Readings In U.S. History 1608030172

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Readings in

U.S. History Nunn McGinty Reader Series

© 2019, 2011, 2010 by Nunn McGinty Publishing All rights reserved. Permission in writing must be obtained from the publisher before any part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system.

Cover Photographs: Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division

Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

n u n n m c g i n t y. c o m

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ISBN 10: 1-60803-017-2 ISBN 13: 978-1-60803-017-0

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contents

chapter 1

chapter 2

chapter 3

The Early 20th century

1

Agitation—The Greatest Factor for Progress  Mother Jones 1906: Rumble over ‘The Jungle’  Jon Blackwell Remember Ludlow!  Julia May Courtney Frederick Taylor—The Biggest Bastard Ever The War Prayer  Mark Twain The House-Grey Memorandum

3 7 13 17 25 29

World War I–New Deal

33

Final Address in Support of the League of Nations  Woodrow Wilson Buck Versus Bell Roosevelt’s Nomination Address The Negro and Social Change  Eleanor Roosevelt War is a Racket  Major General Smedley D. Butler

35

World War II–Cold War

75

Radio Address Delivered by President Roosevelt Attack on Pearl Harbor As Seen From High on Battleship Pennsylvania’s Mainmast The Great Arsenal of Democracy  Franklin Delano Roosevelt Lend Lease Act, 1941 Letter from President Roosevelt to Stalin on an Acceptable Compromise Regarding the Composition of the Postwar Polish Government State of the Union Message to Congress  Franklin D. Roosevelt What Does American Democracy Mean to Me? Mary McLeod Bethune Chief Clerk, Toolroom  Inez Sauer The Atlantic Charter

77 81

49 55 67 71

91 101 107

111 121 125 129

iii

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iv  american society since 1900

chapter 4

chapter

5

chapter 6

chapter 7

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The Cold War

133

Truman Announces Hiroshima Atomic Bombing Excerpts from Telegraphic Message from Moscow  George Kennan Statement by General Marshall Excerpts From Acheson’s Speech To The National Press Club US, Department of State, Intelligence Report Prepared in the Office of Intelligence Research, “Agrarian Reform in Guatemala” Radio and Television Address on Communism in Guatemala  John Foster Dulles CIA Report on Overthrow of Mossadegh Memorandum From the Chief of WH/4/PM, Central Intelligence Agency (Hawkins) to the Chief of WH/4 of the Directorate for Plans (Esterline) Cuban Missile Crisis Address to the Nation  John F. Kennedy

135 139

Civil Rights

201

Power Anywhere Where There’s People  Fred Hampton The Civil Rights Movement: Fraud, Sham, and Hoax  George C. Wallace Loving ET UX. V. Virginia Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports On Intelligence Activities and The Rights of Americans

203 213

Movements Of The 60s

251

Interview With Hugh Hefner Testimony Of Abbie Hoffman Yippie Workshop Speech  Abbie Hoffman Address at the Public Memorial Service for Robert F. Kennedy  Edward M. Kennedy FBI Files on Black Panthers in North Carolina Bob Dylan’s Letter to the INS Defending John Lennon and Yoko Ono

253 261

Sex, Women, And Family

313

Speech Before Congress  Carrie Chapman Catt Testimony of Professor Anita Hill Regarding Clarence Thomas The Hope Speech  Harvey Milk Paul Farmer on Structural Violence, AIDS and Health Care FBI File on Alfred Kinsey Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010

315 321 325 331 347 355

155 159 161 173 177 183

193

229 247

289

295 299 311

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Contents  v

chapter 8

chapter 9

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The Rise Of The Right: 80s–00

359

The Meaning Of Communism To Americans  Vice-President Richard Nixon Ronald Reagan Address on Behalf of Senator Barry Goldwater Rendezvous with Destiny Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech  Richard M. Nixon Dictatorships & Double Standards  Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Honduras: Dictatorships and Double Standards Revisited  Daniel Luban and Jim Lobe The CIA’s Intervention in Afghanistan  Sarah Palin Slams Obama Again on Ayers at Florida Rally Transcript  Lynn Sweet

361

9/11–Today

423



425 427 429 433 439

381 393 405 409 413 415

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chapter one

The Early 20th century

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Agitation—The Greatest Factor for Progress Mother Jones, (March 24, 1903)

One of the most extraordinary organizers of the labor movement in the early twentieth century was Mary Harris, who took the name “Mother Jones.” Born in Ireland, she became an organizer for the United Mine Workers, and, in her eighties, organized miners in West Virginia and Colorado. In 1905, she helped form the IWW. Upton Sinclair was so inspired by her that he used her as a model for one of his characters in his novel The Coal War, which chronicled the Ludlow strike and massacre. “All over the country she had roamed, and wherever she went, the flame of protest had leaped up in the hearts of men; her story was a veritable Odyssey of revolt.” Here is a selection from an address Mother Jones gave to a mass audience in Toledo’s Memorial Hall in 1903, as reported by the Toledo Bee. —Introduction from Zinn and Arnove’s Voices of a People’s History of the United States

“Mother” Jones, known throughout the country and in fact throughout the world as “The Miners’ Angel,” addressed a motley gathering of about 1,200 persons in Memorial hall last night. The lower hall was packed. The gallery was full to overflowing and some even crowded the steps leading to the building. It was truly a motley gathering. The society woman, attracted by mere curiosity to see and hear the woman who has won such fame as the guardian spirit of the miners; the factory girl, the wealthy man and his less fortunate brothers, the black man and the white man, old and young, sat side by side and each came in for a share of criticism. 3

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4  the early 20th century

“Mother” Jones is an eloquent speaker. There is just enough of the down-east accent to her words to make it attractive and she has the faculty of framing pathetic and beautiful word pictures. Despite her sixty years and hex gray hairs, she is hale and hearty; has a voice that reaches to the furthermost corner of almost any hall but it is nevertheless anything but harsh. . . . “Fellow workers,” she began, “‘tis well for us to be here. Over a hundred years ago men gathered to discuss the vital questions and later fought together for a principle that won for us our civil liberty. Forty years ago men gathered to discuss a growing evil under the old flag and later fought side by side until chattel slavery was abolished. But, by the wiping out of this black stain upon our country another great crime—wage slavery—was fastened upon our people. I stand on this platform ashamed of the conditions existing in this country. I refused to go to England and lecture only a few days ago because I was ashamed, first of all, to make the conditions existing here known to the world and second, because my services were needed here. I have just come from a God-cursed country, known as West Virginia; from a state which has produced some of our best and brightest statesmen; a state where conditions are too awful for your imagination. “I shall tell you some things tonight that are awful to contemplate; but, perhaps, it is best that you to know of them. They may arouse you from your lethargy if there is any manhood, womanhood or love of country left in you. I have just come from a state which has an injunction on every other foot of ground. Some months ago the president of the United Mine Workers [John Mitchell] asked me to take a look into the condition of the men in the mines of West Virginia. I went. I would get a gathering of miners in the darkness of the night up on the mountain side. Here I would listen to their tale of woe; here I would try to encourage them. I did not dare to sleep in one of those miner’s houses. If I did the poor man would be called to the office in the morning and would be discharged for sheltering old Mother Jones. “I did my best to drive into the downtrodden men a little spirit, but it was a task. They had been driven so long that they were afraid. I used to sit through the night by a stream of water. I could not go to the miners’ hovels so in the morning I would call the ferryman and he would take me across the river to a hotel not owned by the mine operators. “The men in the anthracite district finally asked for more wages. They were refused. A strike was called. I stayed in West Virginia,’ held meetings

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Agitation—The Greatest Factor for Progress  5

and one day as I stood talking to some break-boys two injunctions were served upon me. I asked the deputy if he had more. We were arrested but we were freed in the morning. I objected to the food in the jail and to my arrest. When I was called up before the judge I called him a czar and he let me go. The other fellows were afraid and they went to jail. I violated injunction after injunction but I wasn’t re-arrested. Why? The courts themselves force you to have no respect for that court. “A few days later that awful wholesale murdering in the quiet little mining camp of Stamford took place. I know those people were law-abiding citizens. I had been there. And their shooting by United States deputy marshals was an atrocious and cold-blooded murder. After the crimes had been committed the marshals—the murderers—were banqueted by the operators in the swellest hotel in Pennsylvania. You. have no idea of the awfulness of that wholesale murder. Before daylight broke in the morning in that quiet little mining camp deputies and special officers went into the homes, shot the men down in their beds, and all because the miners wanted to try to induce ‘black-legs’ [strike-breakers] to leave the mines. “I’ll tell you how the trouble started. The deputies were bringing these strikebreakers to the mines. The men wanted to talk with them and at last stepped on ground loaded down with an injunction. There were thirty-six or seven in the party of miners. They resisted arrest. They went home finally without being arrested. One of the officials of the miners’ unions telegraphed to the men. ‘Don’t resist. Go to jail. We will bail you out.’ A United States marshal . . . sent back word that the operators would not let them use the telephone to send the message to the little mining camp and that he could not get there before hours had passed. The miners’ officials secured the names of the men and gave their representatives authority to bail them out of jail the next morning. But when the next morning arrived they were murdered in cold blood. “These federal judges, who continue granting injunctions, are appointed by men who have their political standing through the votes of you labor union fellows! You get down on your knees like a lot of Yahoos when you want something. At the same time you haven’t sense enough to take peaceably what belongs to you through the ballot. You are chasing a  will-o-the-wisp, you measly things, and the bullets which should be  sent  into your own measly, miserable, dirty carcasses, shoot down innocent men. Women are not responsible because they have no vote.

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You’d all better put on petticoats. If you like those bullets vote to put them into your own bodies. Don’t you think it’s about time you began to shoot ballots instead of voting for capitalistic bullets. “I hate your political parties, you Republicans and Democrats. I want you to deny if you can what I am going to say. You want an office and must necessarily get into the ring. You must do what that ring says and if you don’t you won’t be elected. There you are. Each time you do that you are voting for a capitalistic bullet and you get it. I want you to know that this man [Samuel Milton] Jones who is running for mayor of your beautiful city is no relative of mine; no, sir. He belongs to that school of reformers who say capital and labor must join hands. He may be all right. He prays a good deal. But, I wonder if you would shake hands with me if I robbed you. He builds parks to make his workmen contented. But a contented workman is no good. All progress stops in the contented man. I’m for agitation. It’s the greater factor for progress[.]” Here the speaker changed her attention to the society woman. “I see a lot of society women in this audience, attracted here out of a mere curiosity to see that old Mother Jones.’ I know you better than you do yourselves. I can walk down the aisle and pick every one of you out. You probably think I am crazy but I know you. And you society dudes—poor creatures. You wear high collars to support your jaw and keep your befuddled brains from oozing out of your mouths. While this commercial cannibalism is reaching into the cradle; pulling girls into the factory to be ruined; pulling children into the factory to be destroyed; you, who are doing all in the name of Christianity, you are at home nursing your poodle dogs. It’s high time you got out and worked for humanity. Christianity will take care of itself. I started in a factory. I have traveled through miles and miles of factories and there is not an inch of ground under that flag that is not stained with the blood of children.”

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1906: Rumble over ‘The Jungle’ Jon Blackwell

U

pton Sinclair was a desperately poor, young socialisthoping to remake the world when he settleddown in a tarpaper shack in Princeton Township and penned his Great American Novel. He called it “The Jungle,” filled it with page after page of nauseating detail he had researched about the meat-packing industry, and dropped it on an astonished nation in 1906. An instant best-seller, Sinclair’s book reeked with the stink of the Chicago stockyards. He told how dead rats were shoveled into sausagegrinding machines; how bribed inspectors looked the other way when diseasedcows were slaughtered for beef, and how filth and guts were swept off the floor and packaged as “potted ham.” In short, “The Jungle” did as much as any animal-rights activist of today to turn Americans into vegetarians. But it did more than that. Within months, the aroused—and gagging— public demanded sweeping reforms inthe meat industry. President Theodore Roosevelt was sickened after reading an advance copy. He called upon Congress to pass a law establishing the Food and Drug Administration and, for the first time, setting up federal inspection standards for meat. Sinclair, all of 28 years old, had gone overnight from literary failure to the man who took on the mighty “beeftrust”—and won. Visions of ridding America of all its capitalist evils came floating into his head.

Source: The Trentonian

7

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8  the early 20th century

“It seemed to me that the walls of the mighty fortress of greed were on the point of cracking,” he later wrote. “It needed only one rush, and then another, and another.” Reporters flocked to the author’s farmhouse at Province Line Road to find out: who was this skinny, smiling young man with the pale face and intense eyes? Upton Beall Sinclair was, for all his socialist thought,the very model of the all-American kid. He grew up in New York City, the son of poor but proud parents. Barely intohis teens, he became a freelancer, writing boy’s adventure tales. He eventually pounded out 30,000 words of ­dime-novel drama every week, even while he attended City College of New York. Sinclair aspired to be a great writer of serious books,but he admit­ ted that all his hack work led him to use too many cliches and exaggerations. Even Sinclair’s biographer, William Bloodworth, said the overwrought Sinclair style can be too much to take. “It’s not what I would consider great literature,” said Bloodworth, the president of Augusta State University in Georgia. “There isn’t much character development in his works or subtlety. What he was good at was descriptions . . . of turning real-life situations into fiction.” Sinclair’s first novel, “Springtime and Harvest,”published in 1901, did not sell. Neither did his second,third or fourth novels. Literary society ignored him. His only child, David,nearly died of pneumonia. He grew increasingly distant from his newlywed wife, Meta, and demanded that the two practice celibacy. Frustrated, Sinclair wrote a “letter to the world” with almost hysterical self-pity: “You may sneer . . . but you will live to blush for that sneer.” The young writer needed something to give him hope. He found it in the revolutionary doctrine of socialism. Sinclair wrote socialist propaganda and made socialist friends, among them writer Jack London and wealthy eccentric George Herron. With the help of an allowance from Herron, Sinclair went off to work on his latest project—a Civil War novel. “The place selected was Princeton,” Sinclair wrote, “because that university possessed the second-largestCivil War collection in the country. So in May 1903, the migration took place and for three years and a half Princeton was home.”

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1906: Rumble over ‘The Jungle’  9

Sinclair never liked Princeton. He hated the cold and the mosquitoes and the “ignorance” of his farmer neighbors. “The families . . . contained drunkards, degenerates, mental or physical defectives, semi-idiots, ­victims of tuberculosis or venereal disease and now and then a petty criminal,” he later wrote. Still, Sinclair was full of hope as he pitched a canvas tent on a farm on Ridge View Road and wrote his novel, “Manassas.” It was a modest success, enabling him to buy a 60-acre farm of his own on Province Line Road and move into an actual house with his wife and son. Sinclair then read of a meat-packing strike in Chicago, and knew he had a good plot for the first great socialist novel. For two months in 1904, Sinclair wandered the Chicago stockyards— a place he would write of as “Packingtown.” He mingled with the ­foreign-born “wage slaves” in their tenements and heard how they’d been mistreated and ripped off. He saw for himself the sloppy practices in the packing houses and the mind-numbing, 12-hour-a-day schedule. Then it was back to the quietwoods of Princeton to write “The Jungle.” Sinclair hunkered down in a hand-built, 18-by-16-foot cabin and took pen to paper. “For three months I worked incessantly,” Sinclair latersaid. “I wrote with tears and anguish, pouring into the pages all the pain that life had meant to me.” “The Jungle” was the story of Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant working in Packingtown. Jurgis sees his American dream of a decent life dissolve into nightmare as his job hauling steer carcasses in the stockyards leaves him boneweary and unable to support his family. He loses his his job when he beats up his boss, furious at discovering the cad seduced his wife; then he loses the wife to disease and his son to drowning. But Jurgis finds rebirth upon joining the socialist movement, and the book closes with a socialist orator shouting: “Organize! Organize! Organize! . . . CHICAGO WILL BE OURS!” It was stirring, melodramatic stuff, but five publishers found it too politically hot to handle and turned the novel down. Sinclair persisted and got Doubleday topublish it in February 1906. “The Jungle,” in all its sordid detail, was soon acclaimed as the most revolutionary piece of fiction of the age. In London, future Prime Minister

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Winston Churchill said the book “pierces the thickest skull and most leathery heart.” Mostly, however, the politicians ignored the anti-capitalist plot of the book and focused on eight pages describing the sickening standards of meat packing. Roosevelt sent his own agents toChicago to investigate whether meat packing was as bad as Sinclair described. The conditions were actually a hundred times worse, the agents reported back. The president invited Sinclair to the White House and solicited his advice on how to make inspections safer. By June 30, Congress had passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, cracking down on unsafe food and  patent medicines, and the Meat Inspection Act. To this day,our hamburgers, chicken patties and other meats are safeguarded by the same law. Roosevelt was so taken with Sinclair that he coined the term “muckrakers” to describe him and other reformist crusaders, even though the president’s phrase was not meant to be wholly complimentary. Yet Sinclair considered his triumph empty. He complained that the tragedy of industrial life and his socialist preaching were being lost in the meat controversy. “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach,” he said. Still, Sinclair was hardly done muckraking. He ran for Congress out of Mercer County on the socialist ticket that fall of 1906, finishing a distant third with 750 votes. He produced his own stage version of “TheJungle,” which premiered at Taylor Opera House in Trenton. In the winter of 1906-07, with $30,000 in book royalties, he founded a cooperative colony at Helicon Hall on the Jersey Palisades. It drew 40 families, but the would-be Utopia burned down the following March. That was to be the pattern for therest of Sinclair’s longlife: success followed by failure. He divorced Meta and married twice more. He wrote dozens of forgettable novels but then won the Pulitzer Prize in 1945 for “Dragon’s Teeth.” After moving to California, he waged one of the more remarkable campaigns in political history in 1934, running for governor on a revolutionary Democraticplatform called “End Poverty in California” or EPIC. Derided as a crank and a mystic, he still nearly won.

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1 9 0 6 : R u m b l e o v e r ‘ T h e J u n g l e ’   11

Sinclair lived to be 90. In the last year of his life, in 1968, he came full circle—moving back to New Jersey to be near his son’s family in Bound Brook. Right up to his death, Sinclair would be taken in a wheelchair to talk about his life’s struggles in high schools. At Bridgewater-Raritan High School, the original muckraker got one of his last tributes from a teenaged girl. “You’re cool, Mr. Sinclair,” she told him.

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Remember Ludlow! Julia May Courtney, May 1914

“REMEMBER LUDLOW” the battle cry of the crushed, downtrodden, despised miners stifled at Calumet, in West Virginia, in Cripple Creek, has echoed from coal camp to coal camp in southern Colorado, and has served again to notify the world that Labor will not down. Peaceful Colorado, slumbering in her eternal sunshine, has been rudely awakened. And her comfortable citizens, tremendously busy with their infinitely important little affairs, have been shocked into a mental state wavering between terror and hysteria. And the terrified and hysterical community, like the individual, has grabbed for safety at the nearest straw. The federal troops are called to the strike zone in the vain hope that their presence would intimidate the striking miners into submission, and the first spasm of the acute attack has subsided. But the end is not yet. In September the coal miners in the southern Colorado district went out on strike. Immediately the word went forth from No. 26 Broadway, the Rockefeller headquarters in New York City, and the thugs and gunmen of the Felts-Baldwin agency were shipped from the Virginia and Texas fields and sent by hundreds, into the coal camps. With their wives and children the miners were evicted from their huts on the company’s ground, and just as the heavy winter of the mountains settled down, the strikers put up their tents and prepared for the long siege. It was then that the puerile, weak-kneed Governor [Elias] Ammons, fawning on the representatives of the coal companies, at the request of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Co., called out the militia to “keep order.” And the climax came when the first spring winds blew over the hills and the snows melted from the mountain sides. On the 20th of April the 13

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cry was heard “Remember Ludlow!”—the battle cry that every workingman in Colorado and in America will not forget. For on that day the men of the tent colony were shot in the back by soft-nosed bullets, and their women and children were offered in burning sacrifice on the field of Ludlow. The militia had trained the machine guns on the miners’ tent colony. At a ball game on Sunday between two teams of strikers the militia interfered, preventing the game; the miners resented, and the militia—with a sneer and a laugh—fired the machine guns directly into the tents, knowing at the time that the strikers’ wives and children were in them. Charging the camp, they fired the two largest buildings—the strikers’ stores—and going from tent to cent, poured oil on the flimsy structures, setting fire to them. From the blazing tents rushed the women and children, only to be beaten back into the fire by the rain of bullets from the militia. The men rushed to the assistance of their families; and as they did so, they were dropped as the whirring messengers of death sped surely to the mark. Louis Tikas, leader of the Greek colony, fell a victim to the mine guards’ fiendishness, being first clubbed, then shot in the back while he was their prisoner. Fifty-two bullets riddled his body. Into the cellars—the pits of hell under their blazing tents—crept the women and children, less fearful of the smoke and flames than of the nameless horror of the spitting bullets. One man counted the bodies of nine little children, taken from one ashy pit, their tiny fingers burned away as they held to the edge in their struggle to escape. As the smoking ruins disclosed the charred and suffocated bodies of the victims of the holocaust, thugs in State uniform hacked at the lifeless forms, in some instances nearly cutting off heads and limbs to show their contempt for the strikers. Fifty-five women and children perished in the fire of the Ludlow tent colony. Relief parties carrying the Red Cross flag were driven back by the gunmen, and for twenty-four hours the bodies lay crisping in the ashes, while rescuers vainly tried to cross the firing line. And the Militiamen and gunmen laughed when the miners petitioned “Czar Chase” [General John Chase] and Governor Ammons for the right to erect their homes and live in them. . . . [F]or the first time in the history of the labor war in America the people are with the strikers—they glory in their success. The trainmen

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R e m e m b e r L u d l o w !   15

have refused to carry the militia—enure companies of the National Guard have mutinied—nearly every union in the State has offered funds and support of men and arms to the strikers—and the governor has asked for federal troops. The federal troops are here—the women who forced the governor to ask for them believe they have secured Peace—but it is a dead hope. For Peace can never be built on the foundation of Greed and Oppression. And the federal troops cannot change the system—only the strikers can do that. And though they may lay down their arms for a time—they will “Remember Ludlow!”

