Library:The Anti-Communist Impulse - Revision history

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Literallywho Ingodsname: /* APPENDIX III - The Devil Moves East */

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APPENDIX III - The Devil Moves East

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 Either out of conviction or fear, the liberal adopted the basic rhetoric of anti-communism. The McCarthy inquisitor and his victim had one thing in common (to the lasting disadvantage of the latter): both built their arguments on anti-communist orthodoxy. When liberals like James Wechsler and Owen Lattimore were brought before McCarthy's committee they justly defended themselves as free Americans exercising their Constitutional rights. But not content to rest their cases there, they took pains to demonstrate their orthodoxy by quoting selections from their past anti-communist writings and citing occasions when communists had attacked them. Wechsler referred to his anti-communist newspaper editorials and his past battles with communists in the Newspaper Guild. Lattimore's ''Ordeal by Slander'', an account of his confrontation with McCarthy, is replete with anti-communist, cold-war admonitions. Appearing before the McCarthy committee, he felt compelled to quote "criticisms of my books in Russian and American [communist] publications," as proof of his anti-communism. Another China expert, John K. Fairbank, defending himself against the McCarthy witchhunt, observed: "In Washington I was 'identified'... as part of a 'hard inner core' of an alleged pro-communist conspiracy. In Peking I have been cited as an 'imperialist spy' and 'the number-one cultural secret-agent of American imperialism' et cetera."<ref>John K. Fairbank, ''The United States and China'', rev. ed. (New York: Viking Press, 1958), p. 273 ''fn''.; see also Owen Lattimore, ''Ordeal by Slander'' (New York: 1950).</ref> One might pity the journalist or scholar who had never been attacked by the communists or—worse still—had actually won a favourable word from the communist press. By essaying to live up to the anti-communist standards set by the inquisitor, the liberal victims inadvertently helped intensify the very aura of unchallengeable orthodoxy which gave McCarthy his strength.
-Over the years, liberals also fell into the habit of using their anti-communist foreign policies as evidence of their anti-communism at home. Thus Lattimore, when defending himself before McCarthy, argued that he had always tried "as emphatically as I could to warn the people of this nation that the communist threat in China and other countries of the Far East is very real indeed."<ref>Lattimore, ''op. cit''.</ref> And Harry Truman, referring to his commitments to Greece and Turkey, observed "All over the world, voices of approval made themselves heard, while Communists and their fellow-travelers struck out at me savagely."<ref>Harry S Truman, ''Memoirs'', vol. 2 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1956), p. 106.</ref> It seems never to have occurred to liberals that their constant emphasis on the "far greater menace" of the USSR and their advocacy of a wholesale cold-war effort abroad exacerbated the very public anxieties which bred witchhunting at home.
+Over the years, liberals also fell into the habit of using their anti-communist foreign policies as evidence of their anti-communism at home. Thus Lattimore, when defending himself before McCarthy, argued that he had always tried "as emphatically as I could to warn the people of this nation that the communist threat in China and other countries of the Far East is very real indeed."<ref>Lattimore, ''op. cit''.</ref> And Harry Truman, referring to his commitments to Greece and Turkey, observed "All over the world, voices of approval made themselves heard, while Communists and their fellow-travellers struck out at me savagely."<ref>Harry S Truman, ''Memoirs'', vol. 2 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1956), p. 106.</ref> It seems never to have occurred to liberals that their constant emphasis on the "far greater menace" of the USSR and their advocacy of a wholesale cold-war effort abroad exacerbated the very public anxieties which bred witchhunting at home.
 Even today many liberals do not raise any questions about anti-communism's presumptions and goals but concentrate their criticism on anti-communist tactics. In 1967, Dwight Macdonald criticised the witchhunting of the 1950s and the Vietnam war of the 1960s on the grounds that such policies played right into the communists' hands. "The principal results [of Senator Joseph McCarthy's attacks] were to give publicity to an expiring CPUSA... and, by the absurdity and unfairness of his accusations, to gain sympathy for Communism." Macdonald's argument becomes all the more interesting when applied to Vietnam: Johnson's policy was deplorable chiefly because "our President's genocidal crusade in Vietnam makes the enemy look good, relatively." Less subtle minds oppose the genocidal crusade because it is genocidal, but Macdonald is primarily interested in demonstrating the superior resourcefulness of his own anti-communism: "As an old Commie fighter, I rate Johnson about as, I imagine, old Indian-fighters voted General Custer: rash, hot-headed, vain and alarmingly ignorant of the nature of the enemy."<ref>Dwight Macdonald in ''Commentary'', September 1967, p. 55.</ref>
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 == APPENDIX III - The Devil Moves East ==
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Literallywho Ingodsname: /* APPENDIX II - Civil Defence: Kill a Neighbour */

