PRIMARY DOCUMENTS
Francis P. Matthews, “Aggressors for Peace,” Vital Speeches of the Day 16, no. 23 (15 September 1950): 730-732.
The public controversy over preventive war exploded after Secretary of the Navy Francis P. Matthews advocated for preventive war in a speech at the 150th anniversary of the naval shipyard in Boston on August 25, 1950. In his speech, Matthews reminded his audience that, during the American Revolution, American patriots had fought for freedom “by starting a war with the mother country” and became “aggressors for freedom.” Although patriots were the aggressors in the war, Matthews praised them for violating “the peace of their time in a most holy cause” and for paying the price of freedom. In effect, Matthews claimed that the United States was fighting the American Revolution all over again in Korea and he asked whether Americans were willing to pay the same price as their ancestors to preserve liberty and freedom “for the whole of mankind and its posterity.”
To have world peace and freedom, Matthews called for preventive war and called on Americans to become “aggressors for peace.” He acknowledged that democracies did not typically seek international harmony through violence – but Matthews thought the U.S. might have to change its policy since national survival could be “purchased only by those who are capable of resisting successfully a violation of their rights.” The U.S. should first prepare to resist any attack, he expounded, but then it should also proclaim boldly its objective to achieve world peace – at any price. As Matthews declared, “To have peace we should be willing, and declare our intention to pay any price, even the price of instituting a war to compel cooperation for peace.” Even if the United States had to adopt a new democratic character and initiate “a war of aggression,” he did not think it was a role Americans should or could deny.
Edwin Hopkins to Francis P. Matthews, 29 August 1950, Boston Speech, Public Opinion Mail — Pro, Box 40, FPMP, HSTPL.
Many Americans supported preventive war in 1950-1951 because of the confidence they felt in their atomic ace. They regarded atomic bombs as silver bullets, war-winning weapons of victory, and could not understand why U.S. officials seemed hesitant to employ them. At the same time, however, the public reaction to Francis Matthews’ call for preventive war revealed that many Americans were clueless about the effects of nuclear weapons and obviously illiterate about the logistics of deploying them, as well as ignorant about how many bombs the U.S. actually possessed. Nuclear hawks supported preventive or unlimited war, therefore, because they thought the United States did not have any limits. Edwin Hopkins in New York even sent Matthews the lyrics to a marching song he had written entitled “What Are We Waiting For.”