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Frederick Taylor—the biggest bastard ever

A

t the turn of the century many historians wrote cutesy fluff pieces in the media about who had been the most influential person of the 20th century. Many names were floated: Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, Einstein, Ghandi, etc. One name that didn’t appear on many lists was Frederick Taylor. While Taylor is a common name in labor history circles, his name is unfamiliar to most. Yet Taylor’s impact on the 20th century was profound, so profound that his ideas continue to shape the day-to-day lived experience of most people today. Taylor was a management theorist a theorist of the labor process. In an era where the capitalist firm was becoming larger and larger, employing more and more workers, a fundamental problem was emerging: How do we get workers to work more? Of course this had always been a problem for capitalists. But the rapidly expanding size of the factory was demanding more nuanced control over workers to ensure maximum output. (When the length of the working day can’t be extended then one must turn to the labor process itself. One must find a way of increasing the intensity of labor so that it produces more per hour. Remember that the capitalist doesn’t buy labor. He buys labor power the ability of the worker to labor. How long and hard those workers work is an issue to be struggled over.) During the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s Frederick Taylor studied, experimented with, and wrote about the theory of work. His goal was to find ways of controlling the motions of workers so as to attain the ­highest possible output for every dollar spent on wages. His writings are  an incredibly lucid and frank distillation of the capitalist ­perspective on class struggle. Very rarely do we see the capitalist class engaging in such open discussions about how to control and exploit a 17

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18  the early 20th century

labor force. The frankness of his writings almost eliminates the need for ­interpretation thus much of this video will just be excerpts of his ­writings. For Frederick Taylor there was an enormous problem afflicting modern society: workers didn’t work hard enough. He called such laziness “soldiering”. “We can see our forests vanishing, our water-powers going to waste . . . . The end of our coal and iron is in sight. But the larger wastes of human effort, which go on everyday through such of our acts as are blundering, ill-directed or inefficient are less-visible, less tangible and are but vaguely appreciated. . . . And for this reason, even though our daily loss from this source are greater, . . . the one has stirred us deeply while the other has moved us but little.” (Taylor, iii) Taylor is shocked that the inefficiency of workers hasn’t created a national outcry: “As yet there has been no public agitation for ‘greater national efficiency’, no meetings have been called. . . .” (Taylor, iii) Taylor was often upset that others around him didn’t share his obsession with efficiency and it was an obsession. Taylor was obsessive-compulsive. As a child he counted his steps and timed all of his actions so as to make his motions as efficient as possible. In his adult life he sought to impose his obsessive compulsions on all those around him and eventually the entire capitalist world. And the capitalist world was ready for a Taylor. In the late 19th century capitalism was growing fast, competition was accelerating, the firm was growing in size and with it the number of workers employed on a  single shop-floor. The need for increased control over this mass of workers was growing as was the need for them to work more efficiently to stay competitive. “. . . in a majority of cases the man deliberately plans to do as little as he possibly can to turn out far less work than he is well able to do in many instances to do not more than one-third to one-half of a proper day’s work. . . . This constitutes the greatest evil with which the working people of England and America are now afflicted.” (Taylor, p.3) For Taylor a “proper days work” meant the maximum level of output humanly possible. He often called it “a fair days work”. When workers were not physically capable or unwilling to work “a fair days work” he fired them. Why did workers soldier? Taylor never was able to give an answer to this question. To him it represented one big misunderstanding between

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F r e d e r i c k T a y l o r — T h e B i g g e s t B a s t a r d E v e r   19

capitalists and workers. Actually, Taylor argued, there was no fundamental antagonism between workers and capitalists. “The majority of these men believe that the fundamental interests of employees and employers are necessarily antagonistic. Scientific management, on the contrary, has for its very foundation the firm conviction that the true interests of the two are one and the same.”(Taylor, page 1) Soldiering was made possible because management didn’t even know how much work it was possible to extract from workers. “The greater part of the systematic soldiering is done… by the men with the deliberate object of keeping their employers ignorant of how fast work can be done.” (Taylor, page.7) Taylor’s goal was to seize this knowledge of the labor process from the worker and put it in the hands of management to be used as a tool for control. He called this “scientific management”. As a science management could refine the labor process to a point of efficiency far greater than any worker could achieve on their own. “. . . the science which underlies each workman’s act is so great and amounts to so much that the workman who is best suited to actually doing the work is incapable, either through lack of education or through insufficient mental capacity, of understanding this science.” Note the wording “the workman who is best suited.” Who were these workers who were best suited for particular jobs? Workers who were too intelligent, too strong-willed, or incapable of working at maximum speeds were not best suited. Taylor envisioned a perfectly harmonious social order where all  workers were employed in occupations where they could work most efficiently. They would be accompanied by a strata of scientific managers who analyzed their motions and reorganized them for maximum output. Anyone one who didn’t fit into this perfect vision of the world would be fired. “the greatest prosperity can exist only when that individual has reached his highest state of efficiency; that is when he is turning out his largest daily output.” (p2) “The search for better more competent men . . . was never more vigorous than it is now. . . . It is only when we fully realize that our duty as well as our opportunity lies in systematically cooperating to train and to make this competent man . . . that we shall be on the road to national efficiency.” (iii)

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The entire structure of production and society would revolve around the creation of this new efficient human. “In the past man has been first; in the future the system must be first.” “The fundamental principles of scientific management are applicable to all kinds of human activities, from our simplest individual acts to the works of our great corporations. . . . the same principles can be applied with equal force to all social activities: to the management of our homes; the management of our farms; the management of the business of our tradesman, large and small; of our churches, our philanthropic institutions, our universities and our governmental departments.” (iv) We can just imagine how satisfying such a rationalized fantasy-world must have seemed to his obsessive-compulsive mind. A big part of this fantasy world was Taylor’s concept of harmony between classes. Taylor believed that all the workers he was retraining to work harder were his friends and that he had their best interest at heart even if they didn’t know that. He persisted in this fantasy even when workers threatened to kill him (p.24) “. . . the men who were under [me] were [my] personal friends. . . . [I ] used every expedient to make them do a fair day’s work, such as discharging or lowering the wages of the more stubborn men who refused to make any improvement. . . . ” (p.23) Midvale Steel testimony before Special Committee of the US House of Representatives: Taylor started his management career at the Midvale Steel Company outside Philadelphia. “As soon as I became gang boss the men who were working under me and who, of course, knew that I was onto the whole game of soldiering or deliberately restricted output, came to me at once and said, “Now Fred, you are not going to be a damn piecework hog, are you?” “I said ‘If you fellows mean you are afraid I am going to try to get a larger output from these lathes,’ I said ‘Yes; I do propose to get more  work out.’ I said ‘You must remember I have been square with you fellows up to now and worked with you. . . . I have been on your side of the fence. But now I have accepted a job under the management of this company and I am on the other side of the fence, and I will tell you perfectly frankly that I am going to try to get a bigger output from  those lathes.’ They answered ‘Then you are going to be a damned hog.’”

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“I said ‘Well if you want to put it that way, all right.’ They said, ‘We warn you Fred, if you try to bust any of these rates, we will have you over the fence in six weeks.’ I said, ‘That is alright; I will tell you fellows frankly that I propose to try to get a bigger output off these machines.’” “Now that was the beginning of a piecework fight that lasted for nearly three years, as I remember it… in which I was doing everything in my power to increase the output of the shop, while the men were absolutely determined that the output should not be increased. . . .” “I began, of course, by directing some one man to do more work than he had done before, and then I got on the lathe myself and showed him that it could be done. In spite of this, he went ahead and turned out exactly the same old output and refused to adopt better methods or to work quicker until finally I laid him off and got another man in his place. This new man I could not blame him in the least of circumstances turned right around and joined the other fellows and refused to do any more work than the rest.” Notice that Taylor says he couldn’t blame this man for not wanting to work harder. In several accounts of his battle at Midvale Steel Taylor does admits to some sort of fundamental antagonism between management and workers. “As a truthful man, I had to tell them that if I were in their place I would fight against turning out any more work, just as they were doing, because under the piecework system they would be allowed to earn no more wages than they had been earning, and yet they would be made to work harder.” (p.24) Taylor was convinced that workers needed a material reward for working harder. A fundamental part of his theory of scientific management was the permanent raising of wages for workers who conformed to this new scientific work ethic. Taylor thought that capitalists would consent to higher wages because the increased cost of higher wages would be compensated for by the increased size in output and by the diminished size of the workforce(increased efficiency and “scientific selection of workers” meant massive layoffs for many of the firms Taylor laid his hands on.) But, to Taylor’s great dismay, once new levels of efficiency had been reached most employers chose to slash rates and wages returned to normal or even lower. In fact, the effect of scientific management was to reduce the skill-set of the working class as a whole which in turn reduced

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labor’s bargaining power and lowered wages. It seemed there were fundamental class antagonisms immune to Taylor’s utopian philosophy. But back to Midvale . . . Taylor decided to take the next step: “I hunted up some especially intelligent laborers who were competent men . . . and I deliberately taught these men how to run a lathe and how to work right and fast . . . . and every solitary man, when I had taught them their trade, one after another turned right around and joined the rest of the fellows and refused to work one bit faster.” Frustrated Taylor decided to take the next step. He said to the men, “Now, I am going to cut your rate in two tomorrow and you are going to work for half price from now on. But all you have to do is to turn out a fair day’s work and you can work better wages. . . .” Eventually the men caved in and production rose at the Midvale Steel factory. “After that we were good friends, but it took three years of hard fighting to bring this about.” Emboldened by this success Taylor went on to become a highly soughtafter and influential management consultant. Over the years he perfected his system of “scientific management.” Here’s how the system worked. First Taylor would observe the labor process as it existed. He cataloged all the motions of the workers and timed them. He then set about, through trial and error, devising the most efficient flow of motions possible. “. . . there are many different ways in common use for doing the same thing. . . . there is always one method and one implement which is better than any of the rest. And this one best method and best implement can only be discovered or developed through a scientific study and analysis of all the methods and implements in use, together with accurate, minute, motion and time study.” (p.9) No job was too simple or complex. Taylor famously spent 26 years studying the best way to cut metal. (The task seemed impossible to rationalize as there were too many variables. Even famous mathematicians told him it couldn’t be done. But Taylor’s obsessive compulsive genius prevailed.) But simple work could be rationalized as well. In a famous example Taylor sought to come up with a more efficient method for loading pig-iron into a train car. Men had to pick up a piece of pig-iron, walk up a plank and drop the pig-iron into a train car. On average a worker could load about 12 1/2 tons of pig iron a day. After careful study

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Taylor “discovered” that 47 tons a day was a “proper day’s work”. He did this by analyzing the tiring effect of physical labor on muscle. He discovered that a man’s muscles require a certain percentage of rest for an amount of work exerted. The trick was to time the ratio of work to rest for each worker so that they could work the hardest without tiring out. The second step was to pick the right worker. Any old worker wouldn’t do. In fact only about one in eight men could load 47 tons of pig iron a day. “With the very best of intentions’ the other seven out of eight men were physically unable to work at this pace. Now the one man in eight who was able to do this work was in no sense superior to the other men who were working on the gang. He merely happened to be a man of the type of the ox,—no rare specimen of humanity, difficult to find and therefore very highly prized. On the contrary, he was a man so stupid that he was unfitted to do most kinds of laboring work, even.” Taylor started with just one man: a large Pennsylvania Dutchman named Schmidt. These were his instructions to Schmidt: “. . . you will do exactly as this man tells you to-morrow, from morning till night. When he tells you to pick up a pig and walk, you pick it up and you walk, and when he tells you to sit down and rest, you sit down. You do that right straight through the day. And what’s more, no back talk. Now a high-priced man does just what he’s told to do, and no back talk. Do you understand that? When this man tells you to walk, you walk; when he tells you to sit down, you sit down, and you don’t talk back at him.” (p.21) Taylor’s next comments tell us more about the “scientific selection of workers”: “This seems to be rather rough talk. And indeed it would be if applied to an educated mechanic, or even an intelligent laborer. With a man of the mentally sluggish type of Schmidt it is appropriate and not unkind, since it is effective in fixing his attention on the high wages which he wants and away from what, if it were called to his attention, he probably would consider impossibly hard work.” (p.21) Throughout his writing Taylor stresses the idea of selecting only workers who are able to work at the very highest level of efficiency. This always meant firing all of the other workers. Taylor had no sympathy for these displaced workers. “And indeed it should be understood that the removal of these men from pig-iron handling, for which they were unfit, was really a kindness

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to themselves, because it was the first step toward finding them work for which they were peculiarly fitted . . .” (p.31) The result was a drastic reduction in the number of workers employed and at the same time a rise in output. Workers were given raises though, as mentioned earlier, these raises usually did not stay in effect. Meanwhile the size of management grew. There was an office where labor was planned out. When workers came to work in the morning they were given a set of written instructions as to how exactly to work. Time-study men patrolled the factory floor timing motions. There was a proliferation of managers all dedicated to different aspects of labor control. Divorced from the knowledge of the labor process, the worker became less and less skilled. Work was more repetitive and it was harder to bargain for higher wages when it was so easy for employers to replace a workforce. Taylorism was also fiercely resisted. It produced much shopfloor conflict and militant strikes. Taylor consistently left this detail out in his own versions of his successes claiming that: “. . . during the thirty years that we have been engaged in introducing scientific management there has not been a single strike from those who were working in accordance with its principles . . . .” Such blatant omissions were typical of a man who could not tolerate anything the interfered with his utopian vision of a planned, rational universe. While Taylor’s perfect world- a world free of class conflict, where worker and capitalists worked toward a common goal of perfect efficiency never came into being, his ideas about the labor process became part of the basic fabric of working life. The planning of motion in work and management’s monopoly over the knowledge of work are a basic fact of the way we experience much of modern work. Scientific management is still taught in industrial engineering schools and its concepts still inform the way workplaces are built and the way jobs are structured. While some of management theory has moved on since Taylor the basic questions he was grappling with are still crucial. As the productive powers of labor increased rapidly over the course of the 20th century there was much thinking about how production and society were to be organized and how the worker would be habituated to the demands of capital. As we begin to look at the history of capitalist crisis it will be important to keep these basic questions in mind.

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The War Prayer Mark Twain

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t was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way. Sunday morning came—next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams—visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, 25

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happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!

Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory— An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!” The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside—which the startled minister did—and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said: “I come from the Throne—bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger,

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shall have explained to you its import—that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of—except he pause and think. “God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two—one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this—keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it. “You have heard your servant’s prayer—the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it—that part which the pastor—and also you in your hearts—fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. The *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory— *must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen! “O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle—be Thou near them! With them—in spirit—we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it—for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white

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snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen. (After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!” It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

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The House-Grey Memorandum October 1915–February 1916

From Colonel Edward House’s Diary

October 8, 1915: I outlined very briefly a plan which has occurred to me and which seems of much value. I thought we had lost our opportunity to break with Germany, and it looked as if she had a better chance than ever of winning and if she did win our turn would come next; and we were not only unprepared, but there would be no one to help us stand the first shock. Therefore, we should do something decisive now—something that would either end the war in a way to abolish militarism or that would bring us in with the Allies to help them do it. My suggestion is to ask the Allies unofficially, to let me know whether or not it would be agreeable to them to have us demand that hostilities cease. We would put it upon the high ground that the neutral world was suffering along with the belligerents and that we had rights as well as they, and that peace parleys should begin upon the broad basis of both military and naval disarmament . . . If the Allies understood our purpose, we could be as severe in our language concerning them as we were with the Central Powers. The Allies, after some hesitation, could accept our offer or demand and the Central Powers accepted, we would then have accomplished a masterstroke of diplomacy. If the Central Powers refused to acquiesce, we could then push our insistence to a point where diplomatic relations would first be broken off, and later the whole force of our Government—and perhaps the force of every neutral—might be brought against them. Source: From World War I Document Archive

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The President was startled by this plan. He seemed to acquiesce by silence. I had not time to push it further, for our entire conversation did not last longer than twenty minutes. October 11, 1915: Frank Polk took lunch with me. I told him something of the plan I had outlined to the President, concerning our enforcing peace before the Allies reached a position where they could not be of assistance in the event we had war with the Central Powers. I am looking at the matter from the American viewpoint and also from the broader viewpoint of humanity in general. It will not do for the United States to let the Allies go down and leave Germany the dominant military factor in the world. We would certainly be the next object of attack, and the Monroe Doctrine would be less indeed than a scrap of paper. . . . Polk thought the idea was good from every standpoint, and he hoped the President would finally put it through. . . . Memorandum of Sir Edward Grey

(Confidential) Colonel House told me that President Wilson was ready, on hearing from France and England that the moment was opportune, to propose that a Conference should be summoned to put an end to the war. Should the Allies accept this proposal, and should Germany refuse it,  the United States would probably enter the war against Germany. Colonel House expressed the opinion that, if such a Conference met, it would secure peace on terms not unfavourable to the Allies; and, if it failed to secure peace, the United States would [probably] leave the Conference as a belligerent on the side of the Allies, if Germany was unreasonable. Colonel House expressed an opinion decidedly favourable to the restoration of Belgium, the transfer of Alsace and Lorraine to France, and the acquisition by Russia of an outlet to the sea, though he thought that the loss of territory incurred by Germany in one place would have to be compensated to her by concessions to her in other places outside Europe. If the Allies delayed accepting the offer of President Wilson, and if, later on, the course of the war was so unfavourable to them that the intervention of the United States would not be effective, the United States would probably disinterest themselves in Europe and look to their own protection in their own way.

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T h e H o u s e - G r e y M e m o r a n d u m   31

I said that I felt the statement, coming from the President of the United States, to be a matter of such importance that I must inform the Prime Minister and my colleagues; but that I could say nothing until it had received their consideration. The British Government could, under no circumstances accept or make any proposal except in consultation and agreement with the Allies. . . . (initialed) E. G. Foreign Office 22 February 1916

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chapter two

World War I–New Deal

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Final Address in Support of the League of Nations Woodrow Wilson

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r. Chairman and fellow countrymen: It is with a great deal of genuine pleasure that I find myself in Pueblo, and I feel it a compliment in this beautiful hall. One of the advantages of this hall, as I look about, is that you are not too far away from me, because there is nothing so reassuring to men who are trying to express the public sentiment as getting into real personal contact with their fellow citizens. I have gained a renewed impression as I have crossed the continent this time of the homogeneity of this great people to whom we belong. They come from many stocks, but they are all of one kind. They come from many origins, but they are all shot through with the same principles and desire the same righteous and honest things. I have received a more inspiring impression this time of the public opinion of the United States than it was ever my privilege to receive before. The chief pleasure of my trip has been that it has nothing to do with my personal fortunes, that it has nothing to do with my personal reputation, that it has nothing to do with anything except great principles uttered by Americans of all sorts and of all parties which we are now trying to realize at this crisis of the affairs of the world. But there have been unpleasant impressions as well as pleasant impressions, my fellow citizens, as I have crossed the continent. I have perceived more and more that men have been busy creating an absolutely false impression of what the treaty of peace and the Covenant of the League of Nations contain and mean. I find, moreover, that there is an organized propaganda against the League of Nations and against the treaty proceeding from exactly the same sources that the organized propaganda proceeded from 35

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which threatened this country here and there with disloyalty, and I want to say—I cannot say too often—any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready. If I can catch any man with a hyphen in this great contest I will know that I have got an enemy of the Republic. My fellow citizens, it is only certain bodies of foreign sympathies, certain bodies of sympathy with foreign nations that are organized against this great document which the American representatives have brought back from Paris. Therefore, in order to clear away the mists, in order to remove the impressions, in order to check the falsehoods that have clustered around this great subject, I want to tell you a few very simple things about the treaty and the covenant. Do not think of this treaty of peace as merely a settlement with Germany. It is that. It is a very severe settlement with Germany, but there is not anything in it that she did not earn. Indeed, she earned more than she can ever be able to pay for, and the punishment exacted of her is not a punishment greater than she can bear, and it is absolutely necessary in order that no other nation may ever plot such a thing against humanity and civilization. But the treaty is so much more than that. It is not ­merely a settlement with Germany; it is a readjustment of those great injustices which underlie the whole structure of European and Asiatic society. This is only the first of several treaties. They are all constructed upon the same plan. The Austrian treaty follows the same lines. The treaty with Hungary follows the same lines. The treaty with Bulgaria follows the same lines. The treaty with Turkey, when it is formulated, will follow the same lines. What are those lines? They are based upon the purpose to see that every government dealt with in this great settlement is put in the hands of the people and taken out of the hands of coteries and of sovereigns, who had no right to rule over the people. It is a people’s treaty, that accomplishes by a great sweep of practical justice the liberation of men who never could have liberated themselves, and the power of the most powerful nations has been devoted not to their aggrandizement but to the liberation of people whom they could have put under their control if they had chosen to do so. Not one foot of territory is demanded by submission to their authority is demanded by them. The men who sat around the table in Paris knew that the time had come when the people were no

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longer going to consent to live under masters, but were going to live the lives that they chose themselves, to live under such governments as they chose themselves to erect. That is the fundamental principle of this great settlement. And we did not stop with that. We added a great international charter for the rights of labor. Reject this treaty, impair it, and this is the ­consequence of the laboring men of the world, that there is no international tribunal which can bring the moral judgments of the world to bear upon the great labor questions of the day. What we need to do with regard to the labor questions of the day, my fellow countrymen, is to lift them into the light, is to lift them out of the haze and distraction of passion, of hostility, out into the calm spaces where men look at things without passion. The more men you get into a great discussion the more you exclude passion. Just as soon as the calm judgment of the worlds is directed upon the question of justice to labor, labor is going to have to forum such as it never was supplied with before, and men everywhere are going to see that the problem of labor is nothing more not less than the problem of the elevation of humanity. We must see that all the questions which have disturbed the world, all the questions which have disturbed the processes of industry, shall be brought out where men of all points of view, Men of all attitudes of mind, men of all kinds of experience, may contribute their part of the settlement of the great questions which we must settle and cannot ignore. At the front of this great treaty is put the Covenant of the League of Nations. It will also be at the front of the Austrian treaty and the Hungarian treaty and the Bulgarian treaty and the treaty with Turkey. Every one of them will contain the Covenant of the League of Nations, because you cannot work any of them without the Covenant of the League of Nations. Unless you get the united, concerted purpose and power of the great Governments of the world behind this settlement, it will fall down like a house of cards. There is only one power to put behinds the liberation of mankind, and that is the power of mankind. It is the power of the united moral forces of the world, and in the Covenant of the League of Nations the moral forces of the world are mobilized. For what purpose? Reflect, my fellow citizens, that the membership of this great League is going to include all the great fighting nations of the world, as well as the weak ones. It is not for the present going to include Germany, but for the time being Germany is not a great fighting country.