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APPENDIX II - Civil Defence: Kill a Neighbour

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	== APPENDIX II - Civil Defence: Kill a Neighbour ==		== APPENDIX II - Civil Defence: Kill a Neighbour ==
			Defence, it seems, is everybody's business. In our total confrontation with the "communist menace," the preparedness efforts of political leaders, legislators, journalists, educators, scholars, businessmen, workers, and military were soon to be supplemented by the involvement of the average citizen in a kind of "direct action" defence. From about 1957 on, over a billion dollars were allocated at the federal, state, and local levels for civil defence programmes. Private citizens stood sentinel on housetops as "skywatchers" prepared to give warning should communist aircraft appear. Girl Scout groups baked cookies for civil defence workers who, in turn, gave up free evenings to learn the skills of air raid warden. Classes were given on first-aid treatment. School children were made to creep under their desks and cup their hands behind their necks in an ostensibly protective gesture against flying debris. Housewives were instructed to stay away from windows when the explosion came. College campuses and, indeed, whole cities, were interrupted for air raid drills. Highly paid civil defence directors lectured the taxpaying populace on the need for preparedness. Advertisements appeared offering "do-it-yourself" home shelters. In the spirit of private enterprise, the government urged citizens to build their own shelters in their backyards—and some did. Thirty million government pamphlets were distributed on how to build a family fallout shelter, along with another pamphlet entitled ''Family Food Stockpile for Survival''. President Kennedy personally endorsed a ''Life'' magazine special which demonstrated that life in a family shelter could be comfortable and adventurous. In a series of articles entitled "You Can Survive Atomic Attack" published in 400 newspapers, Dr. Willard Libby assured millions of readers that 90 to 95 percent of the population could survive if they built shelters. Provisions against thermonuclear war, however, sometimes did not withstand the first test of nature, as Dr. Libby's own shelter collapsed in a brush fire that swept the Los Angeles area. Similarly, when in 1962 a Pacific typhoon paralysed most of Oregon, the state's elaborate and expensive civil defence facilities proved helpless and worthless.<ref>These examples are taken from Cochran, ''The War System'', p. 26 ''ff''.</ref>

			The city apartment dweller had to content himself with plans for hasty urban evacuation. Assuming he were an automobile owner, and assuming that neither the roads, nor his car, nor his person had been dissolved by the blast, he could take to the clogged highways along with millions of others and drive to designated evacuation-recreation areas which, lacking any provisions for housing, food, or water, were to serve as survival places for weeks or even months. A perusal of rush-hour commuter traffic in and out of cities convinced many acute observers that the urban dweller would need protection closer at hand. So, in New York, Boston, Washington, and other cities, in basements, hallways, lobbies, school entrances, subway exits, and alleyways, black-and-yellow civil defence signs began appearing which read: "Fallout Shelter," thereby leaving everybody unmindful of the fact that fallout would be the least worry for a large city; a bomb target needs, at the very least, massive ''bomb'' shelters constructed under tons and tons of rock and concrete—something quite different from fallout shelters which offer protection only from fallout, if that. This illusionary safety fabricated by posting signs in hallways left the city dweller with the worst of both worlds. While the signs were a visible anxiety-provoking reminder of a particularly horrendous danger, the programme itself offered no real protection. To the extent that city dwellers took comfort in their urban civil-defence programmes, they were the victims of a colossal fraud.<ref>Apparently the only thing which matched the civil defence spokesman's fearful pessimism concerning the imminence of nuclear attack was his happy optimism about what was supposed to happen once the bombs started falling. Thus New York civil defence director, James McQuillen, under attack for running an expensive, wasteful, and useless programme, countered with: "We have more than 1,000 school buildings providing the best shelter in their neighborhoods for children. In the event of any possible enemy attack or national disaster,this department should certainly be in effect. It should not be abolished." ''New York Post'', 19 September 1966.</ref>

			If the cities did not satisfactorily solve their defence problems, there was some comfort in knowing that many of the top corporations had—by constructing genuine underground bomb shelters for their executive elite. Standard Oil of New Jersey, for instance, carved out the inside of Iron Mountain near Hudson, N.Y., complete with a twenty-eight-ton steel door entrance, executive offices, kitchens, dormitories, semi-private baths for the board of directors, brightly painted living rooms, a piped-music room, and living quarters for the clerical help. The leaders of free enterprise were prepared to carry on; only a near direct hit by a multi-megaton bomb would permanently interrupt corporate dealings.<ref>''The Wall Street Journal'', 12 January 1966.</ref>

