A story is told of an American officer who was supervising a group of Korean laborers in Pusan toward the end of the Korean hostilities. Although the work which had to be done was simple enough, it was progressing slowly and unsatisfactorily because his orders to his men were obviously not getting through. Harried and harassed, his patience worn thin by his efforts to communicate what he wanted done, he finally gave up. “These stupid Koreans,” he burst out to one of his fellow Americans, “wouldn’t you think they’d learn? We’ve already been here practically two years and they can’t speak English yet!" It hardly seems necessary to add that the unhappy officer himself knew no more than a few words of Korean, the language of the country in which he had been stationed for “practically two years.”
The story may well be apocryphal, but it aptly illustrates several points which are, or should be, of increasing concern to the Navy and to all the Services.
The officers and men in today’s Navy are more widely dispersed throughout the world than ever before in history. There is hardly a country where the U. S. Navy is not represented in some degree, sometimes by only a handful of individuals, sometimes by a far greater number. They constitute in most cases a cross section of America and willy-nilly they play an important part in creating the full picture of the United States which is presented abroad. Their actions, their attitudes, their impact on the people who have an opportunity to observe them and with whom they have any sort of dealings, however trivial, can and do have a significant effect upon the opinion in which our country is held by our friends and by those whose friendship we would like to claim. It is altogether to our advantage that that opinion should be as favorable as possible. And yet a glance through any newspaper shows all too clearly that we are not always regarded with the affectionate and grateful admiration which, too often, we seem to think is our due. Is it possible that we are not always right? Can it be that perhaps some of the indignant reproaches which we direct toward the foreigner, whoever he may be, should be directed to ourselves instead?
It is, indeed, more than possible. And at least one reason, among a variety of others, that we are not able to present the picture that most of us so earnestly believe to be the true one, is the fact that we are usually unable to carry on even an elementary conversation with anyone who has been so careless as not to have learned to speak English. We are simply not able to tell him in words he can understand that our interest in him is genuine, that we are not always the grasping materialists that Communist propaganda would have us.
Over the course of the years we have fallen into the belief that those who, to us, are foreigners should naturally be expected to speak our language. In all fairness, it should be admitted that we have been encouraged in this conviction by the fact that so many citizens of other countries do speak English and are eager to practice it. How easy it has been, however, to give them that opportunity whenever the occasion arose, and how glibly we are able to rationalize the absence of any corresponding sense of obligation on our part to turn the tables on them and make at least a gesture toward repaying the courtesy—no linguistic facility, not enough time, lack of opportunity, variations of these and others. The unfortunate fact remains that Americans are notorious for their inability to speak in a foreign tongue, and the Navy, because it shares that failing to a marked degree, is losing the chance of many lifetimes. As a Service it is sacrificing the opportunity to capitalize on its far-flung contacts, and its individual members are missing the satisfaction and understanding which come from a personal knowledge of other countries, other people, other traditions, and other beliefs.
Since so many foreigners speak English, the argument often goes, is there really any reason to learn another language? Is it necessary to expend the time and effort to achieve a capability which may be usable in only one country or for only one tour of duty? With the purely professional responsibilities and obligations which most people in the Navy bear in such large and varied measure, can the addition of one more chore be defended? What, in short, is the justification?
The answers to those questions vary with circumstances and the persuasion of the individual, but in the belief of many there is more than ample justification. The problem, at any rate, certainly appears to deserve a brief examination.
The average American’s difficulty in using a language other than his own, his stubborn reluctance to make the effort, his stage fright, his apparent conviction that everyone else should be able to speak English as a matter of course, have gained for him a reputation for patronizing superiority and condescension which is almost universally accepted, however unjust and undeserved it may be. With this to start with, dealings of any kind with foreigners are often automatically commenced at a disadvantage, and with the world in its present state of tension the Navy and the United States cannot afford the luxury of even small disadvantages. The ability to speak to a man in his own language will of itself overcome a great deal of misunderstanding and suspicion, and at the same time it will tend to engender the genuine respect of his hearer. The degree of proficiency with which the language is spoken is of relatively minor concern. A hesitating delivery and a groping for words may sometimes even enhance the effect, since they indicate that an effort is required and, more important, that it is being made.
The Soviet Union, the nation which is our greatest adversary and rival and toward which, in the last analysis, almost our entire thought and effort are directed, seems to realize this clearly enough. William J. Jorden, the highly respected New York Times correspondent, several years ago described in considerable detail the training in this field being conducted by the Russians. “Probably no other nation,” he said, “is engaged in so extensive and intensive a language study program. It already has provided a large reservoir of persons able to speak and read one or more foreign languages.” He went on to tell the extraordinary results it has attained . . . thousands of diplomats, military men, business men, technicians, “tourists,” who speak almost flawlessly even the most difficult languages. It is obviously a problem which they consider to be of vital importance. Simply because the Russians do something is, of course, no reason in itself for us to do the same thing, but by the same token it is no reason for us to reject it. We are deeply concerned, and with good reason, over the technical and scientific advances being made by the Russians, the rate at which they are approaching our own level of achievement, or, in some instances, the unpalatable fact that they have passed us. It hardly seems reasonable, then, to overlook a field in which they are already ahead of us and one, too, which is so relatively uncomplicated, in which there are almost no advance requirements except a fair knowledge of the English language itself.