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All the nations that have power that can be mobilized are going to be members of this League, including the United States. And what do they unite for? They enter into a solemn promise to one another they will never use their power against one another for aggression; that they never will impair the territorial integrity of a neighbor; that they never will interfere with the political independence of a neighbor; that they will abide by the principle that great populations are entitled to determine their own destiny and that they will not interfere with that destiny; and that no matter what differences arise amongst them they will never resort to war without first having done one or other of two things—either submitted the matter of controversy to arbitration, in which case they agree to abide by the result without question, or submitted it to the consideration of the council of the League of Nations, laying before that council all the documents, all the facts, agreeing that the council can publish the documents, all the facts, agreeing that the council can publish the documents and the facts to the whole world, agreeing that there shall be six months allowed for the mature consideration of those facts by the council, and agreeing that at the expiration of the six months, even if they are not then ready to accept the advice of the council with regard to the settlement of the dispute, they will still not go to war for another three months. In other words, they consent, no matter what happens, to submit every matter of difference between them to the judgment of mankind, and just so certainly as they do that, my fellow citizens, war will be in the far background, war will be pushed out of that foreground of terror in which it has kept the world for generation after generation, and men will know that there will be a calm time of deliberate counsel. The most dangerous thing for a bad cause is to expose it to the opinion of the world. The most certain way that you can prove that a man is mistaken is by letting all his neighbors know what he thinks, by letting all his neighbors know what he thinks, by letting all his neighbors discuss what he thinks, and if he is in the wrong you will notice that he will stay at home, he will not walk on the street. He will be afraid of the eyes of his neighbors. He will be afraid of their judgment of his character. He will know that his cause is lost unless he can sustain it by the arguments of right and of justice. The same law that applies to individuals applies to nations. But, you say, “We have heard that we might be at a disadvantage in the League of Nations.” Well, whoever told you that either was deliberately

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falsifying or he had not read the Covenant of the League of Nations. I leave him the choice. I want to give you a very simple account of the organization of the League of Nations and let you judge for yourselves. It is a very simple organization. The power of the League, or rather the activities of the league, lie in two bodies. There is the council, which consists of one representative from each of the principal allied and associated powers— that is to say, the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan, along with four other representatives of smaller powers chosen out of the general body of the membership of the League. The council is the source of very active policy of the League, and no active policy of the League can be adopted without a unanimous vote of the council. That is explicitly stated in the Covenant itself. Does it not evidently follow that the League of Nations can adopt no policy whatever without the consent of the United States? The affirmative vote of the representative of the United States is necessary in every case. Now, you have heard of six votes belonging to the British Empire. Those six votes are not in the council. They are in the assembly, and the interesting thing is that the assembly does not vote. I must qualify that statement a little, but essentially it is absolutely true. In every matter in which the assembly is given a voice, and there are only four or five, its vote does not count unless concurred in by the representatives of all the nations represented on the council, so the at there is no validity to any vote of the assembly unless in that vote also the representative of the United States concurs. That one vote of the United States is as big as the six votes of the British Empire. I am not jealous for advantage, my fellow citizens, but I think that is a perfectly safe situation. There is no validity in a vote, either by the council or the assembly, in which we do not concur. So much for the statements about the six votes for the British Empire. Look at it in another aspect. The assembly is the talking body. The assembly was created in order that anybody that purposed anything wrong should be subjected to the awkward circumstance that everybody could talk about it. This is the great assembly in which all the things that are likely to disturb the peace of the world or the good understanding between nations are to be exposed to the general view, and I want to ask you if you think it was unjust, unjust to the United States, that speaking parts should be assigned to the several portions of the British Empire? Do you think it unjust that there should be some spokesman in debate for that fine little stout Republic down in the Pacific, New Zealand? Do you

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think it was unjust that Australia should be allowed to stand up and take part in the debate—Australia, from which we have learned some of the most useful progressive policies of modern time, a little nation only five million in a great continent, but counting for several times five in its activities and in its interest in liberal reform? Do you think it unjust that that little Republic down in South Africa, whose gallant resistance to being subjected to any outside authority at all we admired for so many months and whose fortunes we followed with such interest, should have a speaking part? Great Britain obliged South Africa to submit to her sovereignty, but she immediately after that felt that it was convenient and right to hand the whole self-government of that colony over to the very men whom she had beaten. The representatives of South Africa in Paris were two of the most distinguished generals of the Boer Army, two of the realest men I ever met, two men that could talk sober counsel and wise advice, along with the best statesmen in Europe. To exclude Gen. Botha and Gen. Smuts from the right to stand up in the parliament of the world and say something concerning the affairs of mankind would be absurd. And what about Canada? Is not Canada a good neighbor? I ask you is not Canada more likely to agree with the United States than with Great Britain? Canada has a speaking part. And then, for the first time in the history of the world, that great voiceless multitude, that throng hundreds of millions strong in India, has a voice, and I want to testify that some of the wisest and most dignified figures in the peace conference at Paris came form India, men who seemed to carry in their minds an older wisdom than the rest of us had, whose traditions ran back into so many of the unhappy fortunes of mankind that they seemed very useful counselors as to how some ray of hope and some prospect of happiness could be opened to its people. I for my part have no jealousy whatever of those five speaking parts in the assembly. Those speaking parts cannot translate themselves into five votes that can in any matter override the voice and purpose of the United States. Let us sweep aside all this language of jealousy. Let us be big enough to know the facts and to welcome the facts, because the facts are based upon the principle that America has always fought for, namely, the equality of self-governing peoples, whether they were big or little—not counting men, but counting rights, not counting representation, but counting the purpose of that representation. When you hear an opinion

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quoted you do no count the number of persons who hold it; you ask, “Who said that?” You weigh opinions, you do not count them, and the beauty of all democracies is that every voice can be heard, every voice can have its effect, every voice can contribute to the general judgment that is finally arrived at. That is the object of democracy. Let us accept what America has always fought for, and accept it with pride that America showed the way and made the proposal. I do not mean that America made the proposal in this particular instance; I mean that the principle was an American principle, proposed by America. When you come to the heart of the Covenant, my fellow citizens, you will find it in article ten, and I am very much interested to know that the other things have been blown away like bubbles. There is nothing in the other contentions with regard to the league of nations, but there is something in article ten that you ought to realize and ought to accept or reject. Article ten is the heart of the whole matter. What is article ten? I never am certain that I can from memory give a literal repetition of its language, but I am sure that I can give an exact interpretation of its meaning. Article ten provides that every member of the league covenants to respect and preserve the territorial integrity and existing political independence of every other member of the league as against external aggression. Not against internal disturbance. There was not a man at that table who did not admit the sacredness of the right of self-determination, the sacredness of the right of any body of people to say that they would not continue to live under the Government they were then living under, and  under article eleven of the Covenant they are given a place to say whether they will live under it or not. For following article ten is article eleven, which makes it the right of any member of the League at any time to call attention to anything, anywhere, that is likely to disturb the peace of the world or the good understanding between nations upon which the peace of the world depends. I want to give you an illustration of what that would mean. You have heard a great deal—something that was true and a great deal that was false—about the provision of the treaty which hands over to Japan the rights which Germany enjoyed in the Province of Shantung in China. In the first place, Germany did not enjoy any rights there that other nations had not already claimed. For my part, my judgment, my moral judgment, is against the whole set of concessions. They were all of them unjust to China, they ought never to have been exacted, they were

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all exacted by duress, from a great body of thoughtful and ancient and helpless people. There never was any right in any of them. Thank God, America never asked for any, never dreamed of asking for any. But when Germany got this concession in 1898, the Government of the United States made no protest whatever. That was not because the Government of the United States was not in the hands of thigh-minded and conscientious men. It was. William McKinley was President and John Hay was Secretary of State—as safe hands to leave the honor of the United States in as any that you can cite. They made no protest because the state of international law a that time was that it was none of their business unless they could show that the interests of the United States were affected, and the only think that they could show with regard to the interests of the United States was that Germany might close the doors of Shantung Province against the trade of the United States. They, therefore, demanded and obtained promises that we could continue to sell merchandise in Shantung. Immediately following that concession to Germany there was a concession to Russia of the same sort, of Port Arthur, and Port Arthur was handed over subsequently to Japan on the very territory of the United States. Don’t you remember that when Russia and Japan got into war with one another the war was brought to a confusion by a treaty written at Portsmouth, N.H., and in that treaty without the slightest intimation from any authoritative sources in America that the Government of the United States had any objection, Port Arthur, Chinese territory, was turned over to Japan? I want you distinctly to understand that there is no thought of criticism in my mind. I am expounding to you a state of international law. Now, read articles ten and eleven. You will see that international law is revolutionized by putting morals into it. Article ten says that no member of the League, and that includes all these nations that have demanded these things unjustly of China, shall impair the territorial integrity or the political independence of any other member of the League. China is going to be a member of the League. Article eleven says that nay member of the League can call attention to anything that is likely to disturb the peace of the world or the good understanding between nations, and China is for the first time in the history of mankind afforded a standing before the jury of the world. I, for my part, have a profound sympathy for China, and I am proud to have taken part in an arrangement which promises the protection of the world to the rights o China. The whole atmosphere of the

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world is changed by a thing like that, my fellow citizens. The whole international practice of the world is revolutionized. But, you will say, “What is the second sentence of article ten? That is what gives very disturbing thoughts.” The second sentence is that the council of the League shall advise what steps, if any, are necessary to carry out the guaranty of the first sentence, namely, that the members will respect and preserve the territorial integrity and political independence of the other members. I do not know any other meaning for the word “advise” except “advise.” The council advises, and it cannot advise without the vote of the United States. Why gentlemen should fear that the Congress of the United States would be advised to do something that it did not want to do I frankly cannot imagine, because they cannot even be advised to do anything unless their own representative has participated in the advice. It may be that that will impair somewhat the vigor of the League, but, nevertheless, the fact is so, that we are not obliged to take any advice except our own, which to any man who wants to go his own course is a very satisfactory state of affairs. Every man regards his own advice as best, and I dare say every man mixes his own advice with some thought of his own interest. Whether we use it wisely or unwisely, we can use the vote of the United States to make impossible drawing the United States into any enterprise that she does not care to be drawn into. Yet article ten strikes at the taproot of war. Article ten is a statement that the very things that have always been sought in imperialistic wars are henceforth foregone by every ambitious nation in the world. I would have felt very much disturbed if, sitting at the peace table in Paris, I had supposed that I was expounding my own ideas. Whether you believe it or not, I know the relative size of my own ideas; I know how they stand related in bulk and proportion to the moral judgments of my fellow countrymen, and I proposed nothing whatever at the peace table at Paris that I had not sufficiently certain knowledge embodied the moral judgment of the citizens of the United States. I had gone over there with, so to say, explicit instruction. Don’t you remember that we laid down fourteen points which should contain the principles of the settlement? They were not my points. In every one of them I was conscientiously trying to read the thought of the people of the United States, and after I uttered those points I had every assurance given me that could be given me that they did speak the moral judgment of the United States and not my single judgment.

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Then when it came to that critical period just a little less than a year ago, when it was evident that the war was coming to its critical end, all the nations engaged in the war accepted those fourteen principles explicitly as the basis of the armistice and the basis of the peace. In those circumstances I crossed the ocean under bond to my own people and to the other governments with which I was dealing. The whole specification of the method of settlement was written down and accepted before hand, and we were architects building on those specifications. It reassures me and fortifies my position to find how before I went over men whose judgment the United States has often trusted were of exactly the same opinion that I went abroad to express. Here is something I want to read from Theodore Roosevelt: The one effective move for obtaining peace is by an agreement among all the great powers in which each should pledge itself no only to abide by the decisions of a common tribunal but to back its decisions by force. The great civilized nations should combine by solemn agreement in a great would league for the peace of righteousness; a court should be established. A changed and amplified Hague court would meet the requirements, composed of representatives from each nation, whose representatives are sworn to act as judges in each case and not in a representative capacity.” Now there is article ten. He goes on and says this: “The nations should agree on certain rights that should not be questioned, such as territorial integrity, their right to deal with their domestic affairs, and with such matters as whom they should admit to citizenship. All such guarantee each of their number in possession of these rights.

Now, the other specification is the Covenant. The Covenant in another portion guarantees to the members the independent control of their domestic questions. There is not a leg of these gentlemen to stand on when they say that the interests of the United States are not safeguarded in the very points where we are most sensitive. You do not need to be told again that the Covenant expressly says that nothing in this covenant shall be construed as affecting the validity of the Monroe doctrine for example. You could not be more explicit than that. And every point of interest is covered, partly for one very interesting reason. This is not the first time that the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate of the United States

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has read and considered this covenant. I bought it to this country in March last in a tentative, provisional form, in practically the form that it now has, with the exception of certain additions which I shall mention immediately. I asked the Foreign Relations Committees of both Houses to come to the White House and we spent a long evening in the frankest discussion of every portion that they wished to discuss. They made certain specific suggestions as to what should be contained in this document when it was to be revised. I carried those suggestions to Paris, and every one of them was adopted. What more could I have done? What more could have been obtained? The very matters upon which these gentlemen were most concerned were, the right of withdrawal, which is now expressly stated; the safeguarding of the Monroe doctrine, whish is now accomplished/; the exclusion from action by the League of domestic questions, which is now accomplished. All along the line, every suggestion of the United States was adopted after the Covenant had been drawn up in its first form and had been published of the criticism of the world. There is a very true sense in which I can say this is a tested American document. I am dwelling upon these points, my fellow citizens, in spite of the fact that I dare say to most of you they are perfectly well know, because in order to meet the present situation we have go to know what we are dealing with. We are not dealing with the kind of document which this is represented by some gentlemen to be; and inasmuch as we are dealing with a document simon-pure in respect of the very principles we have professed and lived up to, we have got to do one or other of two things— we have go to adopt it or reject it. There is no middle course. You cannot go in on a special-privilege basis of your own. I take it that you are too proud to ask to be exempted from responsibilities which the other members of the League will carry. We go in upon equal terms or we do not go in at all; and if we do not go in, my fellow citizens, think of the tragedy of that result—the only sufficient guaranty to the peace of the world withheld! Ourselves drawn apart with that dangerous pride which means that we shall be ready to take care of ourselves, and that means that we shall maintain great standing armies and an irresistible envy; that means we shall have the organization of a military nation; that means we shall have a general staff, with the kind of power that the general staff of Germany had; to mobilize this great manhood of the Nation when it pleases, all the energy of our young men drawn into the thought and preparation for war. What of our pledges to

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the men that lie dead in France? Wee said that they went over there not to prove the prowess of America or her readiness for another war but to see to tit hat there never was such a war again. It always seems to make it difficult for me to say anything my fellow citizens, when I think of my clients in this case. My clients are the children; my clients are the next generation. They do not know what promises and bonds I undertook when I ordered the armies of the United States to the soil of France, but I know, and I intend to redeem my pledges to the children; they shall not be sent upon a similar errand. Again and again, my fellow citizens, mothers who lost their sons in France have come to me and, taking my hand, have shed tears upon it not only, but they added, “God bless you, Mr. President!” Why, my fellow citizens, should they pray God to bless me? I advised the Congress of the United States to create the situation that led to the death of their sons. I ordered their sons overseas. I consented to their sons being put in the most difficult parts of the battle line, where death was certain, as in the impenetrable difficulties of the forest of Argonne. Why should they weep upon my hand and call down the blessings of God upon me? Because they believe that their boys died for something that vastly transcends any of the immediate and palpable objects of the war. They believe, and they rightly believe, that their sons saved the liberty of the world. They believe that wrapped up with the liberty of the world is the continuous protection of that liberty by the concerted powers of all civilized people. They believe that this sacrifice was made in order that other sons should not be called upon for a similar gift—the gift of life, the gift of all that died—and if we did not see this thing through, if we fulfilled the dearest present wish of Germany and now dissociated ourselves from those alongside whom we fought in the world, would not something of the halo go away from the gun over the mantelpiece, or the sword? Would not the old uniform lose something of its significance? These men were crusaders. They were not going forth to prove the might of the United States. They were going forth to prove the might of justice and right, and all the world accepted them as crusaders, and their transcendent achievement has made all the world believe in America as it believes in no other nation organized in the modern world. There seem to me to stand between us and the rejection or qualification of this treaty the serried ranks of those boys in khaki, not only these boys who came home, but those dear ghosts that still deploy upon the fields of France.

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My friends, on last Decoration day I went on a beautiful hillside near Paris, where was located the cemetery of Suresnes, a cemetery given over to the burial of the American dead. Behind me on the slopes was rank upon rank of living American soldiers, and lying before me upon the levels of the plain was rank upon rank of departed American soldiers. Right by the side of the stand where I spoke there was a little group of French women who had adopted those graves, had made themselves mothers of those dear ghosts by putting flowers every day upon those graves, taking them as their own sons, their own beloved, because they had died in the same cause—France was free and the world was free because America had come! I wish some men in public life who are now opposing the settlement for which these men died could visit such a spot as that. I wish that the thought that comes out of those graves could penetrate their consciousness. I wish that they could feel the moral obligation that rests upon us not to go back on those boys, but to see the thing through, to see it through to the end and make good their redemption of the world. For nothing less depends upon this decision, nothing less than liberation and salvation of the world. You will say, “Is the League and absolute guaranty against war?” No; I do not know any absolute guaranty against the errors of human judgment or the violence of human passion, but I tell you this: With a cooling space of nine months for human passion, not much of it will keep hot. I had a couple of friends who were in the habit of losing their tempers, and when they lost their tempers they were in the habit of using very unparlimentary language. Some of their friends induced them to make a promise that they never would swear inside the town limits. When the impulse next came upon them, they took a streetcar to go out of town to swear, and by the time they got out of town they did not want to swear. They came back convinced that they were just what they were, a couple of unspeakable fools, and the habit of getting angry and of swearing suffered great inroads upon it by that experience. Now, illustrating the great by the small, that is true of the passions of nations. It is true of the passions of men however you combine them. Give them space to cool off. I ask you this: If it is not an absolute insurance against war, do you want no insurance at all? Do you want nothing? Do you want not only no probability that war will not recur, but the probability that it will recur? The arrangements of justice of not stand of themselves, my fellow citizens. The arrangements of this treat are just, but they need the support of the

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combined power of the great nations of the world. And they will have that support. Now that the mists of this great question have cleared away, I believe that men will see the truth, eye to eye and face to face. There is one thing that the American people always rise to and extend their hand to, and that is the truth of justice and of liberty and of peace. We have accepted the truth and we are going to be led by it, and it is going to lead us, and through us the world, out into pastures of quietness and peace such as the world never dreamed of before.

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Buck Versus Bell

Buck v. Bell, was the United States Supreme Court ruling that upheld a statute instituting compulsory sterilization of the mentally retarded “for the protection and health of the state.” It was largely seen as an endorsement of negative eugenics—the pseudoscience to improve the human race by eliminating “defectives” from the gene pool.

