Soviet Threat in Middle East

Report Outline
Alarm Over Soviet Penetration of Mideast
Soviet Expansionism in the Middle East
Efforts of Free World to Block Red Threat

Alarm Over Soviet Penetration of Mideast

Russian penetration of the middle east moved another step toward accomplishing its major purpose, which is ultimate Communist domination of that strategic region, when a clique of pro-Soviet Syrian army officers gained effective control of the government of Syria in mid-August. The Soviet success in Syria greatly enhanced the Russian capacity for trouble-making in one of the world's most unstable areas and seriously alarmed the United States and its Western allies. Notes delivered at the Kremlin Sept. 24 by Great Britain, France, and the United States accused the Soviet Union of aggravating an explosive situation through propaganda operations and by shipping arms to countries of the Middle East.

Secretary of State Dulles, addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 19, used the language of a 1949 U.N. resolution in condemning the latest Communist thrust:

The Soviet Communists appear to be engaging in “acts, direct or indirect, aimed at impairing the freedom, independence or integrity” of certain … [Middle Eastern] nations…. These Soviet acts may, perhaps unwittingly, lead the recipients of Soviet arms into acts of direct aggression. Those who feel an abnormal sense of power, as a result of the recent putting into their hands of large amounts of Soviet-bloc arms, are being incited against their neighbors by violent propaganda. This is risky business.