			The civil defence craze, however, began to have some unanticipated side effects. Cochran's account cannot be improved upon:<blockquote>We were preparing to fight a civil war among ourselves within the larger war against the Russians. Without realizing what they were about, the government planners, in pushing for the family shelter, pushed a program that favored the rich over the poor, the house dweller over the apartment dweller, the home owner over the renter. When it was broadcast over the air waves that it was up to every family to protect itself, the me-first-and-devil-take-the-hindmost spirit was given full rein. A class and regional struggle for survival was about to commence. The county civil defense coordinator warned all citizens of Beaumont... to arm themselves with guns to repel the hundreds of thousands of refugees who would flee that way if Los Angeles was bombed. The citizens of Nevada were equally quick to see the danger and resolved that an armed militia was to seal off the northeast route out of Los Angeles. In case of war, said the Nevada civil defense head, they "would come into Nevada like a swarm of locusts." A Chicago suburbanite told... reporters that he planned to mount a machine gun in front of his shelter and mow down those who tried to force their way in. In Hartford, citizens were advised to equip themselves with firearms in order to repel those who might be running around "like madmen" after an attack. A Jesuit priest... [proclaimed] that self-defense was traditional Catholic morality, and that a person had a right to use violence to keep his unprotected neighbors from breaking their way into his family shelter.<ref>Cochran, ''op. cit''., pp. 35–36.</ref></blockquote>Alarmed by the response, government officials began to tone down their emphasis on civilian preparedness, and the public eventually returned to its previous apathy. Public indifference, it turns out, is not always a bad thing. But at least for some few people, a lukewarm response to civil defence may be due less to their inertia and unwillingness to face reality, and more to their growing suspicion that reality is not what civil defence claims it to be, and that one cannot defend the indefensible except by a search for peace.

	== APPENDIX III - The Devil Moves East ==		== APPENDIX III - The Devil Moves East ==

Literallywho Ingodsname: /* APPENDIX I - The Martial State */

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APPENDIX I - The Martial State

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	== APPENDIX I - The Martial State ==		== APPENDIX I - The Martial State ==
			No one other than General Douglas MacArthur once said: "In the final analysis the mounting cost of preparation for war is in many ways as materially destructive as war itself." But most Americans seem to support a giant military establishment and would have little sympathy for the political leader who was found to be indifferent to "our defense needs." This was not always the case. Through most of American history a strong distaste for standing armies, military professionalism and large armament budgets relegated the military to a peripheral and impoverished status in American society. World War II brought a dramatic transition in attitudes. The traditional suspicion was superseded by a new feeling that "the military must have all that they needed," as Huntington notes, "and that it was beyond the capacity of Congress to inquire into military estimates in any fundamental way. The result was that the services got what they wanted and ended the war with some fifty billion dollars in unused appropriations."<ref>Huntington, ''The Soldier and the State'', pp. 324–25.</ref> If Congress is possessed by the martial spirit, the same often has been true of the White House. As Senator McGovern described President Lyndon B. Johnson's attitude: "The rising level of defense, the supersonic plane—he'll talk about them, glamorize them, throw the full weight of the White House behind them."<ref>See Robert G. Sherrill, "The Democratic Rebels in Congress," ''The Nation'', 10 October 1966, for the McGovern comment.</ref>

			The military's influence in other governmental branches reaches right into the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. ACDA Director Foster has testified: "We have a very close relationship at the staff level to make sure that the military is active and informed. The Defense Department has assigned us 13 active officers headed by a lieutenant general in the Air Force. Assisting him is a major general in the Army and some 11 other colonels." All policy recommendations made by the ACDA to the President are first discussed with the Committee of Principals which includes the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense. The lieutenant-general heads the Weapons Evolution and Control Bureau of the ACDA.