Background

In 1924, the state of Virginia adopted a statute authorizing the compulsory sterilization of the mentally retarded for the purpose of eugenics. On September 10of the same year, Dr. Albert Sidney Priddy, superintendent of the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded, filed a petition to his Board of Directors to sterilize Carrie Buck, an 18-year-old patient at his institution who he claimed had a mental age of 9. Priddy maintained that Buck represented a genetic threat to society. According to Priddy, Buck’s 52-year-old mother possessed a mental age of 8 and had a record of prostitution and immorality. She had three children without good knowledge of their parentage. Carrie, one of these children, had been adopted and attended school for five years, reaching the level of sixth grade. However, according to Priddy, she had eventually proved to be “incorrigible” and eventually gave birth to an illegitimate child. Her adopted family had committed her to the State Colony as “feeble-minded” (a catch-all term used at the time for the mentally disabled), no longer feeling capable of caring for her. It was later discovered that Carrie’s pregnancy was not caused by any act of “immorality” on her own part. In the summer of 1923, while her adoptive mother was away “on account of some illness,” her nephew raped Carrie, and her later commitment has been seen as an attempt by the family to save their reputation. 49

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The case

While the litigation was making its way through the court system, Priddy died and his successor, Dr. James Hendren Bell, was substituted to the case. The Board of Directors issued an order for the sterilization of Buck, and her guardian appealed the case to the Circuit Court of Amherst County, which sustained the decision of the Board. The case then moved to the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia. Carrie’s lawyer, Irving Whitehead, poorly argued her case, failed to call important witnesses, and was remarked by commentators to often not know what side he was on. It is now thought that this was not because of incompetence, but deliberate. Whitehead had close connections both to the counsel for the institution, and Priddy himself. He was also a member of the governing board of the state institution Carrie was at, and had personally authorized Priddy’s sterilization requests and was a strong supporter of eugenic sterilization. The appellate court sustained the sterilization law as compliant with both the state and federal constitutions, and it then went to the United States Supreme Court. The plaintiff’s lawyers argued that this procedure ran counter to the protections of the 14th Amendment. On May 2, 1927, in an 8-1 decision, the Court accepted that she, her mother and her daughter were “feeble-minded” and “promiscuous,” and that it was in the state’s interest to have her sterilized. The ruling legitimized Virginia’s sterilization procedures until they were repealed in 1974. Carrie Buck was operated upon, receiving a compulsory salpingectomy (a form of tubal ligation). She was later paroled from the institution as a domestic worker to a family in Bland, Virginia. She was an avid reader until her death in 1983. Her daughter Vivian, who was also sterilized, did very well in her two years of schooling, once being on the school’s honor roll. She died at the age of eight.

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U.S. Supreme Court

BUCK v. BELL, 274 U.S. 200 (1927) 274 U.S. 200 BUCK v. BELL, Superintendent of State Colony Epileptics and Feeble Minded. No. 292. Argued April 22,1927. Decided May 2,1927. [274 U.S. 200, 201] Mr. I. P. Whitehead, of Lynchburg, Va., for plaintiff in error. [274 U.S. 200, 203] Mr. A. E. Strode, of Lynchburg, Va., for defendant in error. [274 U.S. 200, 205] Mr. Justice HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court. This is a writ of error to review a judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeals of the State of Virginia, affirming a judgment of the Circuit Court of Amherst County, by which the defendant in error, the superintendent of the State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble Minded, was ordered to perform the operation of salpingectomy upon Carrie Buck, the plaintiff in error, for the purpose of making her sterile. 143 Va. 310, 130 S. E. 516. The case comes here upon the contention that the statute authorizing the judgment is void under the Fourteenth Amendment as denying to the plaintiff in error due process of law and the equal protection of the laws. Carrie Buck is a feeble-minded white woman who was committed to the State Colony above mentioned in due form. She is the daughter of a feeble-minded mother in the same institution, and the mother of an illegitimate feeble-minded child. She was eighteen years old at the time of the trial of her case in the Circuit Court in the latter part of 1924. An Act of Virginia approved March 20, 1924 (Laws 1924, c. 394) recites that

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the health of the patient and the welfare of society may be promoted in certain cases by the sterilization of mental defectives, under careful safeguard, etc.; that the sterilization may be effected in males by vasectomy and in females by salpingectomy, without serious pain or substantial danger to life; that the Commonwealth is supporting in various institutions many defective persons who if now discharged would become [274 U.S. 200, 206] a menace but if incapable of procreating might be discharged with safety and become self-supporting with benefit to themselves and to society; and that experience has shown that heredity plays an important part in the transmission of insanity, imbecility, etc. The statute then enacts that whenever the superintendent of certain institutions including the abovenamed State Colony shall be of opinion that it is for the best interest of the patients and of society that an inmate under his care should be sexually sterilized, he may have the operation performed upon any patient afflicted with hereditary forms of insanity, imbecility, etc., on complying with the very careful provisions by which the act protects the patients from possible abuse. The superintendent first presents a petition to the special board of directors of his hospital or colony, stating the facts and the grounds for his opinion, verified by affidavit. Notice of the petition and of the time and place of the hearing in the institution is to be served upon the inmate, and also upon his guardian, and if there is no guardian the superintendent is to apply to the Circuit Court of the County to appoint one. If the inmate is a minor notice also is to be given to his parents, if any, with a copy of the petition. The board is to see to it that the inmate may attend the hearings if desired by him or his guardian. The evidence is all to be reduced to writing, and after the board has made its order for or against the operation, the superintendent, or the inmate, or his guardian, may appeal to the Circuit Court of the County. The Circuit Court may consider the record of the board and the evidence before it and such other admissible evidence as may be offered, and may affirm, revise, or reverse the order of the board and enter such order as it deems just. Finally any party may apply to the Supreme Court of Appeals, which, if it grants the appeal, is to hear the case upon the record of the trial [274 U.S. 200, 207] in the Circuit Court and may enter such order as it thinks the Circuit Court should have entered. There can be no doubt that so far as procedure is concerned the rights of the patient are most carefully considered, and as every step in this case was taken in scrupulous compliance with

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the statute and after months of observation, there is no doubt that in that respect the plaintiff in error has had due process at law. The attack is not upon the procedure but upon the substantive law. It seems to be contended that in no circumstances could such an order be justified. It certainly is contended that the order cannot be justified upon the existing grounds. The judgment finds the facts that have been recited and that Carrie Buck ‘is the probable potential parent of socially inadequate offspring, likewise afflicted, that she may be sexually sterilized without detriment to her general health and that her welfare and that of society will be promoted by her sterilization,’ and thereupon makes the order. In view of the general declarations of the Legislature and the specific findings of the Court obviously we cannot say as matter of law that the grounds do not exist, and if they exist they justify the result. We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Jacob son v.  Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11, 25 S. Ct. 358, 3 Ann. Cas. 765. Three generations of imbeciles are enough. [274 U.S. 200, 208] But, it is said, however it might be if this reasoning were applied generally, it fails when it is confined to the small number who are in the institutions named and is not applied to the multitudes outside. It is the usual last resort of constitutional arguments to point out shortcomings of this sort. But the answer is that the law does all that is needed when it does all that it can, indicates a policy, applies it to all within the lines, and seeks to bring within the lines all similary situated so far and so fast as its means allow. Of course so far as the operations enable those who otherwise must be kept confined to be returned to the world, and thus open the asylum to others, the equality aimed at will be more nearly reached. Judgment affirmed. Mr. Justice BUTLER dissents.

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Roosevelt’s Nomination Address Chicago, Ill, July 2, 1932

C

hairman Walsh, my friends of the Democratic National Convention of 1932: I APPRECIATE your willingness after these six arduous days to emain here, for I know well the sleepless hours which you and  I  have had. I regret that I am late, but I have no control over the winds of Heaven and could only be thankful for my Navy training. The appearance before a National Convention of its nominee for President, to be formally notified of his selection, is unprecedented and unusual, but these are unprecedented and unusual times. I have started out on the tasks that lie ahead by breaking the absurd traditions that the candidate should remain in professed ignorance of what has happened for weeks until he is formally notified of that event many weeks later. My friends, may this be the symbol of my intention to be honest and to avoid all hypocrisy or sham, to avoid all silly shutting of the eyes to the truth in this campaign. You have nominated me and I know it, and I am here to thank you for the honor. Let it also be symbolic that in so doing I broke traditions. Let it be from now on the task of our Party to break foolish traditions. We will break foolish traditions and leave it to the Republican leadership, far more skilled in that art, to break promises. Let us now and here highly resolve to resume the country’s interrupted march along the path of real progress, of real justice, of real equality for all of our citizens, great and small. Our indomitable leader in that interrupted march is no longer with us, but there still survives today his spirit. Many of his captains, thank God, are still with us, to 55

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give us wise counsel. Let us feel that in everything we do there still lives with us, if not the body, the great indomitable, unquenchable, progressive soul of our Commander-in-Chief, Woodrow Wilson. I have many things on which I want to make my position clear at the earliest possible moment in this campaign. That admirable document, the platform which you have adopted, is clear. I accept it 100 percent. And you can accept my pledge that I will leave no doubt or ambiguity on where I stand on any question of moment in this campaign. As we enter this new battle, let us keep always present with us some of the ideals of the Party: The fact that the Democratic Party by tradition and by the continuing logic of history, past and present, is the bearer of liberalism and of progress and at the same time of safety to our institutions. And if this appeal fails, remember well, my friends, that a resentment against the failure of Republican leadership—and note well that in this campaign I shall not use the word “Republican Party,” but I shall use, day in and day out, the words, “Republican leadership”—the failure of Republican leaders to solve our troubles may degenerate into unreasoning radicalism. The great social phenomenon of this depression, unlike others before it, is that it has produced but a few of the disorderly manifestations that too often attend upon such times. Wild radicalism has made few converts, and the greatest tribute that I can pay to my countrymen is that in these days of crushing want there persists an orderly and hopeful spirit on the part of the millions of our people who have suffered so much. To fail to offer them a new chance is not only to betray their hopes but to misunderstand their patience. To meet by reaction that danger of radicalism is to invite disaster. Reaction is no barrier to the radical. It is a challenge, a provocation. The way to meet that danger is to offer a workable program of reconstruction, and the party to offer it is the party with clean hands. This, and this only, is a proper protection against blind reaction on the one hand and an improvised, hit-or-miss, irresponsible opportunism on the other. There are two ways of viewing the Government’s duty in matters affecting economic and social life. The first sees to it that a favored few are helped and hopes that some of their prosperity will leak through, sift through, to labor, to the farmer, to the small business man. That theory belongs to the party of Toryism, and I had hoped that most of the Tories left this country in 1776

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But it is not and never will be the theory of the Democratic Party. This is no time for fear, for reaction or for timidity. Here and now I invite those nominal Republicans who find that their conscience cannot be squared with the groping and the failure of their party leaders to join hands with us; here and now, in equal measure, I  warn those nominal Democrats who squint at the future with their faces turned toward the past, and who feel no responsibility to the demands of the new time, that they are out of step with their Party. Yes, the people of this country want a genuine choice this year, not a choice between two names for the same reactionary doctrine. Ours must  be a party of liberal thought, of planned action, of enlightened international outlook, and of the greatest good to the greatest number of our citizens. Now it is inevitable—and the choice is that of the times—it is inevitable that the main issue of this campaign should revolve about the  clear  fact of our economic condition, a depression so deep that it is  without  precedent in modern history. It will not do merely to state, as do Republican leaders to explain their broken promises of continued  inaction, that the depression is worldwide. That was not their  explanation of the apparent prosperity of 1928. The people will  not  forget the claim  made by them then that prosperity was only a  domestic product manufactured by a Republican President and a Republican Congress. If they claim paternity for the one they cannot deny paternity for the other. I cannot take up all the problems today. I want to touch on a few that  are vital. Let us look a little at the recent history and the simple economics, the kind of economics that you and I and the average man and woman talk. In the years before 1929 we know that this country had completed a vast cycle of building and inflation; for ten years we expanded on the theory of repairing the wastes of the War, but actually expanding far beyond that, and also beyond our natural and normal growth. Now it is worth remembering, and the cold figures of finance prove it, that during that time there was little or no drop in the prices that the consumer had to pay, although those same figures proved that the cost of production fell very greatly; corporate profit resulting from this period was enormous; at the same time little of that profit was devoted to the reduction of prices. The consumer was forgotten. Very little of it went into increased

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wages; the worker was forgotten, and by no means an adequate proportion was even paid out in dividends—the stockholder was forgotten. And, incidentally, very little of it was taken by taxation to the beneficent Government of those years. What was the result? Enormous corporate surpluses piled up—the most stupendous in history. Where, under the spell of delirious speculation, did those surpluses go? Let us talk economics that the figures prove and that we can understand. Why, they went chiefly in two directions: first, into new and unnecessary plants which now stand stark and idle; and second, into the call-money market of Wall Street, either directly by the corporations, or indirectly through the banks. Those are the facts. Why blink at them? Then came the crash. You know the story. Surpluses invested in unnecessary plants became idle. Men lost their jobs; purchasing power dried up; banks became frightened and started calling loans. Those who had money were afraid to part with it. Credit contracted. Industry stopped. Commerce declined, and unemployment mounted. And there we are today. Translate that into human terms. See how the events of the past three years have come home to specific groups of people: first, the group dependent on industry; second, the group dependent on agriculture; third, and made up in large part of members of the first two groups, the people who are called “small investors and depositors.” In fact, the  strongest possible tie between the first two groups, agriculture and industry, is the fact that the savings and to a degree the security of both are tied together in that third group—the credit structure of the Nation. Never in history have the interests of all the people been so united in a single economic problem. Picture to yourself, for instance, the great groups of property owned by millions of our citizens, represented by credits issued in the form of bonds and mortgages—Government bonds of all kinds, Federal, State, county, municipal; bonds of industrial companies, of utility companies; mortgages on real estate in farms and cities, and finally the vast investments of the Nation in the railroads. What is the measure of the security of each of those groups? We know well that in our complicated, interrelated credit structure if any one of these credit groups collapses they may all collapse. Danger to one is danger to all. How, I ask, has the present Administration in Washington treated the interrelationship of these credit groups? The answer is clear: It has not

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recognized that interrelationship existed at all. Why, the Nation asks, has Washington failed to understand that all of these groups, each and every one, the top of the pyramid and the bottom of the pyramid, must be considered together, that each and every one of them is dependent on  every other; each and every one of them affecting the whole financial fabric? Statesmanship and vision, my friends, require relief to all at the same time. Just one word or two on taxes, the taxes that all of us pay toward the cost of Government of all kinds. I know something of taxes. For three long years I have been going up and down this country preaching that Government—Federal and State and local—costs too much. I shall not stop that preaching. As an immediate program of action we must abolish useless  offices. We must eliminate unnecessary functions of Government—functions, in fact, that are not definitely essential to the continuance of Government. We must merge, we must consolidate subdivisions of Government, and, like the private citizen, give up luxuries which we can no longer afford. By our example at Washington itself, we shall have the opportunity of pointing the way of economy to local government, for let us remember well that out of every tax dollar in the average State in this Nation, 40 cents enter the treasury in Washington, D. C., 10 or 12 cents only go to  the State capitals, and 48 cents are consumed by the costs of local government in counties and cities and towns. I propose to you, my friends, and through you, that Government of all kinds, big and little, be made solvent and that the example be set by the President of the United States and his Cabinet. And talking about setting a definite example, I congratulate this convention for having had the courage fearlessly to write into its declaration of principles what an overwhelming majority here assembled really thinks about the 18th Amendment. This convention wants repeal. Your candidate wants repeal. And I am confident that the United States of America wants repeal. Two years ago the platform on which I ran for Governor the second time contained substantially the same provision. The overwhelming sentiment of the people of my State, as shown by the vote of that year, extends, I know, to the people of many of the other States. I say to you now that from this date on the 18th Amendment is doomed. When that happens, we as Democrats must and will, rightly and morally, enable the

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States to protect themselves against the importation of intoxicating liquor where such importation may violate their State laws. We must rightly and morally prevent the return of the saloon. To go back to this dry subject of finance, because it all ties in together— the 18th Amendment has something to do with finance, too—in a comprehensive planning for the reconstruction of the great credit groups, including Government credit, I list an important place for that prize statement of principle in the platform here adopted calling for the letting in of the light of day on issues of securities, foreign and domestic, which are offered for sale to the investing public. My friends, you and I as common-sense citizens know that it would help to protect the savings of the country from the dishonesty of crooks and from the lack of honor of some men in high financial places. Publicity is the enemy of crookedness. And now one word about unemployment, and incidentally about agriculture. I have favored the use of certain types of public works as a further emergency means of stimulating employment and the issuance of bonds to pay for such public works, but I have pointed out that no economic end is served if we merely build without building for a necessary purpose. Such works, of course, should insofar as possible be self-sustaining if they are to be financed by the issuing of bonds. So as to spread the points of all kinds as widely as possible, we must take definite steps to shorten the working day and the working week. Let us use common sense and business sense. Just as one example, we know that a very hopeful and immediate means of relief, both for the unemployed and for agriculture, will come from a wide plan of the converting of many millions of acres of marginal and unused land into timberland through reforestation. There are tens of millions of acres east of the Mississippi River alone in abandoned farms, in cut-over land, now growing up in worthless brush. Why, every European Nation has a definite land policy, and has had one for generations. We have none. Having none, we face a future of soil erosion and timber famine. It is clear that economic foresight and immediate employment march hand in hand in the call for the reforestation of these vast areas. In so doing, employment can be given to a million men. That is the kind of public work that is self-sustaining, and therefore capable of being financed by the issuance of bonds which are made secure by the fact that

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the growth of tremendous crops will provide adequate security for the investment. Yes, I have a very definite program for providing employment by that means. I have done it, and I am doing it today in the State of New York. I know that the Democratic Party can do it successfully in the Nation. That will put men to work, and that is an example of the action that we are going to have. Now as a further aid to agriculture, we know perfectly well—but have we come out and said so clearly and distinctly?—we should repeal immediately those provisions of law that compel the Federal Government to go into the market to purchase, to sell, to speculate in farm products in a futile attempt to reduce farm surpluses. And they are the people who are talking of keeping Government out of business. The practical way to help the farmer is by an arrangement that will, in addition to lightening some of the impoverishing burdens from his back, do something toward the reduction of the surpluses of staple commodities that hang on the market. It should be our aim to add to the world prices of staple products the amount of a reasonable tariff protection, to give agriculture the same protection that industry has today. And in exchange for this immediately increased return I am sure that the farmers of this Nation would agree ultimately to such planning of their production as would reduce the surpluses and make it unnecessary in later years to depend on dumping those surpluses abroad in order to support domestic prices. That result has been accomplished in other Nations; why not in America, too? Farm leaders and farm economists, generally, agree that a plan based on that principle is a desirable first step in the reconstruction of agriculture. It does not in itself furnish a complete program, but it will serve in great measure in the long run to remove the pall of a surplus without the continued perpetual threat of world dumping. Final voluntary reduction of surplus is a part of ur objective, but the long continuance and the present burden of existing surpluses make it necessary to repair great damage of the present by immediate emergency measures. Such a plan as that, my friends, does not cost the Government any money, nor does it keep the Government in business or in speculation. As to the actual wording of a bill, I believe that the Democratic Party  stands ready to be guided by whatever the responsible farm

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groups themselves agree on. That is a principle that is sound; and again I ask for action. One more word about the farmer, and I know that every delegate in this hall who lives in the city knows why I lay emphasis on the farmer. It is because one-half of our population, over 50,000,000 people, are dependent on agriculture; and, my friends, if those 50,000,000 people have no money, no cash, to buy what is produced in the city, the city ­suffers to an equal or greater extent. That is why we are going to make the voters understand this year that this Nation is not merely a Nation of independence, but it is, if we are to survive, bound to be a Nation of interdependence—town and city, and North and South, East and West. That is our goal, and that goal will be understood by the people of this country no matter where they live. Yes, the purchasing power of that half of our population dependent on agriculture is gone. Farm mortgages reach nearly ten billions of dollars today and interest charges on that alone are $560,000,000 a year. But that is not all. The tax burden caused by extravagant and inefficient local government is an additional factor. Our most immediate concern should be to reduce the interest burden on these mortgages. Rediscounting of farm mortgages under salutary restrictions must be expanded and should, in the future, be conditioned on the reduction of interest rates. Amortization payments, maturities should likewise in this  crisis be extended before rediscount is permitted where the mortgagor is sorely pressed. That, my friends, is another example of practical, immediate relief: Action. I aim to do the same thing, and it can be done, for the small homeowner in our cities and villages. We can lighten his burden and develop his purchasing power. Take away, my friends, that spectre of too high an interest rate. Take away that spectre of the due date just a short time away. Save homes; save homes for thousands of self-respecting families, and drive out that spectre of insecurity from our midst. Out of all the tons of printed paper, out of all the hours of oratory, the recriminations, the defenses, the happy-thought plans in Washington and in every State, there emerges one great, simple, crystal-pure fact that during the past ten years a Nation of 120,000,000 people has been led by the Republican leaders to erect an impregnable barbed wire entanglement around its borders through the instrumentality of tariffs which have isolated us from all the other human beings in all the rest of the

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round world. I accept that admirable tariff statement in the platform of this convention. It would protect American business and American labor. By our acts of the past we have invited and received the retaliation of other Nations. I propose an invitation to them to forget the past, to sit at the table with us, as friends, and to plan with us for the restoration of the trade of the world. Go into the home of the business man. He knows what the tariff has done for him. Go into the home of the factory worker. He knows why goods do not move. Go into the home of the farmer. He knows how the tariff has helped to ruin him. At last our eyes are open. At last the American people are ready to acknowledge that Republican leadership was wrong and that the Democracy is right. My program, of which I can only touch on these points, is based upon this simple moral principle: the welfare and the soundness of a Nation depend first upon what the great mass of the people wish and need; and second, whether or not they are getting it. What do the people of America want more than anything else? To my mind, they want two things: work, with all the moral and spiritual values that go with it; and with work, a reasonable measure of security—security for themselves and for their wives and children. Work and security—these are more than words. They are more than facts. They are the spiritual values, the true goal toward which our efforts of reconstruction should lead. These are the values that this program is intended to gain; these are the values we have failed to achieve by the leadership we now have. Our Republican leaders tell us economic laws—sacred, inviolable, unchangeable—cause panics which no one could prevent. But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings. Yes, when—not if—when we get the chance, the Federal Government will assume bold leadership in distress relief. For years Washington has alternated between putting its head in the sand and saying there is no  large number of destitute people in our midst who need food and clothing, and then saying the States should take care of them, if there are. Instead of planning two and a half years ago to do what they are now trying to do, they kept putting it off from day to day, week to week, and month to month, until the conscience of America demanded action.

