in Asia is
attested by the magnificent manner in which the
Japanese