			As industry became the supporter of ever-increasing defence preparedness, military men spoke more and more of free enterprise as epitomising "the American Way of Life." With 90 percent of the contracts awarded with no competitive bidding on the open market, carefully cultivated personal contacts between corporation and military personnel became an all-important determinant of who gets what from whom. Service officers, looking forward to the financial and social rewards that came with entrance into the business world, have been far from unresponsive to the solicitations of particular corporate interests. The Herbert Committee discovered that in 1960 more than fourteen hundred retired officers from the rank of major up were employed by the top hundred weapon concerns.<ref>Huntington, ''op. cit''., p. 362 ''ff''; Cochran, ''The War System'', p. 140.</ref>

			To cite two interesting cases: General Joseph McNarney led Air Force cohorts in a successful 1950 battle against the Navy for the B-36 bomber, resulting in huge allocations for a plane that was already obsolete. Then immediately upon retirement, he went on the payroll of Convair, the plane manufacturer who happened to have produced the B-36. As corporation president he drew $75,000 a year in addition to his yearly Air Force pension of $16,000. Rear Admiral Lloyd Harrison had an equally remarkable career. After eleven of the F3H Navy Jet fighters produced by McDonnell Aircraft and Westinghouse had crashed in flight, Admiral Harrison insisted that the contractors had good performance records. The Navy followed his advice for a $302 million expenditure—later admitted to be a disastrous waste. The Admiral upon retirement became Vice-President of McDonnell Aircraft.[4]

			The military has spent millions of dollars on public relations. As early as 1948 the Commanding General of the European Theater alone had 107 military and 30 civilians on his publicity staff. Professional advertising techniques have been employed to glorify the "image" of the various services, and to push for particular strategic and military commitments. In its successful campaign for the 1948 Draft Act, the Army admitted, with pride, that it had enlisted the help of 370 national organisations including the US Chamber of Commerce and the American Legion, contacted 351 mayors of American cities, promoted at least 591 articles and editorials, enlisted the aid of radio and television speakers, and even had the Boy Scouts distribute "fact sheets."<ref>Fred C. Cook, "The Juggernaut," ''The Nation'', 28 October 1961, p. 286.</ref> The nation's youth are being militarised in a more direct fashion: the first of 1,200 US Marine Junior ROTC programmes for youths of the 14–18 age group has been initiated at Jesuit High School in New Orleans. General Wallace Green congratulating the students for being the first to receive the "honor," said: "We in the Regular Marine Corps are proud of this new addition to the Marine Corps family." The Rev. Donald Pearce stated: "If our youth is rightly instructed, our power will be greater than any weapon man can devise..."<ref>See Jack Frazier's correspondence, ''The Nation'', 4 July 1966.</ref> The military, aware of who pays its bills, has provided countless tours for Congressmen to military installations at home and abroad complete with high-level "briefings" and the usual social amenities reserved for important personages. (That it is a federal offence to use taxpayers' money to propagandise taxpayers seems not to have deterred anyone.)

			The Pentagon finances most of the technical research at our institutions. This has led to occasional conflicts. Differences have arisen between the Navy and the Operations Evaluation Group at MIT. The Atomic Energy Commission and Harvard clashed over operation of the Cambridge Electron Accelerator, with the University contending that many of the AEC demands constituted "a serious abridgment of academic freedom." Dr. Ellis A. Johnson, head of the Army-financed Operations Research Office at John Hopkins found himself out of a job when he clashed with Army leaders who sought "strict control in detail." More in keeping with the military's sense of a good academician was Dr. A. G. Hill, a weapons research mann at MIT, who in no uncertain terms noted: "Our job is not to advance knowledge but to advance the military."<ref>Cochran, ''op. cit''., p. 144.</ref>

			The Pentagon has become one of the most enthusiastic promoters of arms sales. See, for instance, its pamphlet, ''Information and Guidance on Military Assistance'', which states:<blockquote>The Defense Department has embarked on an intensified military assistance sales program... Achievement of... objectives calls for a very substantial increase over past sales levels. Success in this endeavor will be dependent in large measure upon effective sales promotion.<ref>See Senator Eugene McCarthy, "Arms and the World," ''ADA World'', September 1966.</ref></blockquote>The use to which such armaments are put provides a dismal note: The massive military aid to Pakistan was applied by the Pakistani against the Indians in the most recent Kashmir fighting, while the Indians retaliated with American equipment of their own. The United States has offered F-86 fighters to Peru which demanded the planes because Chile purchased a like amount of fighters from Great Britain, an action originally taken in response to our sale of twenty-five modern jet fighters to Argentina. The tanks we have given to Jordan despite its declared intention to invade Israel were destroyed in 1967 by the planes we sent to Israel.