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I say that while primary responsibility for relief rests with localities now, as ever, yet the Federal Government has always had and still has a continuing responsibility for the broader public welfare. It will soon ­fulfill that responsibility. And now, just a few words about our plans for the next four months. By coming here instead of waiting for a formal notification, I have made it clear that I believe we should eliminate expensive ceremonies and that we should set in motion at once, tonight, my friends, the necessary machinery for an adequate presentation of the issues to the electorate of the Nation. I myself have important duties as Governor of a great State, duties which in these times are more arduous and more grave than at any previous period. Yet I feel confident that I shall be able to make a number of short visits to several parts of the Nation. My trips will have as their first objective the study at first hand, from the lips of men and women of all parties and all occupations, of the actual conditions and needs of every part of an interdependent country. One word more: Out of every crisis, every tribulation, every disaster, mankind rises with some share of greater knowledge, of higher decency, of purer purpose. Today we shall have come through a period of loose thinking, descending morals, an era of selfishness, among individual men and women and among Nations. Blame not Governments alone for this. Blame ourselves in equal share. Let us be frank in acknowledgment of the truth that many amongst us have made obeisance to Mammon, that the profits of speculation, the easy road without toil, have lured us from the old barricades. To return to higher standards we must abandon the false prophets and seek new leaders of our own choosing. Never before in modern history have the essential differences between the two major American parties stood out in such striking contrast as they do today. Republican leaders not only have failed in material things, they have failed in national vision, because in disaster they have held out no hope, they have pointed out no path for the people below to climb back to places of security and of safety in our American life. Throughout the Nation, men and women, forgotten in the political philosophy of the Government of the last years look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth.

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On the farms, in the large metropolitan areas, in the smaller cities and in the villages, millions of our citizens cherish the hope that their old standards of living and of thought have not gone forever. Those millions cannot and shall not hope in vain. I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people. Let us all here assembled constitute ourselves prophets of a new order of competence and of courage. This is more than a political campaign; it is a call to arms. Give me your help, not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people.

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The Negro and Social Change Eleanor Roosevelt

A Speech Before the National Urban League

Governor Nice, Mayor Jackson, members of the Urban League, and friends: It is a pleasure to be with you tonight to celebrate this twentyfifth anniversary of the Urban League, because of the purpose for which the League was founded—better understanding and cooperation of both the white and Negro races in order that they may live better together and make this country a better place to live in. Much that I am going to say tonight would apply with equal force to any of us living in this country. But our particular concern tonight is with one of the largest race groups in the country—the Negro race. We have a great responsibility here in the United States because we offer the best example that exists perhaps today throughout the world, of the fact that if different races know each other they may live peacefully together. On the whole, we in this country live peacefully together though we have many different races making up the citizenry of the United States. The fact that we have achieved as much as we have in understanding of each other, is no reason for feeling that our situation and our relationship are so perfect that we need not concern ourselves about making them better. In fact we know that many grave injustices are done throughout our land to people who are citizens and who have an equal right under the

Source:  Opportunity (January 1936): 22-23.

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laws of our country, but who are handicapped because of their race. I feel strongly that in order to wipe out these inequalities and injustices, we must all of us work together; but naturally those who suffer the injustices are most sensitive of them, and are therefore bearing the brunt of carrying through whatever plans are made to wipe out undesirable conditions. Therefore in talking to you tonight, I would like to urge first of all that you concentrate your effort on obtaining better opportunities for education for the Negro people throughout the country. You must be able to understand the economic condition and the changes which are coming, not only in our own country, but throughout the world, and this, without better education than the great majority of Negro people have an opportunity to obtain today, is not possible. And without an improvement which will allow better work and better understanding, it will be difficult to remove the handicaps under which some of you suffer. I marvel frequently at the patience with which those who work for the removal of bad conditions face their many disappointments. And I would like to pay tribute tonight to the many leaders amongst the colored people, whom I know and admire and respect. If they are apt at times to be discouraged and downhearted, I can only offer them as consolation, the knowledge that all of us who have worked in the past, and are still working for economic and social betterment, have been through and will continue to go through many periods of disappointment. But as we look back over the years, I have come to realize that what seemed to be slow and halting advances, in the aggregate make quite a rapid march forward. I believe, of course, that for our own good in this country, the Negro race as a whole must improve its standards of living, and become both economically and intellectually of higher calibre. The fact that the colored people, not only in the South, but in the North as well, have been economically at a low level, has meant that they have also been physically and intellectually at a low level. Economic conditions are responsible for poor health in children. And the fact that tuberculosis and pneumonia and many other diseases have taken a heavier toll amongst our colored groups, can be attributed primarily to economic conditions. It is undoubtedly true that with an improvement in economic condition it will still be necessary not only to improve our educational conditions for children, but to pay special attention to adult education along the line of better living. For you cannot expect people to change overnight, when they have had poor conditions, and adjust themselves

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to all that we expect of people living as they should live today throughout our country. This holds good for all underprivileged people in our country and in other countries. For instance, not long ago I was talking to a woman from England, a social worker, who told me that she had found it was not sufficient to give people better housing, to give them better wages; that you also had to have some leadership and education in how to live in those houses and how to use the better wages. And I have seen that proved in the last few years in some of the mining sections of our country. The stock is good American stock, but they have had long years of hard times, and some of the communities that I happen to know have been given good houses and a little economic security, but no leadership. And another community that I know has had both education from nursery school up, and leadership, and adult education. And someone said to me the other day in comparing a number of communities, that the particular community where this leadership has been given, was Paradise compared to all the others. So that I think I am right when I say that it is not just enough to give people who have suffered a better house and better wages. You must give them education and understanding and training before you can expect them to take up their full responsibility. I think that we realize the desirability today of many social changes; but we also must realize that in making these changes and bridging the gap between the old life and the new, we have to accept the responsibility and assume the necessary burden of giving assistance to the people who have not had their fair opportunity in the past. One thing I want to speak about tonight because I have had a number of people tell me that they felt the Government in its new efforts and programs was not always fair to the Negro race. And I want to say quite often, it is not the intention of those at the top, and as far as possible I hope that we may work together to eliminate any real injustice. No right-thinking person in this country today who picks up a paper and reads that in some part of the country the people have not been willing to wait for the due processes of law, but have gone back to the rule of force, blind and unjust as force and fear usually are, can help but be ashamed that we have shown such a lack of faith in our own institutions. It is a horrible thing which grows out of weakness and fear, and not out of strength and courage; and the sooner we as a nation unite to stamp out

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any such action, the sooner and the better will we be able to face the other nations of the world and to uphold our real ideals here and abroad. We have long held in this country that ability should be the criterion on which all people are judged. It seems to me that we must come to recognize this criterion in dealing with all human beings, and not place any limitations upon their achievements except such as may be imposed by their own character and intelligence. This is what we work for as an ideal for the relationship that must exist between all the citizens of our country. There is no reason why all of the races in this country should not live together each of them giving from their particular gift something to the other, and contributing an example to the world of “peace on earth, good will toward men.”

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WAR IS A RACKET Major General Smedley D. Butler

W

AR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows. How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle? Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few—the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill. And what is this bill? This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic 71

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instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations. For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out. Again they are choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to stand side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement. Poland and Germany cast sheep’s eyes at each other, forgetting for the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute over the Polish Corridor. The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia] complicated matters. Jugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other’s throats. Italy was ready to jump in. But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking ahead to war. Not the people—not those who fight and pay and die—only those who foment wars and remain safely at home to profit. There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making. Hell’s bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers? Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being  trained for. He, at least, is frank enough to speak out. Only the other day, Il Duce in “International Conciliation,” the publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace . . . War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it.

Undoubtedly Mussolini means exactly what he says. His well-trained army, his great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for war— anxious for it, apparently. His recent stand at the side of Hungary in the latter’s dispute with Jugoslavia showed that. And the hurried mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border after the assassination of Dollfuss showed it too. There are others in Europe too whose sabre rattling presages war, sooner or later.

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Herr Hitler, with his rearming Germany and his constant demands for more and more arms, is an equal if not greater menace to peace. France only recently increased the term of military service for its youth from a year to eighteen months. Yes, all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe are on the loose. In the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in 1904, when Russia and Japan fought, we kicked out our old  riends the Russians and backed Japan. Then our very generous international bankers were financing Japan. Now the trend is to poison us against the Japanese. What does the “open door” policy to China mean to us? Our trade with China is about $90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600,000,000 in the Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our bankers and industrialists and ­speculators) have private investments there of less than $200,000,000. Then, to save that China trade of about $90,000,000, or to protect these private investments of less than $200,000,000 in the Philippines, we would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war—a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men. Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit—fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well. Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn’t they? It pays high dividends. But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children? What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits? Yes, and what does it profit the nation? Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn’t own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became “internationally minded.” We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George Washington’s warning about “entangling alliances.” We went to war. We acquired outside territory. At the end of

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the World War period, as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade balance during the twenty-five-year period was about $24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year for year, and that foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars. It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people—who do not profit.

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chapter three

world war ii –cold war

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Radio Address Delivered by President Roosevelt Washington, September 3, 1939

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onight my single duty is to speak to the whole of America.

Until 4:30 this morning I had hoped against hope that some miracle would prevent a devastating war in Europe and bring to an end the invasion of Poland by Germany. For 4 long years a succession of actual wars and constant crises have shaken the entire world and have threatened in each case to bring on the gigantic conflict which is today unhappily a fact. It is right that I should recall to your minds the consistent and at times successful efforts of your Government in these crises to throw the full weight of the United States into the cause of peace. In spite of spreading wars I think that we have every right and every reason to maintain as a national policy the fundamental moralities, the teachings of religion, and the continuation of efforts to restore peace-for some day, though the time may be distant, we can be of even greater help to a crippled humanity. It is right, too, to point out that the unfortunate events of these recent years have been based on the use of force or the threat of force And it seems to me clear, even at the outbreak of this great war, that the ­influence of America should be consistent in seeking for humanity a final peace which will eliminate, as far as it is possible to do so, the continued use of force between nations.

Source: U.S., Department of State, Publication 1983, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931-1941 (Washington, D.C.: U.S., Government Printing Office, 1943, pp. 483-85.

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It is, of course, impossible to predict the future. I have my constant stream of information from American representatives and other sources throughout the world. You, the people of this country, are receiving news through your radios and your newspapers at every hour of the day. You are, I believe, the most enlightened and the best informed people in all the world at this moment. You are subjected to no censorship of news; and I want to add that your Government has no information which it has any thought of withholding from you. At the same time, as I told my press conference on Friday, it is of the highest importance that the press and the radio use the utmost caution to discriminate between actual verified fact on the one hand and mere rumor on the other. I can add to that by saying that I hope the people of this country; will also discriminate most carefully between news and rumor. Do not believe of necessity everything you hear or read. Check up on it first. You must master at the outset a simple but unalterable fact in modern foreign relations. When peace has been broken anywhere, peace of all countries everywhere is in danger. It is easy for you and me to shrug our shoulders and say that conflicts taking place thousands of miles from the continental United States, and, indeed, the whole American hemisphere, do not seriously affect the Americas-and that all the United States has to do is to ignore them and go about our own business. Passionately though we may desire detachment, we are forced to realize that every word that comes through the air, every ship that sails the sea, every battle that is fought does affect the American future. Let no man or woman thoughtlessly or falsely talk of America ­sending its armies to European fields. At this moment there is being prepared a proclamation of American neutrality. This would have been done even if there had been no neutrality statute on the books, for this  proclamation is in accordance with international law and with American policy. This will be followed by a proclamation required by the existing Neutrality Act. I trust that in the days to come our neutrality can be made a true neutrality. It is of the utmost importance that the people of this country, with the best information in the world, think things through. The most dangerous enemies of American peace are those who, without well-rounded information on the whole broad subject of the past, the

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present, and the future, undertake to speak with authority, to talk in terms of glittering generalities, to give to the Nation assurances: or prophecies which are of little present or future value. I myself cannot and do not prophesy the course of events abroad-and the reason is that because I have of necessity such a complete picture of what is going on in every part of the world, I do not dare to do so. And the other reason is that I think it is honest for me to be honest with the people of United States. I cannot prophesy the immediate economic effect of this new war on our Nation, but I do say that no American has the moral right to ­profiteer at the expense either of his fellow citizens or of the men, women, and children who are living and dying in the midst of war in Europe. Some things we do know. Most of us in the United States believe in spiritual values. Most of us, regardless of what church we belong to, believe in the spirit of the New Testament-a great teaching which ­opposes itself to the use of force, of armed force, of marching armies, and falling bombs. The overwhelming masses of our people seek peace-peace at home, and the kind of peace in other lands which will not jeopardize peace at home. We have certain ideas and ideals of national safety, and we must act to preserve that safety today and to preserve the safety of our children in future years. That safety is and will be bound up with the safety of the Western Hemisphere and of the seas adjacent thereto. We seek to keep war from our firesides by keeping war from coming to the Americas. For that we have historic precedent that goes back to the days of the administration of President George Washington. It is serious enough and tragic enough to every American family in every State in the Union to live in a world that is torn by wars on other continents. Today they affect every American home. It is our national duty to use every effort to keep them out of the Americas. And at this time let me make the simple plea that partisanship and selfishness be adjourned, and that national unity be the thought that underlies all others. This Nation will remain a neutral nation, but I cannot ask that every American remain neutral in thought as well. Even a neutral has a right to take account of facts. Even a neutral cannot be asked to close his mind or his conscience.

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I have said not once but many times that I have seen war and that I hate war. I say that again and again. I hope the United States will keep out of this war. I believe that it will. And I give you assurances that every effort of your Government will be directed toward that end. As long as it remains within my power to prevent, there will be no blackout of peace in the United States.

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Attack on Pearl Harbor as seen from high on Battleship Pennsylvania’s Mainmast

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he huge red ball blossoming under the plane’s wing filled the ­porthole on U.S.S. Pennsylvania, as the fighter banked and climbed for ­altitude. The plane had just completed a strafing run on Ford Island, located in the middle of Pearl Harbor. I didn’t need for anyone to remind me that it was an unfriendly, because I recognized it as a Jap Zero. As the striker for Corporal Thomas N. Barron, Marine Detachment Clerk, I usually caught Sunday morning duty for turning in the ­detachment’s daily report to the ship’s office prior to 0800. I had just dropped it off and stopped for a bull session with a deck division friend when the sound of explosions reverberated through the ship. We laughed at a nearby sailor’s remark, “That’s just like the Army to wait until Sunday to hold gunnery practice.” But we rushed to a porthole when another sailor yelled, “The Japs are attacking!” The pace had been leisurely on the ships in Pearl Harbor, the 7th of December, 1941, because Sunday was the day for rest and relaxation after the usual weekly few days at sea where the crews practiced day and night for war. Some men were still ashore; some of those aboard were still feeling the effects of a night out in Honolulu; and others were writing letters, pressing uniforms, shining shoes, straightening wall-locker gear, or rapping in bull sessions. With the surprise and suddenness of the attack some would die with a shoe still in hand, or with thoughts of how to word the next sentence in a letter, or with mouths open as they began the next sea story their war had ended before it had officially begun! 81

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I turned from the porthole and raced aft, heading for my battlestation high on the mainmast-I was the pointer on the director controlling the port 5-inch .51-caliber broadside guns. As I dodged others racing to their stations, the expressions on faces registered shocked disbelief, anger and determination, and some had fear stamped indelibly into their paled and drawn features. The mouths of others spewed curses as they damned the Japs in almost a scream. Though Marines usually didn’t take their rifles to shipboard battlestations I instinctively thought of my “best friend.” As I sped through the Marine Compartment, I noticed Sgt. Bud Tinker standing near the weapons locker and I slowed to ask whether I could get my rifle. He didn’t have a key so I resumed my sprint aft. I had to climb a ladder up the outside of the most starboard leg of the mainmast’s tripod to get to my battlestation. Countless times up and down it in practice had given me the agility and confidence of a monkey. As I sped upward, I rammed my head against the ass of a sailor climbing above me, just below the searchlight platform. I fumed while the clumsy overweight man dragged his bulky body, at what seemed like a snail’s pace, the rest of the way to the platform. He spun to face me, “What the hell’s the idea of running into me?” he demanded. “Get your fat ass out of my way!” I retorted. He didn’t make a comeback but stepped aside, and I resumed my trip. After reaching my station, I helped the men already there lower the storm windows into recesses. I uncovered the gun director, donned a soundpower phone headset, and made checks with the captains of the five-port side broadside guns. The 5-inch .51-caliber guns were not designed for use against aircraft so the director and gun crews could do nothing but watch harbor activities. So 2dLt. Leyton M. Rogers, the Marine officer commanding the director station, ordered all phones secured except for one to the ship’s gunnery control. As a 19-year old, I didn’t want to miss anything and my eyes darted about the harbor trying to keep tabs on every Jap plane, every bomb and torpedo, and every ship. My attention switched back and forth from Ford Island to Battleship Row, and to Helena and Oglala berthed in the Pennsylvania’s regular 10-10 Dock berth, with Oglala outboard of Helena. Pennsy, as Flagship of the Pacific Fleet, usually enjoyed the choice berth because Admiral Husband E. Kimmel wasn’t about to ride his barge across channel whenever he wanted to board or debark from

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his flagship. But now Pennsylvania was in Number-1 Drydock with screws off, just forward of her usual 10-10 berth. Battleship Row was across the channel and I had an unobstructed and relatively closeup view of it by looking across Pennsylvania’s starboard quarter. I didn’t think of the dangers caused by strafing Jap planes, or of lowlevel American small-caliber fire, or of a 5” AA gun’s projectile hitting the mast when it was fired at low-flying planes. I was so engrossed in watching events across the channel that I didn’t notice when three planes strafed Pennsylvania’s port side at about 0805. The gun director crews were supposed to huddle between the tripod’s legs running up through the station during strafing attacks but I leaned out a window for a better view of low-flying planes or flights passing over at higher altitude. Twice, Lieutenant Rogers grasped my belt and pulled me inboard. Even though he reminded me to stay between the legs, I would become engrossed in following the action and ease back to an opening. With the ship shuddering from the constant concussions caused by the firing of her 5” and 3” guns, and the explosions of bombs and torpedoes in the harbor, I didn’t consciously feel, hear, or see the gigantic explosion that demolished Arizona. Only minutes after the attack had begun, the dreadnought turned into a mass of twisted, torn and fire-scorched steel. I didn’t pay much attention to activities around California, or the tanker Neosho directly across the harbor, or Ford Island. My concentration focused on Oklahoma and West Virginia as torpedoes ripped again and again into their bowels. Oklahoma’s masts appeared to be moving closer and I realized she was listing heavily to port. Then I watched in awe as she continued turning-so fast her masts splashed the water-until her keel was exposed to the dimmed light of a smoke-shielded sun. When she rolled I could see men spilling off her decks into the water to port and others frantically scrambling over her hull to starboard. I was in a quandary as I debated with myself whether I should salute. To me the ship was dying in shame and I didn’t feel she rated a salute, but I wanted to pay respects to the many men who were dying with her. By the time I’d firmed my decision, she had capsized so I snapped a quick, but reverent, salute. As Oklahoma rolled, a float-equipped scout plane slid off the ­aft-turret catapult and floated into the burning oil at the channel side of the ship.

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My attention switched to West Virginia and other activities so I didn’t watch the plane’s final fate but it must have burned and sank. I watched while torpedo planes continued attacking West Virginia. In what seemed only a matter of seconds after a plane dropped a torpedo, a plume of water spouted at the outboard side of the ship . . . she appeared to rise, shudder, and then settle back even lower in the water than she had been before as the explosions tore out her bowels. How could anything possibly penetrate a battleship’s thick armor I had wondered . . . that it could be done was being demonstrated to me in a most dramatic and definite way! The Jap planes were below my height when they dropped low to lay their deadly cargoes into the water, as they made torpedo runs on Helena and Oglala. I could see the cockpit instruments and the expressions on the pilots’ faces. The white of their teeth flashed as they grimaced with concentration or grinned in exultation at the success of their missions. Then as the planes banked and climbed for altitude, I was almost eyeballto-eyeball with the rear gunners as they looked down their gun sights and sprayed deadly bullets over the topsides of the ships. How I wished for my rifle! My eyes focused on a plane struggling to gain altitude after attacking Ford Island. Flames and smoke streamed out behind it. Then it slipped off to the left and glided to a crash on or near the Navy yard hospital grounds it was the only plane I saw shot down during the attack! A flight of five planes flew over Pennsylvania at high altitude and the ship’s AA guns concentrated on them. I fumed with frustration as I saw the shells bursting below the planes or, judging from the volume of fire, not even exploding. The planes continued serenely on their way and disappeared unscathed over the billowing smoke hovering above the harbor. The sight of them added to the frustration of watching torpedo and bomber planes dropping their instruments of destruction, then escaping apparently undamaged into the billowing smoke. Approximately 30-minutes after the attack began, orders were passed for the director crew to clear the mainmast and go below. I dropped down the tripod leg ladder, grasping the handrails loosely and tightening my grip occasionally to control my speedy descent . . . my feet were catching every third or fourth rung! I ran to the boat deck and joined a line of sailors and Marines passing ammunition to a 5” .25-caliber AA gun-I felt better now that I was helping to fight Japs.