General Maxwell D. Taylor, USA, with his grave responsibilities and the endless demands upon his time when he commanded the Eighth Army in Korea, still managed to devote one hour of each crowded day to the study of Korean. He was able, too, to put the results of his study to excellent use, not only in conversation but by delivering speeches in Korean of his own devising, the effect of which on his surprised and delighted audiences was impressive, quite aside from the import of the speeches themselves. It would appear quite possible, then, for those in somewhat lesser positions to be able to make a similar effort, and many individual attempts along this line are, in fact, made.
In almost all locations where the United States has even moderate concentrations of forces, facilities are usually provided for the study of the language of the country concerned, and a gratifying number in all ranks and rates conscientiously make a voluntary start. In all too many instances, however, that is about as far as it ever gets. (Perhaps, as you read this, you can nod your head in rueful agreement, thinking of the time when you decided that you, too, would learn to speak, say, Japanese.) Without having the benefit of accurate statistics, a fairly good estimate would be that eighty per cent of those voluntarily beginning a language course drop out after the first few weeks, long before they have realized anything more than the most superficial and transitory benefit. Nor can this be blamed altogether on the individual. The instruction is almost always conducted at night, in off-duty hours. With no firm requirements for attendance it is all too easy to skip one session when something more appealing turns up, and the skips almost inevitably become more frequent. With no grades assigned, no outside study or preparation enforced, no minimum standards to be met, no satisfactory completion required, it is a natural tendency in all except the most strongly motivated to give something less than the best and, when linguistic results are not immediately apparent (as they rarely will be), to eliminate the effort altogether. And so it happens in one instance after another, multiplied many times.
What to do about it? Max Beloff, in his Foreign Policy and the Democratic Process, notes an incident which is pertinent: “At the Strasbourg Conference with the Council of Europe, in 1951, one member of the House of Representatives, in presenting the American view that European integration was proceeding too slowly, complained that over a relatively small area so many different languages were still spoken. ... A European might have replied . . . with some expression of regret that at a time when the United States has so decisively entered the world scene, the teaching of foreign languages should seemingly be in retreat all along the line in its system of secondary and higher education, in favor of subjects of less obvious practical or cultural value.” Our concern should be with our own inability rather than with that of others.
One solution seems fairly plain: compulsory language instruction for those assigned to duty in a foreign country. Nor is that as drastic as it might appear at first glance. It would be out of the question to require this instruction prior to arrival on station; neither the time nor the facilities are available to permit this, except as is now done in the relatively few cases of attaché, intelligence, and certain MAAG assignments. Instruction after reporting, however, is another matter. It could and should be provided, and it should be made a regular part of the job assignment, not at the option of the individual. It should be scheduled on an established frequency and, of particular importance, it should be scheduled during regular working hours, as a part of the normal working day or week. Universal attendance should be required, with few and particular exceptions, and a minimum ultimate proficiency should be stipulated. While it would be less than realistic to believe that more than a few would become genuinely fluent, it would certainly be reasonable to expect and require that the remaining great majority could and would develop a working grasp of the tongue sufficient, at least, for the duration of their current duty, and possibly of much more lasting effect.
Although a vast amount of pleasure and satisfaction would accrue to the person learning a foreign language, that is perhaps the least of the advantages to be gained, from the Navy’s point of view. There are greater advantages, less personal and more specific and tangible. In “conducting international intercourse,” as Webster defines one facet of diplomacy, which is an occupation in which the Navy finds itself increasingly engaged, the use of interpreters could in some cases be eliminated. In others the sense, at least, of their two-way translations could be verified. Valuable information of all sorts could be gained first-hand, either through direct contact or through legitimate inadvertance, simply by being present when matters of interest to the Navy are being discussed. Naval personnel abroad would not be almost compelled, as they often seem to believe they are, to foregather practically exclusively with other Americans and to follow the dreary and time-honored circuit of club-commissary- ship’s store-theatre-club because of a feeling of baffled and self-conscious inadequacy when confronted with a non-English-speaking group of people. How many aggregate years has the Navy spent in the various little Americas of Europe and the Far East, happily isolated and insulated from practically all real local contact, only to return to home or sea duty secure in the same tired, second-hand prejudices which were held to begin with!