			On a smaller scale, in more secretive fashion, the Central Intelligence Agency has moved into American institutional life, financing and infiltrating student, labour, scientific, and academic groups. The CIA has financed the writings of numerous "independent" scholars, and has subsidised publishing houses and periodicals (e.g., ''Encounter''). CIA agents have been staff members of the Michigan State University $25 million, six-year operation in support of Vietnam's late dictator, Diem. The Center for International Studies at MIT was financed in part by the CIA. The scholarly journal on international relations, ''Foreign Affairs'', had on its advisory board ex-CIA chief Allen W. Dulles, and published an article on the Vietcong (April 1966) by George Carver, Jr. who, while identified as a "student of political theory," was a CIA man. Senator Eugene McCarthy summarised the dangers of an agency like the CIA: (''I'') it can become a law unto itself; operating independently of even the President (as in Laos by supporting a faction different from the one supported by President Kennedy); (''2'') it can clandestinely perform acts for the President which would otherwise not be constitutional (as in the Bay of Pig's venture by raising an army on US soil); (''3'') it becomes indifferent to the often disruptive and dangerous policy effects of its actions (as with the U-2 flight on the eve of the 1960 Summit meeting.<ref>See ''SANE World'', 7 January 1968.</ref>

	== APPENDIX II - Civil Defence: Kill a Neighbour ==		== APPENDIX II - Civil Defence: Kill a Neighbour ==

Literallywho Ingodsname: /* CHAPTER FIFTEEN - The Tragic Success */

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN - The Tragic Success

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Literallywho Ingodsname: /* CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Moral Imperialism */

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Moral Imperialism

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Literallywho Ingodsname: /* CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Profit, Prestige, and Self-Preservation */

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Profit, Prestige, and Self-Preservation

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	== CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Profit, Prestige, and Self-Preservation ==		== CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Profit, Prestige, and Self-Preservation ==
			<blockquote>Delusions may be of all kinds, but there are two types which call for special mention on account of their great frequency, ''grandiose'' and ''persecutory''... The two types are frequently combined: for example, a patient may maintain that he is the king but that an organized conspiracy exists to deprive him of his birthright. BERNARD HART, ''The Psychology of Insanity''</blockquote>Reading through the many public statements made by our political leaders one is struck by the frequent references to "America's vital interests in the world" and the almost total absence of any specific description of these interests. We are repeatedly reminded that our survival depends upon "maintaining our commitments," "providing for our needs," and "safeguarding our interests." Now no one has suggested that we ignore our obligations and interests in the world, only that we begin to define them.

			=== A Matter of Dollars and Sense ===
			Intervention, some policymakers maintain, is necessary for our economic survival. America depends upon economic relations with other lands. A tide of leftist revolutionary regimes would, to quote Dean Rusk, put "the enemies of freedom in a position to destroy us or at least to sap our strength by economic strangulation."<ref>Statement by Rusk before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, 3 August 1965.</ref> Here, at last, is a specific reference to a "vital interest."

			Investigating this "economic strangulation" thesis we find that the imagery is drastic but the evidence is wanting. Ever since the day Lenin himself first announced to the capitalist world that Soviet Russia would provide profitable trading and investment opportunities, communist governments have shown an almost shameless eagerness to do business with the Western capitalist nations. Even China, as noted earlier, maintains a growing commerce with the West and in the first years of the Warsaw talks sought unsuccessfully to initiate trade with the United States. Washington, not Moscow, thwarted the development of American-Soviet economic relations. Washington, not Havana, abolished the Cuban sugar quota—in effect inviting Castro to ply his wares in Moscow. Years ago, Hanoi spoke positively of trade prospects with the United States, and even while American bombs were raining down upon them, North Vietnamese leaders still imagined a time when economic relations between both countries would be possible.

			"Of course, the communists are eager for trade," it has been argued, "they produce little we need, but we produce much they need." In most instances this is not true. The Soviets would not be sending us "caviar and furs" for US machinery and technical know-how; rather they have offered such items as manganese, ferrous alloys, platinum, chromium, potassium salts, and industrial equipment in return for US air conditioners, vending machines, television sets, medicines, and single-use consumer goods. We have declined such exchanges, preferring to keep our virtue while leaving the Russian market to our European allies.<ref>See Jay H. Cerf, "We Should Do More Business With the Communists," ''The New York Times Magazine'', 5 December 1968.</ref> The newer revolutionary nations might have little to offer in exchange for our goods and services. But how then would the loss of their relatively worthless resources and markets bring the "economic strangulation" prophesised by Rusk? While willfully denying ourselves the important Soviet and Chinese markets we continue to contend that the loss of minor third-world markets would lead us to doom.