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As I cradled each projectile against my chest, I prayed that it would knock an enemy plane from the air. Odd thoughts can enter one’s mind at unexpected moments: grease from the ammo was smearing my white skivvy shirt and I directed extra curses at the Japs for that! So many men were lending a hand on the boat deck that they were getting in each other’s way. It also exposed more than necessary to strafing planes so all Marines were ordered below. But I didn’t want to sit in the Marine Compartment with nothing to do, unable to keep tabs on harbor activity, so I went to Number-7 Casemate. It and -9 were starboard side and the 5” broadside guns in them were manned by Marines, as were Number-8 and -10 on the port side. Again, I had nothing to do but observe-and talk. Sgt. R. L. Taylor and I were standing in the center of the casemate talking when a Marine sitting in the gun’s pointer seat yelled, exultantly, “A battleship is going out!” I rushed to the casemate opening and saw Nevada emerging almost like a ghost from the thick smoke . . . slowing making her way by Battleship Row and heading toward the harbor’s entrance. A swarm of Japanese planes darted through the air above her and bombs were exploding in the water alongside and on her decks. When one exploded in the water just off her starboard bow and near a sailor coiling rope on the fo’c’sle, he dropped the rope and streaked aft. It appeared that his upper body was lagging behind his churning legs, because he ran leaning back and the back of his head appeared to be almost between his shoulder blades. I sensed his desperation and empathized with him but in other circumstances it would have been hilarious! His timing was poor, however, because when he reached about amidships on the port side, a bomb hit Nevada in that area. Debris spurted high into the air, including a cotton bunk mattress. I envisioned a genie sitting on a Persian rug as the mattress soared high above the ship and then fluttered and yawed as it dropped to the water. I’ve always wondered whether the sailor was wounded or killed by that bomb. I felt pride as I watched the gallant old battlewagon slowly, determinedly, and majestically, fighting her way through rising geysers of water, shrugging off multiple bomb hits, with her guns defiantly spitting flames and projectiles at the darting planes swarming like bees above her while striving desperately to stop her. The old ship fighting her way down harbor was the most inspiring sight I saw during the entire war!

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I wouldn’t learn of Nevada’s fate until later, because Pennsylvania’s PA system blared: “A strafing attack is coming. Take cover!” Sergeant Taylor yelled, “Get inboard!” And I ducked into the passageway connecting the two casemates. He joined me by the guns’ ammunition hoist and we resumed our conversation. Then I was fighting for consciousness and it was like trying to climb out of an inky-black abyss. During those moments that I was aware of my surroundings the pile of men on the deck of Number-7 casemate felt like a nest of squirming worms as they struggled to untangle. As I’d gain consciousness for a moment, I could feel the crushing weight from above and the warmth and softness of wriggling bodies beneath me. Suddenly, the weight was gone and I felt someone tugging at the back of my skivvy shirt, pulling me off the pile. He helped me to stand. At 0906, a bomb had penetrated the deck of the boat deck and had apparently hit the base of the broadside gun in Number-9 Casemate before rolling over on the deck and exploding. The blast had funneled through the connecting passageway hurling men like projectiles against the wall lockers attached to the forward bulkhead of Number-7. I glanced toward the casemate opening and saw Sergeant Taylor standing nearby. His face was blackened but he acted uninjured, even though he had been between me and the exploding bomb. “Sickbay! Main deck forward!” he yelled. Feeling woozy and rudderless, I grasped the back of a Marine’s skivvy shirt and followed him down the ladder to the Marine Compartment located below the casemates. After stumbling over a stretcher in the compartment and learning that the man in it, PFC Nelson R. Holman, had a broken leg, my next awareness was of standing just inside the sickbay. My eyes roved over it . . . taking in the sparkling white bulkheads, the white bunk coverings and the compartment’s clean-as-a-new-pin look. Even the terra-cotta color battleship linoleum covering the deck looked immaculate to me . . . except for a huge pool of blood on the deck by the bunk nearest the entrance. But there wasn’t any blood on the bunk! Later, someone told me that a close buddy had lain there and his life had flowed out with that pool of red. Shrapnel had taken a huge chunk out of his back and nothing could be done to save him. I didn’t see a single man . . . dead or alive. The sickbay was ­completely empty! It was quiet, peaceful, and a haven from the carnage I had ­witnessed topside. But I felt deserted because those who could tend to my

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needs had disappeared. In doubt as to what to do and unable to make a rational decision, I ambled aft to a compartment where mess tables had been setup for morning chow. Dishes, food, tables, and silverware were helter-skelter on the deck. A sailor was standing in the compartment and I asked him if he knew where sickbay had been moved. He didn’t know. Another sailor entered the compartment and the sailor with me asked him. He informed us that it had been moved to second deck and forward by Number-1 turret’s barbette. I made my way to it and saw many wounded men laying in bunks lining the passageways and sitting or laying on the deck. I felt very weak and eased myself to the deck and leaned back against the ­barbette. I didn’t see any doctors but several corpsmen were busily attending to wounded men. After leaning against the barbette for several minutes with my eyes closed, I sensed the approach of a corpsman and opened them. He squatted beside me and inquired about my injuries, then asked, “Can you stand up?” I didn’t realize that my khaki pants were blood soaked. After I pushed myself to my feet, he didn’t wait for me to drop my pants but began slitting up the left leg with a scalpel. The higher he slit while searching for the source of the blood, the more worried I became that the worst had happened and vowed: “If they got my nuts, I’ll kill everyone of the little bastards!” Fortunately, the shrapnel wound was in my upper thigh, just below the buttock. He hastily bandaged it and moved on to another man. Remembering a few empty bunks, tiered three high, when I entered the temporary sickbay I headed for a clean-looking center bunk. A young sailor manning a soundpower phone nearby remarked in a reproving tone of voice, “I put clean coverings on just this morning. You’ll get them bloody.” I stared at him with a “Tough! You just try to keep me out of it” look. As I eased into the bunk he didn’t make any more remarks. A doctor dressed in civilian clothes entered the sickbay, quite some time later, and began checking wounded men. He worked his way around the barbette and upon reaching my bunk, questioned, “Marine, what happened to you?” “Shrapnel in the leg and a knock on the head, sir,” I replied. He checked the corpsman’s bandaging job. Then, without checking my head or asking how I felt, he said, “You can return to your station.”

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I crawled out of the bunk and started around the barbette. But, after a few steps, I felt vomit beginning to rise and dashed for a tin mop bucket setting nearby on the deck. After I had finished, the doctor ordered me back into the bunk. As I didn’t feel up to going any place under my own power, I crawled back into it. A short time later, sailors dashed into the compartment and grabbed all of the fire extinguishers. Their actions caused PFC Tommie J. Dale, in a bunk across the passageway, and I to worry that Pennsylvania was afire. We began discussing the best and fastest way to abandon ship. Two destroyers, Cassin and Downes, were in the drydock with Pennsylvania. They were beam-to-beam forward of the battleship. Private First Class Dale and I didn’t know that the destroyers had been hit by bombs and were burning. The heat from their fires was bubbling the paint inside Pennsylvania’s bow. Some time later, the ship’s crew began transferring men from the sickbay to the nearby naval hospital. A bullet had torn off part of Dale’s heel and he was suffering severely. When men started to take me out first I requested that they take him because of his pain. At that time my head and the shrapnel wound were not hurting. Later, two very-young sailors brought a stretcher to my bunk. They stood by it discussing how they could manage to get me out of the bunk and onto the stretcher. I’d remember it with amusement later, because I solved their problem. I told them to wait a minute and crawled out of the bunk and lay down on the stretcher. They carried me aft but stopped when they reached the first ladder going up to the main deck. They set the stretcher on the deck, and for several minutes discussed how to get me up the ladder. Again, I ­suggested they wait a minute and got off the stretcher, climbed the ladder, and they folded the stretcher and brought it up. I laid back down on it and they carried me to the quarterdeck. As we neared the head of the gangway to 10-10 Dock, the ship’s PA system blared: “A stretcher is needed for a severely wounded man!” and gave the location. “Leave me here and go get him,” I suggested to the sailors. “I’ll be okay.” They stopped. I got off the stretcher and sat on a nearby bit. While I sat in the warm sun waiting for the sailors to return, I wasn’t conscious of any guns firing. Number-3 and -4 turrets blocked my view of Battleship Row, but I noticed that Helena was still afloat at 10-10

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Dock. I also noticed a navy officer, a sailor, and Marine were standing at the head of the gangway. Though my head felt like it was detached and floating several feet above the deck watching what went on below, I still was mentally alert enough to know that the Japs had made a shambles of Pearl Harbor. I wondered how much damage had been done to Pennsylvania. But I was too dazed to give much thought to future happenings. Feeling very tired I considered laying down on the teakwood deck but resisted the urge. Floating in and out of awareness I didn’t know whether the severely wounded man was carried off via way of the quarterdeck gangway. Curious about him I wondered if another gangway had been put in place forward. After awhile, I began to worry that the sailors had forgotten me. But, eventually, they returned and carried me to the dock. They laid me on a cotton mattress in the bed of a civilian pickup truck. The driver headed for the hospital at breakneck speed. When the truck hit a bump in the road it bounced me into the air above the mattress. The pickup had a 2 × 6T board bolted across the top of its bed. Mesmerized, I stared fixedly at the board and began worrying that a large bump would throw me into it. The driver apparently didn’t realize that the rough ride could do more damage than lack of speed in getting me to the hospital. Even though I was still woozy from the bomb blast, it was an unforgettable ride. Upon arriving at the hospital, the attendants moved me to another mattress, laying on the deck just inside the entrance. Private First Class Dale was on one of the nearby mattresses. Once more, the stretcher bearers started to give me priority and I again suggested that they take him first. He thanked me and they took him away. It was the last time I’d ever see him. Eventually I was taken into a ward and put to bed. After a quick check by ward medical personnel and a morphine shot, I drifted into an untroubled sleep. I awakened after dark to the sound of guns firing in the harbor area. Later, I learned that a flight of six Enterprise planes had been coming in for a landing on Ford Island and four were shot down by friendly forces. After the guns quit firing, the only sounds to be heard in the darkness were the muted voices of medical personnel and the moans of the wounded.

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The Great Arsenal of Democracy Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 29 December 1940

M

y friends:

This is not a fireside chat on war. It is a talk on national security; because the nub of the whole purpose of your President is to keep you now, and your children later, and your grandchildren much later, out of a lastditch war for the preservation of American independence, and all of the things that American independence means to you and to me and to ours. Tonight, in the presence of a world crisis, my mind goes back eight years to a night in the midst of a domestic crisis. It was a time when the wheels of American industry were grinding to a full stop, when the whole banking system of our country had ceased to function. I well remember that while I sat in my study in the White House, preparing to talk with the people of the United States, I had before my eyes the picture of all those Americans with whom I was talking. I saw the workmen in the mills, the mines, the factories, the girl behind the counter, the small shopkeeper, the farmer doing his spring plowing, the widows and the old men wondering about their life’s savings. I tried to convey to the great mass of American people what the banking crisis meant to them in their daily lives. Tonight, I want to do the same thing, with the same people, in this new crisis which faces America. We met the issue of 1933 with courage and realism. We face this new crisis, this new threat to the security of our nation, with the same courage and realism. Never before since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock has our American civilization been in such danger as now. For on September 27th, 1940—this year—by an agreement signed 91

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in Berlin, three powerful nations, two in Europe and one in Asia, joined themselves together in the threat that if the United States of America interfered with or blocked the expansion program of these three nations—a program aimed at world control—they would unite in ­ultimate action against the United States. The Nazi masters of Germany have made it clear that they intend not only to dominate all life and thought in their own country, but also to enslave the whole of Europe, and then to use the resources of Europe to dominate the rest of the world. It was only three weeks ago that their leader stated this: “There are two worlds that stand opposed to each other.” And then in defiant reply to his opponents he said this: “Others are correct when they say: ‘With this world we cannot ever reconcile ourselves.’’’ I can beat any other power in the world.” So said the leader of the Nazis. In other words, the Axis not merely admits but the Axis proclaims that there can be no ultimate peace between their philosophy—their philosophy of government—and our philosophy of government. In view of the nature of this undeniable threat, it can be asserted, properly and categorically, that the United States has no right or reason to encourage talk of peace until the day shall come when there is a clear intention on the part of the aggressor nations to abandon all thought of dominating or conquering the world. At this moment the forces of the States that are leagued against all peoples who live in freedom are being held away from our shores. The Germans and the Italians are being blocked on the other side of the Atlantic by the British and by the Greeks, and by thousands of soldiers and sailors who were able to escape from subjugated countries. In Asia the Japanese are being engaged by the Chinese nation in another great defense. In the Pacific Ocean is our fleet. Some of our people like to believe that wars in Europe and in Asia are of no concern to us. But it is a matter of most vital concern to us that European and Asiatic war-makers should not gain control of the oceans which lead to this hemisphere. One hundred and seventeen years ago the Monroe Doctrine was conceived by our government as a measure of defense in the face of a threat against this hemisphere by an alliance in Continental Europe. Thereafter, we stood guard in the Atlantic, with the British as neighbors. There was no treaty. There was no “unwritten agreement.” And yet there was the feeling, proven ­correct by history, that we as neighbors could settle any disputes in peaceful fashion. And the

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fact is that during the whole of this time the Western Hemisphere has remained free from aggression from Europe or from Asia. Does anyone seriously believe that we need to fear attack anywhere in the Americas while a free Britain remains our most powerful naval neighbor in the Atlantic? And does anyone seriously believe, on the other hand, that we could rest easy if the Axis powers were our neighbors there? If Great Britain goes down, the Axis powers will control the Continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, Austral-Asia, and the high seas. And they will be in a position to bring enormous military and naval resources against this hemisphere. It is no exaggeration to say that all of us in all the Americas would be living at the point of a gun—a gun loaded with explosive bullets, economic as well as military. We should enter upon a new and terrible era in which the whole world, our hemisphere included, would be run by threats of brute force. And to survive in such a world, we would have to convert ourselves permanently into a militaristic power on the basis of war economy. Some of us like to believe that even if Britain falls, we are still safe, because of the broad expanse of the Atlantic and of the Pacific. But the width of those oceans is not what it was in the days of clipper ships. At one point between Africa and Brazil the distance is less than it is from Washington to Denver, Colorado, five hours for the latest type of ­bomber. And at the north end of the Pacific Ocean, America and Asia almost touch each other. Why, even today we have planes that could fly from the British Isles to New England and back again without refueling. And remember that the range of the modern bomber is ever being increased. During the past week many people in all parts of the nation have told me what they wanted me to say tonight. Almost all of them expressed a courageous desire to hear the plain truth about the gravity of the ­situation. One telegram, however, expressed the attitude of the small minority who want to see no evil and hear no evil, even though they know in their hearts that evil exists. That telegram begged me not to tell again of the ease with which our American cities could be bombed by any hostile power which had gained bases in this Western Hemisphere. The gist of that telegram was: “Please, Mr. President, don’t frighten us by telling us the facts.” Frankly and definitely there is danger ahead—danger against which we must prepare. But we well know that we cannot escape danger, or the fear of danger, by crawling into bed and pulling the covers over our heads.

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Some nations of Europe were bound by solemn nonintervention pacts with Germany. Other nations were assured by Germany that they need never fear invasion. Nonintervention pact or not, the fact remains that they were attacked, overrun, thrown into modern slavery at an hour’s notice—or even without any notice at all. As an exiled leader of one of these nations said to me the other day, “The notice was a minus quantity. It was given to my government two hours after German troops had poured into my country in a hundred places.” The fate of these nations tells us what it means to live at the point of a Nazi gun. The Nazis have justified such actions by various pious frauds. One of these frauds is the claim that they are occupying a nation for the purpose of “restoring order.” Another is that they are occupying or controlling a nation on the excuse that they are “protecting it” against the aggression of somebody else. For example, Germany has said that she was occupying Belgium to save the Belgians from the British. Would she then hesitate to say to any South American country: “We are occupying you to protect you from aggression by the United States”? Belgium today is being used as an invasion base against Britain, now fighting for its life. And any South American country, in Nazi hands, would always constitute a jumping off place for German attack on any one of the other republics of this hemisphere. Analyze for yourselves the future of two other places even nearer to Germany if the Nazis won. Could Ireland hold out? Would Irish freedom be permitted as an amazing pet exception in an unfree world? Or the islands of the Azores, which still fly the flag of Portugal after five centuries? You and I think of Hawaii as an outpost of defense in the Pacific. And yet the Azores are closer to our shores in the Atlantic than Hawaii is on the other side. There are those who say that the Axis powers would never have any desire to attack the Western Hemisphere. That is the same dangerous form of wishful thinking which has destroyed the powers of resistance of so many conquered peoples. The plain facts are that the Nazis have proclaimed, time and again, that all other races are their inferiors and therefore subject to their orders. And most important of all, the vast resources and wealth of this American hemisphere constitute the most tempting loot in all of the round world. Let us no longer blind ourselves to the undeniable fact that the evil forces which have crushed and undermined and corrupted so many others

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are already within our own gates. Your government knows much about them and every day is ferreting them out. Their secret emissaries are active in our own and in neighboring countries. They seek to stir up suspicion and dissension, to cause internal strife. They try to turn capital against labor, and vice versa. They try to reawaken long slumbering racial and religious enmities which should have no place in this country. They are active in every group that promotes intolerance. They exploit for their own ends our own natural  abhorrence of war. These trouble-breeders have but one purpose. It is to divide our people, to divide them into hostile groups and to destroy our unity and shatter our will to defend ourselves. There are also American citizens, many of them in high places, who, unwittingly in most cases, are aiding and abetting the work of these agents. I do not charge these American citizens with being foreign agents. But I do charge them with doing exactly the kind of work that the dictators want done in the United States. These people not only believe that we can save our own skins by shutting our eyes to the fate of other nations. Some of them go much further than that. They say that we can and should become the friends and even the partners of the Axis powers. Some of them even suggest that we should imitate the methods of the dictatorships. But Americans never can and never will do that. The experience of the past two years has proven beyond doubt that no nation can appease the Nazis. No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it. There can be no appeasement with ruthlessness. There can be no reasoning with an incendiary bomb. We know now that a nation can have peace with the Nazis only at the price of total surrender. Even the people of Italy have been forced to become accomplices of the Nazis; but at this moment they do not know how soon they will be embraced to death by their allies. The American appeasers ignore the warning to be found in the fate of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and France. They tell you that the Axis powers are going to win anyway; that all of this bloodshed in the world could be saved, that the United States might just as well throw its influence into the scale of a dictated peace and get the best out of it that we can. They call it a “negotiated peace.” Nonsense! Is it a negotiated peace if a gang of outlaws surrounds your community and on threat of extermination makes you pay tribute to save your own skins? For such a dictated peace would be no peace at all. It would be only another armistice, leading to the most

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gigantic armament race and the most devastating trade wars in all ­history. And in these contests the Americas would offer the only real resistance to the Axis power. With all their vaunted efficiency, with all their parade of pious purpose in this war, there are still in their background the concentration camp and the servants of God in chains. The history of recent years proves that the shootings and the chains and the concentration camps are not simply the transient tools but the very altars of modern dictatorships. They may talk of a “new order” in the world, but what they have in mind is only a revival of the oldest and the worst tyranny. In that there is no liberty, no religion, no hope. The proposed “new order” is the very opposite of a United States of Europe or a United States of Asia. It is not a government based upon the consent of the governed. It is not a union of ordinary, self-respecting men and women to protect themselves and their freedom and their dignity from oppression. It is an unholy alliance of power and pelf to dominate and to enslave the human race. The British people and their allies today are conducting an active war against this unholy alliance. Our own future security is greatly dependent on the outcome of that fight. Our ability to “keep out of war” is going to be affected by that outcome. Thinking in terms of today and tomorrow, I make the direct statement to the American people that there is far less chance of the United States getting into war if we do all we can now to support the nations defending themselves against attack by the Axis than if  we acquiesce in their defeat, submit tamely to an Axis victory, and wait our turn to be the object of attack in another war later on. If we are to be completely honest with ourselves, we must admit that there is risk in any course we may take. But I deeply believe that the great majority of our people agree that the course that I advocate involves the least risk now and the greatest hope for world peace in the future. The people of Europe who are defending themselves do not ask us to do their fighting. They ask us for the implements of war, the planes, the tanks, the guns, the freighters which will enable them to fight for their liberty and for our security. Emphatically, we must get these weapons to them, get them to them in sufficient volume and quickly enough so that we and our children will be saved the agony and suffering of war which others have had to endure. Let not the defeatists tell us that it is too late. It will never be earlier. Tomorrow will be later than today.