The general temper and feeling of a people, a nation, is of vital concern to the United States and to the Navy, as is the view that the man in the street takes of problems which are important to him and, by extension, to America. It seems hard to believe, for example, that the emotional unrest of the average Iraqi was not a matter of considerable comment in the bazaars of Baghdad in the spring and summer of 1958, available only for the listening if someone qualified had been in those bazaars to do so. Yet how can such views or tempers be better or more reliably judged than to hear them expressed by the man most concerned, in subway crowds, in department stores, in railroad stations, in hotels and cafes and coffee houses, in countless places where people freely gather and freely express themselves?
Another positive advantage, perhaps less easily measured, but nonetheless real, is the sense of pleasure and gratification aroused in the foreigner, often as much the result of astonishment as from any other emotion, by the unaccustomed spectacle of an American who can actually understand and talk to him. It is an all too rare experience. Small reactions such as this, spontaneously generated and multiplied many times, contribute measurably to the dependability of the alliances which are a keystone of our national strategy.
The late Vice Admiral Leslie Stevens fully understood the value of direct contact and direct communication, and practiced his beliefs to excellent advantage. As our attaché in Moscow several years ago he had what was probably the most difficult and delicate job of its kind to be found anywhere. The Russians, themselves realizing the value of any information whatever that Admiral Stevens could acquire, however inconsequential it might appear, made every effort to isolate Americans in Moscow from all contact with the people. But, as a newspaper account recalled at the time of the Admiral’s death in late 1956,
“Admiral Stevens, equipped with a fluent command of the Russian language . . . broke through the barrier.
He talked with Russians on park benches, in restaurants, bars, and railway compartments. He drank vodka and flat, sweet Russian beer with casual acquaintances in saloons. He was an acute listener.
However, Admiral Stevens did not behave like an undercover agent. ‘When I first came to Moscow,’ he told Major General Ilia Sarayev of the Soviet Army, in reply to a Soviet complaint, ‘I told you that I and everyone in my office considered ourselves as guests. When one is a guest in a house and the host has some locked rooms or locked chests, one does not try to break into them. We have no intention of going into closed rooms or prohibited areas, but we will not shut our eyes to the pictures on the walls, the books in the bookshelves and the things that are lying on the tables.’ ”
It seems highly improbable that anyone in the Navy today, whatever his station, is so well informed that he can afford to shut his eyes to “the pictures on the walls, the books in the bookshelves and the things that are lying on the tables.
The question which naturally arises at once is whether a teaching program of such proportions, with the time required, the formidable problems of scheduling, the reconciliation of instruction with other responsibilities and commitments, whether, in the face of these and other very real obstacles, such a program would be worth while to undertake. In determining an answer to this question we must consider what we are trying to gain, as a long-range objective, the ultimate goal beyond the considerations of physical security for the nation and economic well-being for ourselves and our allies. That goal, that end for which we are now locked in a relentless struggle with the forces of Communism is to kindle, sustain and vindicate, the faith and trust of men and women throughout the world in the fundamental rightness of the aims for which we as a nation are striving.
Final victory, if we are to gain it, will require many things—money, raw materials, industrial resources, scientific pre-eminence, military might. But if we gain it without at the same time convincing the people of the world that it is fundamentally right and just, it will be a passing thing, something they will accept of necessity and only until they gain the means to exchange it for something they more deeply believe in. Chester Bowles has said that “today ... a common denominator of many recent American attitudes has been a stubborn lack of understanding of what constitutes strength in world affairs. Although we value deeply our own free institutions, we seem to have over-estimated the effectiveness of material, military strength, and to have underestimated the strength of people and ideas. . . . The greatest power anywhere is people.” In order to gain the final victory— and nothing less will suffice—we must be able to communicate directly with that “greatest power anywhere,” not only through newspapers and magazines and movies and radios, but by doing the one obvious thing, by speaking directly to them. With the stakes as high as they are we cannot accept a needless handicap by depriving ourselves of one of the basic tools for success. Naval personnel cannot continue to emulate the frustrated colonel in Pusan and demand that everyone be able to speak to us. We must somehow be able to speak to them. Those who have the opportunity must be able to speak to Italians, to Egyptians, to Japanese, to Russians in the language they understand, however rudimentary it may have to be on occasion. We cannot continue to hide behind a shield of complacency and demand that all those with whom we deal speak our own language, consciously or unconsciously discounting those who unaccountably do not. The beam is too often in our own eye. The fact that it has become a truism to say that the cold war is a battle for men’s minds only testifies to the inherent validity of that statement. But is it not naive and presumptuous, perhaps even a little ridiculous, to continue to say so when most of the men whose job that is can neither speak nor understand the language of the very men and women whose minds they are charged with winning? And the Navy of today is just as surely charged with that as it is with the job of destroying enemy planes or sinking enemy submarines.