			In any case, there is no reason to presume that leftist revolutionary governments would be intent upon depriving us and themselves of economic relations. More likely, if the behaviour of present communist states offers any guide, a host of revolutionary governments dedicated to national development would be in sharp competition with each other for scarce technological resources, Western market opportunities, and American dollars. The United States would probably be in a better position than most other countries to win trade opportunities and exercise a friendly influence on them.

			The present economic importance of the third world has been vastly overrated; as Heilbroner notes, the total energy consumption (in terms of coal equivalents) for Afghanistan, Bolivia, Brazil, Burma, Ceylon, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Korea, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, the UAR, Uruguay, and Venezuela is less than that annually consumed by West Germany alone.<ref>Heilbroner, "Counterrevolutionary America."</ref> (One could add the annual industrial energy consumption of newly independent African states to that list without greatly altering the balance.)

			It is well known that the greatest consumer for an industrial nation is its own population. Where there is production, there are jobs, income, consumption, and markets. Most of America's wealth is produced and consumed in America; this is how we manage to enjoy such affluence. In the area of foreign trade, for much the same reason, the advanced industrial nations are each other's best customers and the bulk of American overseas trading is with Western Europe, Canada, and Japan.<ref>US direct overseas investments amount to almost $50 billion but only about $14.9 billion of this is in the third world—most of that in Latin American oil, mining, and utilities. U.S. Department of Commerce, ''Survey of Current Business'', August 1964, September 1966.</ref> The total loss of our $14.9 billion investments in the third world would hardly cause a grave dislocation to an American economy with a gross national product in 1968 approaching $850 billion, and corporate assets of almost $1.5 trillion.

			Furthermore, the profits gleaned from investments in Asia, Africa, and Latin America hardly represent a net gain for our nation. Aside from the grave moral questions concerning the exploitative sweatshop quality of third-world profits,<ref>American holdings in underdeveloped nations, while relatively small in total amount, are unusually exploitative. Investment earnings in 1964–65 averaged 23 percent in Africa, 36 percent in Asia, and 13 percent in Latin America as opposed to slightly more than 9 percent in Europe and Canada.</ref> the American empire costs us, in monetary terms alone, more than it is worth. Our entire third-world investments are about equivalent to what we have expended in six months of Vietnam fighting. In the Philippines we have spent almost $2 billion in military aid ostensibly protecting less than a half billion dollars in commercial investments. Every year our military budgets are three to four times the amount of our total third-world assets.

			The economist Kenneth Boulding reminds us that in this age of scientific invention "one can extract ten dollars from nature for every dollar one can exploit out of man." Science decreases the profitability of human exploitation by increasing the productivity of machines, and also by increasing the overhead military costs of empire. "In the last century, empire has turned out to be a burden rather than an asset,"<ref>Kenneth Boulding, "The Learning and Reality-Testing Process in the International Systems," ''International Affairs'' 21, no. 1 (1967), p. 7.</ref> Boulding concludes.

			Private corporate interests have successfully identified themselves with patriotism so that today we speak of "our" oil and "our" raw materials. But we millions of Americans who carry the burden of empire share few of its compensations. One might question whether that minor fraction of "our" wealth, as represented by overseas profits of a few select corporations, is worth the neglect of domestic social services, the disruption of national well-being, the continued growth of militarism and the enormous price in blood, sweat, and taxes that the rest of us pay.

			The propertied class in America always has been among the most active propagators of militant anti-communism. But over the years a number of conservative voices have questioned military interventionism—from Andrew Carnegie, who considered elaborate military expenditures to be a waste of good money and who argued that international trade multiplied ties among nations and rendered war unthinkable, to Senator Robert A. Taft, the late Republican leader, who contended that overseas ventures led to a larger, more coercive federal government, excessive taxation, economic strain, and a loss of domestic political freedom.<ref>See Huntington, ''The Soldier and the State'', pp. 222–226, for an account of early "business pacifism." See also Henry W. Berger, "A Conservative Critique of Containment: Senator Taft on the Early Cold War Program," in Horowitz, ''Containment and Revolution'', pp. 125–139.</ref> At the height of the Vietnam struggle the prominent Wall Street brokerage firm of Paine, Webster, Jackson, and Curtis placed this full page ad in ''The New York Times'':<blockquote>What would peace in Vietnam mean to you as an investor?

			Peace in Vietnam would be the greatest imaginable blessing. In addition to the obvious benefits resulting from an end to any war, we believe there would be substantial economic benefits...

			Pressure for a tax surcharge would be lessened and perhaps replaced by pressure for tax reduction.

			War-time spending which is non-productive would be replaced by productive spending on such things as education, housing, highways and the war on poverty.