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Certain facts are self-evident. In a military sense Great Britain and the British Empire are today the spearhead of resistance to world conquest. And they are putting up a fight which will live forever in the story of human gallantry. There is no demand for sending an American expeditionary force outside our own borders. There is no intention by any member of your government to send such a force. You can therefore, nail, nail any talk about sending armies to Europe as deliberate untruth. Our national policy is not directed toward war. Its sole purpose is to keep war away from our country and away from our people. Democracy’s fight against world conquest is being greatly aided, and must be more greatly aided, by the rearmament of the United States and by sending every ounce and every ton of munitions and supplies that we can possibly spare to help the defenders who are in the front lines. And it is no more un-neutral for us to do that than it is for Sweden, Russia, and other nations near Germany to send steel and ore and oil and other war materials into Germany every day in the week. We are planning our own defense with the utmost urgency, and in its vast scale we must integrate the war needs of Britain and the other free nations which are resisting aggression. This is not a matter of sentiment or of controversial personal opinion. It is a matter of realistic, practical military policy, based on the advice of our military experts who are in close touch with existing warfare. These military and naval experts and the members of the Congress and the Administration have a singleminded purpose: the defense of the United States. This nation is making a great effort to produce everything that is necessary in this emergency, and with all possible speed. And this great effort requires great sacrifice. I would ask no one to defend a democracy which in turn would not defend every one in the nation against want and privation. The strength of this nation shall not be diluted by the failure of the government to protect the economic well-being of its citizens. If our capacity to produce is limited by machines, it must ever be remembered that these machines are operated by the skill and the stamina of the workers. As the government is determined to protect the rights of the workers, so the nation has a right to expect that the men who man the machines will discharge their full responsibilities to the urgent needs of defense. The worker possesses the same human dignity and is entitled to the same

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security of position as the engineer or the manager or the owner. For the workers provide the human power that turns out the destroyers, and the planes, and the tanks. The nation expects our defense industries to continue operation without interruption by strikes or lockouts. It expects and insists that management and workers will reconcile their differences by voluntary or legal means, to continue to produce the supplies that are so sorely needed. And on the economic side of our great defense program, we are, as you know, bending every effort to maintain stability of prices and with that the stability of the cost of living. Nine days ago I announced the setting up of a more effective organization to direct our gigantic efforts to increase the production of munitions. The appropriation of vast sums of money and a well-coordinated executive direction of our defense efforts are not in themselves enough. Guns, planes, ships and many other things have to be built in the factories and the arsenals of America. They have to be produced by workers and managers and engineers with the aid of machines which in turn have to be built by hundreds of thousands of workers throughout the land. In this great work there has been splendid cooperation between the government and industry and labor. And I am very thankful. American industrial genius, unmatched throughout all the world in the solution of production problems, has been called upon to bring its resources and its talents into action. Manufacturers of watches, of farm implements, of Linotypes and cash registers and automobiles, and sewing machines and lawn mowers and locomotives, are now making fuses and bomb packing crates and telescope mounts and shells and pistols and tanks. But all of our present efforts are not enough. We must have more ships, more guns, more planes—more of everything. And this can be ­accomplished only if we discard the notion of “business as usual.” This job cannot be done merely by superimposing on the existing productive facilities the added requirements of the nation for defense. Our defense efforts must not be blocked by those who fear the future consequences of surplus plant capacity. The possible consequences of failure of our defense efforts now are much more to be feared. And after the present needs of our defense are past, a proper handling of the country’s peacetime needs will require all of the new productive capacity, if not still more. No pessimistic policy about the future of America shall delay the immediate expansion of those ­industries essential to defense. We need them.

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I want to make it clear that it is the purpose of the nation to build now with all possible speed every machine, every arsenal, every factory that we need to manufacture our defense material. We have the men, the skill, the wealth, and above all, the will. I am confident that if and when ­production of consumer or luxury goods in certain industries requires the use of machines and raw materials that are essential for defense purposes, then such production must yield, and will gladly yield, to our primary and compelling purpose. So I appeal to the owners of plants, to the managers, to the workers, to our own government employees to put every ounce of effort into producing these munitions swiftly and without stint. With this appeal I give you the pledge that all of us who are officers of your government will devote ourselves to the same whole-hearted extent to the great task that lies ahead. As planes and ships and guns and shells are produced, your government, with its defense experts, can then determine how best to use them to defend this hemisphere. The decision as to how much shall be sent abroad and how much shall remain at home must be made on the basis of our overall military necessities. We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of ­urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war. We have furnished the British great material support and we will furnish far more in the future. There will be no “bottlenecks” in our determination to aid Great Britain. No dictator, no combination of dictators, will weaken that determination by threats of how they will construe that determination. The British have received invaluable military support from the heroic Greek Army and from the forces of all the governments in exile. Their strength is growing. It is the strength of men and women who value their freedom more highly than they value their lives. I believe that the Axis powers are not going to win this war. I base that belief on the latest and best of information. We have no excuse for defeatism. We have every good reason for hope—hope for peace, yes, and hope for the defense of our civilization and for the building of a better civilization in the future. I have the profound conviction that the American people are now determined to put

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forth a mightier effort than they have ever yet made to increase our ­production of all the implements of defense, to meet the threat to our ­democratic faith. As President of the United States, I call for that national effort. I call for it in the name of this nation which we love and honor and which we are privileged and proud to serve. I call upon our people with absolute confidence that our common cause will greatly succeed.

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Lend Lease Act, 1941

The Senate passed the $5.98 billion supplemental Lend-Lease bill on October 23, 1941, bringing the United States one step closer to direct involvement in World War II. The Lend-Lease Act, approved by Congress in March 1941, gave President Roosevelt virtually unlimited authority to direct material aid such as ammunition, tanks, airplanes, trucks, and food to the war effort in Europe without violating the nation’s official position of neutrality. The United States formally entered the war in December 1941 following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Initially intended to help Great Britain, within months, the Lend-Lease program was expanded to include China and the Soviet Union. By the end of the war, the United States had extended $49,100,000,000 in Lend-Lease aid to more than 40 nations.

AN ACT

Further to promote the defense of the United States, and for other ­purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate add House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act may be cited as “An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States”. SEC. 2. As used in this Act (a) The term “defense article” means (1) Any weapon, munition. aircraft, vessel, or boat; (2) Any machinery, facility, tool, material, or supply necessary for the manufacture, production, processing, repair, servicing, or operation of any article described in this subsection; (3) Any component material or part of or equipment for any article described in this subsection; 101

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(4) Any agricultural, industrial or other commodity or article for defense.

Such term “defense article” includes any article described in this subsection: Manufactured or procured pursuant to section 3, or to which the United States or any foreign government has or hereafter acquires title, possession, or control. (b) The term “defense information” means any plan, specification, design, prototype, or information pertaining to any defense article. SEC. 3. (a) Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law, the President may, from time to time. when he deems it in the interest of national defense, authorize the Secretary Of War, the Secretary of the Navy, or the bead of any other department or agency of the Government (1) To manufacture in arsenals, factories, and shipyards under their jurisdiction, or otherwise procure, to the extent to whichfunds are made available therefor, or contracts are authorized from time to time by the Congress, or both, any defense article for the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States. (2) To sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of, to any such government any defense article, but no defense article not manufactured or procured under paragraph (1) shall in any way be disposed of under this paragraph, except after consultation with the Chief of Staff of the Army or the Chief of Naval Operations of the Navy, or both. The value of defense articles disposed of in any way under authority of this paragraph, and procured from funds heretofore appropriated, shall not exceed $1,300,000,000. The value of such defense articles shall be determined by the head of the department or agency concerned or such other department, agency or officer as shall be designated in the manner provided in the rules and regulations issued hereunder. Defense articles procured from funds hereafter appropriated to any department or agency of the Government, other than from funds authorized to he appropriated under this Act. shall not be disposed of in any way under ­authority

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of this paragraph except to the extent hereafter authorized by the Congress in the Acts appropriating such funds or otherwise. (3) To test, inspect, prove, repair, outfit, recondition, or otherwise to place in good working order, to the extent to which funds are made available therefor, or contracts are authorized from time to time by the Congress, or both, any defense article for any such government, or to procure any or all such services by private contract. (4) To communicate to any such government any defense information pertaining to any defense article furnished to such government under paragraph (2) of this subsection. (5) To release for export any defense article disposed of in any way under this subsection to any such government. (b) The terms and conditions upon which any such foreign government receives any aid authorized under subsection (a) shall be those which the President deems satisfactory, and the benefit to the United States may he payment or repayment in kind or property, or any other direct or indirect benefit which the President deems satisfactory. (c) After June 30, 1943, or after the passage of a concurrent resolution by the two Houses before June 30, 1943, which declares that the powers conferred by or pursuant to subsection (a) are no ­longer necessary to promote the defense of the United States, neither the President nor the head of any department or agency shall exercise any of the powers conferred by or pursuant to subsection (a) except that until July 1, 1946, any of such powers may be exercised to the extent necessary to carry out a contract or agreement with such a foreign government made before July 1,1943, or before the passage of such concurrent resolution, whichever is the earlier. (d) Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or to permit the authorization of convoying vessels by naval vessels of the United States. (e) Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or to permit the authorization of the entry of any American vessel into a  combat area in violation of section 3 of the neutrality Act of 1939.

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SEC. 4 All contracts or agreements made for the disposition of any defense article or defense information pursuant to section 3 shall contain a clause by which the foreign government undertakes that it will not, without the consent of the President, transfer title to or possession of such defense article or defense information by gift, sale, or otherwise, or  permit its use by anyone not an officer, employee, or agent of such foreign government. SEC. 5. (a) The Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, or the head of any other department or agency of the Government involved shall when any such defense article or defense information is exported, immediately inform the department or agency designated by the President to administer section 6 of the Act of July 2, 1940 (54 Stat. 714). of the quantities, character, value, terms of disposition and destination of the article and information so exported. (b) The President from time to time, but not less frequently than once every ninety days, shall transmit to the Congress a report of operations under this Act except such information as he deems incompatible with the public interest to disclose. Reports provided for under this subsection shall be transmitted to the Secretary of the Senate or the Clerk of the House of representatives, as the case may be, if the Senate or the House of Representatives, as the case may be, is not in session. SEC. 6. (a) There is hereby authorized to be appropriated from time to time, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, such amounts as may be necessary to carry out the provisions and accomplish the purposes of this Act. (b) All money and all property which is converted into money received under section 3 from any government shall, with the approval of the Director of the Budget. revert to the respective appropriation or appropriations out of which funds were expended with respect to the defense article or defense information for which such consideration is received, and shall be available for expenditure for the purpose for which such expended funds were appropriated by law, during the fiscal year in which such funds are received and the

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ensuing fiscal year; but in no event shall any funds so received be available for expenditure after June 30, 1946. SEC. 7. The Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and the head of the department or agency shall in all contracts or agreements for the disposition of any defense article or defense information fully protect the rights of all citizens of the United States who have patent rights in and to any such article or information which is hereby authorized to he disposed of and the payments collected for royalties on such patents shall be paid to the owners and holders of such patents. SEC. 8. The Secretaries of War and of the Navy are hereby authorized to purchase or otherwise acquire arms, ammunition, and implements of war produced within the jurisdiction of any country to which section 3 is applicable, whenever the President deems such purchase or acquisition to be necessary in the interests of the defense of the United States. SEC. 9. The President may, from time to time, promulgate such rules and regulations as may be necessary and proper to carry out any of the provisions of this Act; and he may exercise any power or authority conferred on him by this Act through such department, agency, or officer as be ­shall direct. SEC. 10. Nothing in this Act shall be construed to change existing law relating to the use of the land and naval forces of the United States, except insofar as such use relates to the manufacture, procurement, and repair of defense articles, the communication of information and other noncombatant purposes enumerated in this Act. SEC 11. If any provision of this Act or the application of such provision to any circumstance shall be held invalid, the validity of the remainder of the Act and the applicability of such provision to other circumstances shall not be affected thereby. Approved, March 11, 1941.

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Letter from President Roosevelt to Stalin on an Acceptable Compromise Regarding the Composition of the Postwar Polish Government 6 February 1945

THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON February 6, 1945 My dear Marshal Stalin: I have been giving a great deal of thought to our meeting this afternoon, and I want to tell you in all frankness what is on my mind. In so far as the Polish Government is concerned, I am greatly ­disturbed that the three great powers do not have a meeting of minds about the political setup in Poland. It seems to me that it puts all of us in a bad light throughout the world to have you recognizing one government while we and the British are recognizing another in London. I am sure this state of affairs should not continue and that if it does it can only lead our people to think there is a breach between us, which 107

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is not the case. I am ­determined that there shall be no breach between ourselves and the Soviet Union. Surely there is a way to reconcile our differences. Marshal V. I. [sic] Stalin, Koreis, The Crimea I was very much impressed with some of the things you said today, ­particularly your determination that your rear must be safeguarded as your army moves into Berlin. You cannot, and we must not, tolerate any temporary government which will give your armed forces any trouble of this sort. I want you to know that I am fully mindful of this. You must believe me when I tell you that our people at home look with a critical eye on what they consider a disagreement between us at this vital stage of the war. They, in effect, say that if we cannot get a meeting of minds now when our armies are converging on the common enemy, how can we get an understanding on even more vital things in the future. I have had to make it clear to you that we cannot recognize the Lublin Government as now composed, and the world would regard it as a lamentable outcome of our work here if we parted with an open and obvious divergence between us on this issue. You said today that you would be prepared to support any suggestions for the solution of this problem which offered a fair chance of success, and you also mentioned the possibility of bringing some members of the Lublin government here. Realizing that we all have the same anxiety in getting the matter settled, I would like to develop your proposal a little and suggest that we invite here to Yalta at once Mr. Beirut [Bierut] and Mr. Osubka Morawski from the Lublin government and also two or three from the following list of Poles, which according to our information would be desirable as representatives of the other elements of the Polish people  in development of  a new temporary government which all three of us could recognize and support: Bishop Sapieha of Cracow, Vincente [Wincenty] Witos, Mr.  Zurlowski [Zulawski], Professor Buyak [Bujak], and Professor Kutzeva [Kutzeba]. If, as a result of the presence of these Polish leaders from abroad such as Mr. Mikolajczyk, Mr. Grabski, and Mr. Romer, the United States Government, and I feel sure the British government as well,

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would be prepared to examine with you conditions in which they would dissociate themselves from the London government and transfer their recognition to the new provisional ­government. I hope that I do not have to assure you that the United States will never lend its support in any way to any provisional government in Poland that would be inimical to your interest. It goes without saying that any interim government could be formed as a result of our conference with the Poles here would be pledged to the holding of free elections in Poland at the earliest possible date. I know this is completely consistent with your desire to see a new free and democratic Poland emerge from the welter of this war. Most sincerely yours Franklin Roosevelt

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State of the Union Message to Congress Franklin D. Roosevelt, January 11, 1944

To the Congress:

This Nation in the past two years has become an active partner in the world’s greatest war against human slavery. We have joined with like-minded people in order to defend ourselves in a world that has been gravely threatened with gangster rule. But I do not think that any of us Americans can be content with mere survival. Sacrifices that we and our allies are making impose upon us all a sacred obligation to see to it that out of this war we and our children will gain something better than mere survival. We are united in determination that this war shall not be followed by another interim which leads to new disaster that we shall not repeat the tragic errors of ostrich isolationism—that we shall not repeat the ­excesses of the wild twenties when this Nation went for a joy ride on a roller coaster which ended in a tragic crash. When Mr. Hull went to Moscow in October, and when I went to Cairo and Teheran in November, we knew that we were in agreement with our allies in our common determination to fight and win this war. But there were many vital questions concerning the future peace, and they were discussed in an atmosphere of complete candor and ­harmony. In the last war such discussions, such meetings, did not even begin until the shooting had stopped and the delegates began to assemble at the peace table. There had been no previous opportunities for man-to-man discussions which lead to meetings of minds. The result was a peace which was not a peace. 111

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That was a mistake which we are not repeating in this war. And right here I want to address a word or two to some suspicious souls who are fearful that Mr. Hull or I have made “commitments” for the future which might pledge this Nation to secret treaties, or to ­enacting the role of Santa Claus. To such suspicious souls—using a polite terminology—I wish to say that Mr. Churchill, and Marshal Stalin, and Generalissimo Chiang ­Kai-shek are all thoroughly conversant with the provisions of our Constitution. And so is Mr. Hull. And so am I. Of course we made some commitments. We most certainly committed ourselves to very large and very specific military plans which require the use of all Allied forces to bring about the defeat of our enemies at the earliest possible time. But there were no secret treaties or political or financial ­commitments. The one supreme objective for the future, which we discussed for each Nation individually, and for all the United Nations, can be summed up in one word: Security. And that means not only physical security which provides safety from attacks by aggressors. It means also economic security, social security, moral security—in a family of Nations. In the plain down-to-earth talks that I had with the Generalissimo and Marshal Stalin and Prime Minister Churchill, it was abundantly clear that they are all most deeply interested in the resumption of peaceful progress by their own peoples—progress toward a better life. All our allies want freedom to develop their lands and resources, to build up industry, to increase education and individual opportunity, and to raise standards of living. All our allies have learned by bitter experience that real development will not be possible if they are to be diverted from their purpose by repeated wars—or even threats of war. China and Russia are truly united with Britain and America in recognition of this essential fact: The best interests of each Nation, large and small, demand that all freedom-loving Nations shall join together in a just and durable ­system of peace. In the present world situation, evidenced by the actions of Germany, Italy, and Japan, unquestioned military control over disturbers of the peace is as necessary among Nations as it is among citizens in a community. And an equally basic essential to

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peace is a decent standard of living for all individual men and women and children in all Nations. Freedom from fear is eternally linked with freedom from want. There are people who burrow through our Nation like unseeing moles, and attempt to spread the suspicion that if other Nations are encouraged to raise their standards of living, our own American standard of living must of necessity be depressed. The fact is the very contrary. It has been shown time and again that if the standard of living of any country goes up, so does its purchasing power and that such a rise encourages a better standard of living in neighboring countries with whom it trades. That is just plain common sense—and it is the kind of plain common sense that provided the basis for our discussions at Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran. Returning from my journeyings, I must confess to a sense of ­“let-down” when I found many evidences of faulty perspective here in Washington. The faulty perspective consists in overemphasizing lesser problems and thereby underemphasizing the first and greatest problem. The overwhelming majority of our people have met the demands of this war with magnificent courage and understanding. They have ­accepted inconveniences; they have accepted hardships; they have ­accepted tragic sacrifices. And they are ready and eager to make ­whatever further contributions are needed to win the war as quickly as possible if only they are given the chance to know what is required of them. However, while the majority goes on about its great work without complaint, a noisy minority maintains an uproar of demands for special favors for special groups. There are pests who swarm through the lobbies of the Congress and the cocktail bars of Washington, representing these special groups as opposed to the basic interests of the Nation as a whole. They have come to look upon the war primarily as a chance to make profits for themselves at the expense of their neighbors profits in money or in terms of political or social preferment. Such selfish agitation can be highly dangerous in wartime. It creates confusion. It damages morale. It hampers our national effort. It muddies the waters and therefore prolongs the war. If we analyze American history impartially, we cannot escape the fact that in our past we have not always forgotten individual and selfish and partisan interests in time of war—we have not always been united in ­purpose and direction. We cannot overlook the serious dissensions and

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the lack of unity in our war of the Revolution, in our War of 1812, or in our War Between the States, when the survival of the Union itself was at stake. In the first World War we came closer to national unity than in any previous war. But that war lasted only a year and a half, and increasing signs of disunity began to appear during the final months of the ­conflict. In this war, we have been compelled to learn how interdependent upon each other are all groups and sections of the population of America. Increased food costs, for example, will bring new demands for wage increases from all war workers, which will in turn raise all prices of all things including those things which the farmers themselves have to buy. Increased wages or prices will each in turn produce the same results. They all have a particularly disastrous result on all fixed income groups. And I hope you will remember that all of us in this Government ­represent the fixed income group just as much as we represent business owners, workers, and farmers. This group of fixed income people includes: teachers, clergy, policemen, firemen, widows and minors on fixed incomes, wives and dependents of our soldiers and sailors, and ­old-age pensioners. They and their families add up to one-quarter of our one hundred and thirty million people. They have few or no high ­pressure representatives at the Capitol. In a period of gross inflation they would be the worst sufferers. If ever there was a time to subordinate individual or group ­selfishness to the national good, that time is now. Disunity at home—bickerings, self-seeking partisanship, stoppages of work, inflation, business as usual, politics as usual, luxury as usual these are the influences which can undermine the morale of the brave men ready to die at the front for us here. Those who are doing most of the complaining are not deliberately striving to sabotage the national war effort. They are laboring under the delusion that the time is past when we must make prodigious sacrifices that the war is already won and we can begin to slacken off. But the dangerous folly of that point of view can be measured by the distance that separates our troops from their ultimate objectives in Berlin and Tokyo—and by the sum of all the perils that lie along the way.