			The cut in defense spending would reduce the Federal budget deficit, thus reducing Federal borrowing. With pressure removed, the upward climb of interest rates could be reversed.

			Thus it is not possible for us to see ''any'' negative factors resulting from an end of the hostilities in Southeast Asia. The blessing of peace would afford each of us the opportunity for a reemphasis on peacetime pursuits and the satisfaction of increased demand for all things and services to which we aspire in our affluent society.

			...Peace in Vietnam would be the most constructive—and the most bullish thing that could happen to the stock market.<ref>''The New York Times'', 8 January 1968.</ref></blockquote>But most corporate leaders enjoying the bounty of military-industrial spending, and convincing that social revolution is the mortal enemy of the American Way of Life and of the profit system in particular, give their support to the anti-communist ideology. They would do well to heed two prominent socialist scholars:<blockquote>There is much reason to suppose that the essential structure of world capitalism will survive even if resolutions spread in the third world. It is easy to conceive of a profitable trade being carried on with a Communist China, as well as a Communist Russia, Vietnam, Cuba, or Dominican Republic... [This belief]... not only accords with the simple human instincts for survival; it contains strong elements of self-interest for capitalist powers.<ref>Gettleman and Marmelstein, ''The Great Society Reader'', pp. 343–344.</ref><ref>"The only thing that can resolve the problems of hunger and misery in the underdeveloped countries is revolution... revolution that allows the people of underdeveloped nations to devote themselves to planned and peaceful work. A time will come when the United States will understand that only those countries in which a revolution has taken place are in a position to fulfill their international financial obligations." Thus spoke Fidel Castro in 1966.</ref></blockquote>It is conceivable but not imminent that corporate leaders, developing a more enlightened and flexible definition of America's "vital interests," will renounce their part in official jingoistic interventionism and move toward a policy of close, peaceful ties with friends and foes alike.

			=== Saving the Empire ===
			A global empire is terribly costly and difficult to maintain but, many have said, America is a great power; it cannot lightly discard its responsibilities to the world. But what are the responsibilities of a great power—to proceed with arrogance and presumption, to impose with violent determination its image upon smaller nations, to live and die for power, pride, and prestige, to act as great powers have so often acted? Such behavior, while very much our inclination, is hardly something we owe the world.

			Much has been said about "maintaining our commitments" but very little about the substance of such dedications. There is nothing inherently good about a "commitment"; its worth depends on the particular values and interests to which we are pledged and not on the commitment for its own sake. Yet commitment has a tendency to become self-justifying. Too often our overseas military presence is not for the purpose of defending our interests—whatever they may be, but is, itself, an interest to be defended. Thus State Department official, William Bundy, could cite "our vital military bases, our sustained military assistance" to the Philippines as an essential part of "US interests" in the islands.<ref>Speaking to an audience in Manila, Bundy found more important US interests than trade and military bases: "...the Philippines mean so much to the United States because the Filipino people have so often demonstrated that across barriers of oceans and of cultures, this is a country where Americans are always, as Filipinos often say, made to feel 'at home.'" Our "more important" interest in the Philippines, it seemed, was the preservation of Filipino hospitality. There was not a dry eye in the audience. William Bundy, "Elements of the Philippine-American Partnership," ''Department of State Bulletin'', 21 March 1966, p. 445.</ref> And no less a critic than Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. could argue: "Our national security may not have compelled us to draw a line across Southeast Asia where we did, but having drawn it, we cannot lightly abandon it. Our stake in South Vietnam may have been self-created, but it had nonetheless become real."<ref>Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., "A Middle Way Out of Vietnam."</ref> Real in what sense? Our "stake" in Vietnam was real only if we believed that commitment itself created a vital interest. "Whether or not the initial decision was a mistake is now moot," reasoned Senator Russell. "The United States does have a commitment in South Vietnam. The flag is there. United States honor and prestige are there. And, most important of all, United States soldiers are there."<ref>Quoted in Draper, ''Abuse of Power'', p. 154.</ref> For Russell, the loss of South Vietnam would hardly be fatal "from either a strategic or a tactical or an economic standpoint" but it would be a serious "blow to our world prestige." So that is it; we were worried about our image and were prepared to wage an endless, mindless, filthy war for the sake of our pride and prestige, unaware that the spectacle of a giant industrial nation trying to pulverise a tiny underdeveloped country into submission was hardly the most self-elevating image to present to the world.<ref>Even the Vatican Weekly ''L'Osservatore della Domenica'' denounces US involvement in Vietnam, reminding us that the war was undermining America's "moral and political" position even among its friends. ''The New York Times'', 4 January 1968.</ref> "There is more respect to be won in the opinion of this world," George F. Kennan once noted, "by a resolute and courageous liquidation of unsound positions than by the most stubborn pursuit of extravagant or unpromising objectives."

			The American anxiety about being "soft," our fear that others will see us as irresolute and vulnerable, compels us to remind them of our power and our "determination to stand firm." It seems never to have occurred to us that the only people in the world who fear that America may not be sufficiently strong are the Americans. We exercise our power in order to maintain our prestige, and we begin to define our prestige exclusively in terms of our power. Yet other people make a distinction: they are painfully aware of our immense strength and it is this very strength which detracts from our popularity and prestige by becoming an object of fear and distrust. A nation, William Foote Whyte reminds us, can be judged as weak or strong, but it is also judged along other dimensions: cruel or humane, reckless or responsible, warlike or peaceable, arrogant or respectful of others, imperialistic or anti-imperialistic, intelligent or stupid. Suppose our actions in Vietnam and elsewhere "convince the opinion leaders of a given nation that we are strong—but that we are also cruel, reckless, warlike, arrogant, imperialistic, and stupid. Have we improved our 'image' in that nation?"<ref>William Foote Whyte, "Thoughtways of Foreign Policy," ''The Nation'', 30 May 1966, p. 642.</ref> Have we gained popularity, respect, and support and shown ourselves worthy of that role of "world leader" to which we so strenuously aspire?

			Perhaps, as Heilbroner suggests, the European nations have made their peace with communism more easily than we because they know they can no longer lead the world. Can we accept a similar scaling-down of our place in history or must we continue to see every violent upheaval in every jungle and mountain village as a potentially mortal challenge to "our status as a great nation"? A deep deficiency is betrayed in our preoccupation with power and prestige, our necessity to be Number One, to always come out on top, to lead the pack. Senator J. William Fulbright offers this diagnosis:<blockquote>In America's case the evidence of a lack of self-confidence is our apparent need for constant proof and reassurance, our nagging desire for popularity, our bitterness and confusions when foreigners fail to appreciate our generosity and good intentions. Lacking an appreciation of the dimensions of our own power, we fail to understand that no matter how good our intentions... other nations are alarmed by the very existence of such great power, which, whatever its benevolence, cannot help but remind them of their own helplessness before it...

			When a nation is very powerful but lacking in self-confidence, it is likely to behave in a manner dangerous to itself and to others. Feeling the need to prove what is obvious to everyone else, it begins to confuse great power with unlimited power and great responsibility with total responsibility; it can admit of no error; it must win every argument no matter how trivial.<ref>Fulbright, ''The Arrogance of Power'', pp. 21–22.</ref></blockquote>Magnanimity, empathy, restraint, and modesty have seldom been our redeeming features. In its behavior toward others America has displayed a curious but compatible mixture of chronic insecurity, and unspeakable arrogance. Our messianic self-sacrifice hides our limitless self-indulgence, and the disdain and fear we feel for others are best expressed by our desire to control or throttle them.

			Our method is not defensive but expansionist. We are not so much defending "vital interests" in such places as Southeast Asia as trying to establish new ones.<ref>As the British withdraw from bases in Singapore and the Persian Gulf area we are, according to former State Department spokesman Eugene Rostow, actively considering measures to build up an American presence and extend our commitments into that region. ''The New York Times'', 20 January 1968.</ref> If it is true, as the globalists argue, that we need to expand in order to protect what is already "ours" we might at least acknowledge that when the Chinese and others accuse us of expansionism, they speak with some accuracy. And we might wonder why unlimited expansion for the sake of self-defence is a privilege which other nations should not exercise, and which should not be opposed when exercised by us. This brings us to the question of moral imperialism.

	== CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Moral Imperialism ==		== CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Moral Imperialism ==

Literallywho Ingodsname: /* CHAPTER TWELVE - Revolution and Counterrevolution */

2025-06-01T20:28:55Z

CHAPTER TWELVE - Revolution and Counterrevolution

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Literallywho Ingodsname: /* CHAPTER ELEVEN - Vietnam: Who? Why? */

2025-05-11T19:32:24Z

CHAPTER ELEVEN - Vietnam: Who? Why?

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Literallywho Ingodsname: /* CHAPTER TEN - The Yellow Demon II */

2025-03-03T02:01:11Z

CHAPTER TEN - The Yellow Demon II

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