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Overconfidence and complacency are among our deadliest enemies. Last spring—after notable victories at Stalingrad and in Tunisia and against the U-boats on the high seas—overconfidence became so pronounced that war production fell off. In two months, June and July, 1943, more than a thousand airplanes that could have been made and should have been made were not made. Those who failed to make them were not on strike. They were merely saying, “The war’s in the bag so let’s relax.” That attitude on the part of anyone—Government or management or labor—can lengthen this war. It can kill American boys. Let us remember the lessons of 1918. In the summer of that year the tide turned in favor of the allies. But this Government did not relax. In fact, our national effort was stepped up. In August, 1918, the draft age limits were broadened from 21-31 to 18-45. The President called for “force to the utmost,” and his call was heeded. And in November, only three months later, Germany surrendered. That is the way to fight and win a war—all out—and not with ­half-an-eye on the battlefronts abroad and the other eye-and-a-half on personal, selfish, or political interests here at home. Therefore, in order to concentrate all our energies and resources on winning the war, and to maintain a fair and stable economy at home, I recommend that the Congress adopt:







(1) A realistic tax law—which will tax all unreasonable profits, both individual and corporate, and reduce the ultimate cost of the war to our sons and daughters. The tax bill now under consideration by the Congress does not begin to meet this test. (2) A continuation of the law for the renegotiation of war contracts— which will prevent exorbitant profits and assure fair prices to the Government. For two long years I have pleaded with the Congress to take undue profits out of war. (3) A cost of food law—which will enable the Government (a) to place a reasonable floor under the prices the farmer may expect for his production; and (b) to place a ceiling on the prices a ­consumer will have to pay for the food he buys. This should apply to necessities only; and will require public funds to carry out. It will cost in appropriations about one percent of the present ­annual cost of the war. (4) Early reenactment of the stabilization statute of October, 1942. This expires June 30, 1944, and if it is not extended

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well in advance, the country might just as well expect price chaos by ­s ummer.  We cannot have stabilization by wishful thinking. We must take positive action to maintain the integrity of the American dollar. (5) A national service law which, for the duration of the war, will prevent strikes, and, with certain appropriate exceptions, will make available for war production or for any other essential ­services every able-bodied adult in this Nation. These five measures together form a just and equitable whole. I would not recommend a national service law unless the other laws were passed to keep down the cost of living, to share equitably the burdens of ­taxation, to hold the stabilization line, and to prevent undue profits. The Federal Government already has the basic power to draft ­capital and property of all kinds for war purposes on a basis of just compensation. As you know, I have for three years hesitated to recommend a ­national service act. Today, however, I am convinced of its necessity. Although I believe that we and our allies can win the war without such a measure, I am certain that nothing less than total mobilization of all our resources of manpower and capital will guarantee an earlier victory, and reduce the toll of suffering and sorrow and blood. I have received a joint recommendation for this law from the heads of the War Department, the Navy Department, and the Maritime Commission. These are the men who bear responsibility for the procurement of the necessary arms and equipment, and for the successful prosecution of the war in the field. They say: When the very life of the Nation is in peril the responsibility for ­service is common to all men and women. In such a time there can be no discrimination between the men and women who are assigned by the Government to its defense at the battlefront and the men and women assigned to producing the vital materials essential to successful military operations. A prompt enactment of a National Service Law would be merely an expression of the universality of this responsibility.

I believe the country will agree that those statements are the ­solemn truth.

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National service is the most democratic way to wage a war. Like ­selective service for the armed forces, it rests on the obligation of each citizen to serve his Nation to his utmost where he is best ­qualified. It does not mean reduction in wages. It does not mean loss of retirement and seniority rights and benefits. It does not mean that any substantial numbers of war workers will be disturbed in their present jobs. Let these facts be wholly clear. Experience in other democratic Nations at war—Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand has shown that the very existence of national service makes unnecessary the widespread use of compulsory power. National service has proven to be a unifying moral force based on an equal and comprehensive legal obligation of all people in a Nation at war. There are millions of American men and women who are not in this war at all. It is not because they do not want to be in it. But they want to know where they can best do their share. National service provides that direction. It will be a means by which every man and woman can find that inner satisfaction which comes from making the fullest possible contribution to victory. I know that all civilian war workers will be glad to be able to say many years hence to their grandchildren: “Yes, I, too, was in service in the great war. I was on duty in an airplane factory, and I helped make hundreds of fighting planes. The Government told me that in doing that I was performing my most useful work in the service of my country.” It is argued that we have passed the stage in the war where national service is necessary. But our soldiers and sailors know that this is not true. We are going forward on a long, rough road and, in all journeys, the last miles are the hardest. And it is for that final effort—for the total defeat of our enemies-that we must mobilize our total resources. The national war program calls for the employment of more people in 1944 than in 1943. It is my conviction that the American people will welcome this ­win-the-war measure which is based on the eternally just principle of “fair for one, fair for all.” It will give our people at home the assurance that they are standing four-square behind our soldiers and sailors. And it will give our enemies

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demoralizing assurance that we mean business that we, 130,000,000 Americans, are on the march to Rome, Berlin, and Tokyo. I hope that the Congress will recognize that, although this is a ­political year, national service is an issue which transcends politics. Great power must be used for great purposes. As to the machinery for this measure, the Congress itself should determine its nature—but it should be wholly nonpartisan in its make-up. Our armed forces are valiantly fulfilling their responsibilities to our country and our people. Now the Congress faces the responsibility for taking those measures which are essential to national security in this the most decisive phase of the Nation’s greatest war. Several alleged reasons have prevented the enactment of legislation which would preserve for our soldiers and sailors and marines the ­fundamental prerogative of citizenship—the right to vote. No amount of legalistic argument can becloud this issue in the eyes of these ten ­million American citizens. Surely the signers of the Constitution did not intend a document which, even in wartime, would be construed to take away the franchise of any of those who are fighting to preserve the Constitution itself. Our soldiers and sailors and marines know that the overwhelming majority of them will be deprived of the opportunity to vote, if the voting machinery is left exclusively to the States under existing State laws—and that there is no likelihood of these laws being changed in time to enable them to vote at the next election. The Army and Navy have reported that it will be impossible effectively to administer forty-eight different soldier voting laws. It is the duty of the Congress to remove this unjustifiable discrimination against the men and women in our armed forces and to do it as quickly as possible. It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some ­fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill housed, and insecure. This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from ­unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and ­liberty.

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As our Nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our ­industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness. We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made. In our day these economic truths have become accepted as ­self-­evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed. Among these are: The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation; The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation; The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living; The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an ­atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad; The right of every family to a decent home; The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; The right to a good education. All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being. America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world. One of the great American industrialists of our day—a man who has rendered yeoman service to his country in this crisis-recently emphasized the grave dangers of “rightist reaction” in this Nation. All clear-thinking businessmen share his concern. Indeed, if such reaction should ­develop—if

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history were to repeat itself and we were to return to the so-called “normalcy” of the 1920’s—then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home. I ask the Congress to explore the means for implementing this ­economic bill of rights for it is definitely the responsibility of the Congress so to do. Many of these problems are already before ­committees of the Congress in the form of proposed legislation. I shall from time to time communicate with the Congress with respect to these and further ­proposals. In the event that no adequate program of progress is evolved, I am certain that the Nation will be conscious of the fact. Our fighting men abroad and their families at home expect such a program and have the right to insist upon it. It is to their demands that this Government should pay heed rather than to the whining demands of selfish pressure groups who seek to feather their nests while young Americans are dying. The foreign policy that we have been following—the policy that guided us at Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran—is based on the common sense principle which was best expressed by Benjamin Franklin on July 4, 1776: “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang ­separately.” I have often said that there are no two fronts for America in this war. There is only one front. There is one line of unity which extends from the hearts of the people at home to the men of our attacking forces in our farthest outposts. When we speak of our total effort, we speak of the factory and the field, and the mine as well as of the battleground—we speak of the soldier and the civilian, the citizen and his Government. Each and every one of us has a solemn obligation under God to serve this Nation in its most critical hour—to keep this Nation great—to make this Nation greater in a better world.

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What Does American Democracy Mean to Me? America’s Town Meeting of the Air, New York City Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955)

In the New Deal era, educator and activist Mary McLeod Bethune was called the “First Lady of the Struggle” for her influence on the Roosevelt administration on civil rights issues. In 1904, Bethune founded a small school for black girls in Florida that she quickly built into a ­thriving college-prep and vocational training program. In 1923, she merged the school with Cookman College to create the first fully ­accredited black institution of higher learning in the state. Bethune was born to former slaves in 1875. One of seventeen ­children, she grew up picking cotton in Sumter County, South Carolina. Her ­parents owned a five-acre parcel of land, and her mother continued to work for the family that once owned her. Though her parents and ­siblings were illiterate, Bethune knew as a child that she wanted to escape “the dense darkness and ignorance” in which she found herself.1 Her ­ambition to read was only fueled by a white girl who once commanded her to put down a book, saying, “You can’t read.”2 Bethune was one of the first youngsters to sign up for a new mission school for black children built near her home. She recalled, “That first 1 Mary

McLeod Bethune, interview by Charles S. Johnson, Florida Memory Project, www.floridamemory.com/onlineclassroom/Mary Bethune/interview.cfm, 1. 2 Ibid., 1.

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morning on my way to school I kept the thought uppermost, ‘put that down—you can’t read,’ and I felt that I was on my way to read.”3 Bethune was not only on her way to read, she was on her way to a lifelong career devoted to educating a people only a generation or two away from slavery. As an adult, Bethune’s influence soon extended far beyond the South. She was a gifted organizer and became a leader in the effort to build coalitions among black women fighting for equal rights, better education, jobs, and political power. After leading numerous local, regional, and national women’s clubs, Bethune founded a new umbrella organization in 1935, the National Council of Negro Women. Through this work Bethune became close friends with Eleanor Roosevelt, who encouraged Franklin D. Roosevelt to name Bethune director of the Office of Minority Affairs in the National Youth Administration in 1935. Bethune lunched regularly with Mrs. Roosevelt in the White House.4 As a member of FDR’s “black cabinet,” Bethune was the only African American woman to hold an influential post in the administration. She met every Friday night at home with her black colleagues and civil rights leaders such as Charles H. Houston, Walter White, and A. Philip Randolph. She called the men together to stay apprised of their work and to use her influence to improve the lives of African Americans and fight inequality.5 Bethune’s position gave her access not only to the president but, on occasion, to a radio audience of millions. On the eve of America’s entrance into World War II, she joined a panel discussion on NBC radio’s weekly public affairs broadcast of “America’s Town Meeting of the Air.” The panelists addressed the question, What does American democracy mean to me? With her Victorian elocution and a thunderous tone, Bethune ­reminded her listeners that African Americans had always been willing to die for American democracy but were still shut out from its promise of freedom.

D

emocracy is for me, and for 12 million black Americans, a goal towards which our nation is marching. It is a dream and an ideal in whose ultimate realization we have a deep and abiding faith. For me, it 3 Ibid.,

1.

4 Blanche

Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt: The Defining Years, Volume Two, ­ 933-1938 (New York: Penguin Books, 1999), 159-61. 1 5 Ibid., 90. B. Joyce Ross, “Mary McLeod Bethune and the National Youth Administration: A Case Study of Power Relationships in the Black Cabinet of Franklin D. Roosevelt,” in Black Leaders, 191-219.

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is based on Christianity, in which we confidently entrust our destiny as a people. Under God’s guidance in this great democracy, we are rising out of the darkness of slavery into the light of freedom. Here my race has been afforded [the] opportunity to advance from a people 80 percent illiterate to a people 80 percent literate; from abject poverty to the ownership and operation of a million farms and 750,000 homes; from total disfranchisement to participation in government; from the status of chattels to recognized contributors to the American culture. As we have been extended a measure of democracy, we have brought to the nation rich gifts. We have helped to build America with our labor, strengthened it with our faith and enriched it with our song. We have given you Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Booker T. Washington, Marian Anderson and George Washington Carver. But even these are only the first fruits of a rich harvest, which will be reaped when new and wider fields are opened to us. The democratic doors of equal opportunity have not been opened wide to Negroes. In the Deep South, Negro youth is offered only onefifteenth of the educational opportunity of the average American child. The great masses of Negro workers are depressed and unprotected in the lowest levels of agriculture and domestic service, while the black workers in industry are barred from certain unions and generally assigned to the more laborious and poorly paid work. Their housing and living conditions are sordid and unhealthy. They live too often in terror of the lynch mob; are deprived too often of the Constitutional right of suffrage; and are humiliated too often by the denial of civil ­liberties. We do not believe that justice and common decency will allow these conditions to continue. Our faith envisions a fundamental change as mutual respect and understanding between our races come in the path of spiritual ­awakening. Certainly there have been times when we may have delayed this mutual understanding by being slow to assume a fuller share of our national responsibility because of the denial of full equality. And yet, we have always been loyal when the ideals of American democracy have been attacked. We have given our blood in its defense-from Crispus Attucks on Boston Commons to the battlefields of France. We have fought for the democratic principles of equality under the law, equality of opportunity, equality at the ballot box, for the guarantees of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We have fought to preserve one nation, conceived in

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liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Yes, we have fought for America with all her imperfections, not so much for what she is, but for what we know she can be. Perhaps the greatest battle is before us, the fight for a new America: fearless, free, united, morally re-armed, in which 12 million Negroes, shoulder to shoulder with their fellow Americans, will strive that this nation under God will have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, for the people and by the people shall not perish from the earth. This dream, this idea, this aspiration, this is what American democracy means to me. [applause]

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Chief Clerk, Toolroom Inez Sauer

I

was thirty-one when the war started and I had never worked in my life before. I had a six-year-old daughter and two boys, twelve and ­thirteen. We were living in Norwalk, Ohio, in a huge home in which we could fit about two hundred people playing bridge, and once in a while we filled it. . . . Before the war my life was bridge and golf and clubs and children. . . . When the war broke out, my husband’s rubber-matting business in Ohio had to close due to the war restrictions on rubber. We also lost our live in maid, and I could see there was no way I could ­possibly live the way I was accustomed to doing. So I took my children home to my ­parents in Seattle. The Seattle papers were full of ads for women workers needed to help the war effort. “Do your part, free a man for service.” Being a D.A.R. [Daughters of the American Revolution], I really wanted to help the war effort. I could have worked for the Red Cross and rolled bandages, but I wanted to do something that I thought was really vital. Building bombers was, so I answered an ad for Boeing. My mother was horrified. She said no one in our family had ever worked in a factory. I think that put a little iron in my spine too. I did something that was against my grain, but I did it, and I’m glad. Since I was the chief clerk, they gave me the privilege of coming to work a half-hour early in the morning and staying over thirty to forty minutes at night. Because I was working late one night I had a chance to see President Roosevelt. They said he was coming in on the swing shift, after four o’clock, so I waited to see him. They cleared out all the aisles of the main plant, and he went through in a big, open limousine. He smiled and he had his long cigarette holder, and he was very, very ­pleasant. “Hello there, how are you? Keep up the war effort. Oh, you 125

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women are doing a wonderful job.” We were all thrilled to think the President could take time out of the war effort to visit us factory workers. It gave us a lift, and I think we worked harder. Boeing was a real education for me. It taught me a different way of life. I had never been around uneducated people before, people that worked with their hands. I was prudish and had never been with people that used coarse language. Since I hadn’t worked before, I didn’t know there was such a thing as the typical male ego. My contact with my first supervisor was one of animosity, in which he stated, “The happiest day of my life will be when I say goodbye to each one of you women as I usher you out the front door.” I didn’t understand that kind of resentment, but it was prevalent throughout the plant. Many ofthe men felt that no woman could come in and run a lathe, but they did. I learned that just because you’re a woman and have never worked is no reason you can’t learn. The job really broadened me. I had led a very sheltered life. I had had no ­contact with Negroes except as maids or gardeners. My mother was a Virginian, and we were brought up to think that colored people were not on the same economic or social level. I learned differently at Boeing. I learned that because a girl is a Negro she’s not necessarily a maid, and because a man is a Negro doesn’t mean that all he can do is dig. In fact, I found that some of the black people I got to know there were very superior—and certainly equal to me—equal to anyone I ever knew. Before I worked at Boeing I also had had no exposure to unions. After I was there awhile, I joined the machinists union. We had a contract ­dispute, and we had a one-day walkout to show Boeing our strength. We went on this march through the financial district in downtown Seattle. [As] we came down the middle ofthe street. I saw my mother. . . . and I waved and said, “Hello, Mother.” That night when I got home, I thought she was never going to honor my name again. She said, “To think my daughter was marching in that labor demonstration. How could you do that to the family?” But I could see that it was a new, new world. My mother warned me when I took the job that I would never be the same. She said, “You will never want to go back to being a housewife.” At that time I didn’t think it would change a thing. But she was right, it definitely did. I had always been in a shell; I’d always been protected. But at Boeing I found a freedom and an independence I had never known. After the war I could never go back to playing bridge again, being a

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c­ lubwoman and listening to a lot of inanities when I knew there were things you could use your mind [for]. The war changed my life completely. I guess you could say, at thirty-one, I finally grew up. “You don’t know what kind of people you’re going to be associated with.” My father was horrified too, no matter how I tried to impress on him that this was a war effort on my part. He said, “You’ll never get along with the people you’ll meet there.” My husband thought it was utterly ridiculous. I had never worked. I didn’t know how to handle money, as he put it. I was nineteen when I was married. My husband was ten years older, and he always made me feel like a child, so he didn’t think I would last very long at the job, but he was wrong. They started me as a clerk in this huge toolroom. I had never handled a tool in my life outside of a hammer. Some man came in and asked for a bastard file. I said to him, “If you don’t control your language, you won’t get any service here.” I went to my supervisor and said, “You’ll have to correct this man. I won’t tolerate that kind of language.” He laughed and laughed and said, “Don’t you know what a bastard file is? It’s the name of a very coarse file.” He went over and took one out and showed me. So I said to him, “If I’m going to be part of this organization, I must have some books, something that shows me how I can learn to do what I’m supposed to do.” This was an unheard-of request. It went through channels, and they finally brought me some large, classified material that showed all the tools and machinery needed to build the B-17s. So gradually I educated myself about the various tools and their uses, and I was allowed to go out and roam around the machine area and become acquainted with what they were doing. The results showed on my paycheck. Eventually I became chief clerk of the toolroom. I think I was the first woman chief clerk they had. The first year, I worked seven days a week. We didn’t have any time off. They did allow us Christmas off, but Thanksgiving we had to work. That was a hard thing to do. The children didn’t understand. My ­mother and father didn’t understand, but I worked.

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The Atlantic Charter 14 August 1941

Declaration of Principles issued by the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The President of the United States and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing H. M. Government in the United Kingdom, have met at sea. They have been accompanied by officials of their two Governments, including high-ranking officers of their military, naval and air services. The whole problem of the supply of munitions of war, as provided by the Lease-Lend Act, for the armed forces of the United States and for those countries actively engaged in resisting aggression has been further examined. Lord Beaverbrook, Minister of Supply of the British Government, has joined in these conferences. He is going to proceed to Washington to discuss further details with appropriate officials of the United States Government. These conferences will also cover the supply problem of the Soviet Union. The President and the Prime Minister have had several ­conferences. They have considered the dangers to world civilisation arising from the policy of military domination by conquest upon which the Hitlerite Governement of Germany and other Governments associated therewith have embarked, and have made clear the steps which their countries are respectively taking for their safety in facing these dangers. They have agreed upon the following joint declaration: The President of the United States and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing H. M. Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it 129

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right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world.









1. Their countries seek no aggrandissement, territorial or other. 2. They desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned. 3. They respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of Government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them. 4. They will endeavour with due respect for their existing obligations, to further enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity. 5. They desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field, with the object of securing for all  improved labour standards, economic advancement, and social security. 6. After the final destruction of Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want. 7. Such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance. 8. They believe all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well spiritual reasons, must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea, or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measures which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armament.”

A year later, on 14 August 1942, President Roosevelt issued the following message, commemorating the first anniversary of the “Atlantic Charter”.

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A year ago today the Prime Minister of Great Britain and I, as ­representatives of two free nations, set down and subscribed to a ­declaration of principles common to our peoples. We based, and ­continue to base, our hopes for a better future for the world on the realisation of these principles. This declaration is known as the Atlantic Charter. A year ago today the nations resisting a common barbaric foe were units or small groups fighting for their existence. Now these nations and groups of nations in all the continents of the earth have united. They have formed a great union of humanity, dedicated to the realisation of that common programme of purposes and principles set forth in the Atlantic Charter through world-wide victory over their common enemies. Their faith in life, liberty, independence, and religious freedom, and in the preservation of human rights and justice in their own as well as in other lands, has been given form and substance as the United Nations. Freedom and independence are today in jeopardy the world over. If the forces of conquest are not successfully resisted and defeated there will be no freedom, no independence and no opportunity for freedom for any nation. It is, therefore, to the single and supreme objective of defeating the Axis forces of aggression that the United Nations have pledged all their resources and efforts. When victory comes we shall stand shoulder to shoulder in seeking to nourish the great ideals for which we fight. It is a worth-while battle. It will be so recognised through all the ages, even amid the unfortunate peoples who follow false gods today. We reaffirm our principles. They will bring us to a happier world.

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chapter four

the cold war

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Truman announces Hiroshima atomic bombing August 6, 1945

THE WHITE HOUSE Washington, D.C. STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British “Grand Slam” which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare. The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold. And the end is not yet. With this bomb we have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction to supplement the growing power of our armed forces. In their present form these bombs are now in production and even more powerful forms are in development. It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East. Before 1939, it was the accepted belief of scientists that it was theoretically possible to release atomic energy. But no one knew any practical method of doing it. By 1942, however, we knew that the Germans were working feverishly to find a way to add atomic energy to the other engines of war with which they hoped to enslave the world. But they failed. We may be grateful to Providence that the Germans got the V-1’s and the V-2’s late and in limited quantities and even more grateful that 135

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they did not get the atomic bomb at all. The battle of the laboratories held fateful risks for us as well as the battles of the air, land, and sea, and we have now won the battle of the laboratories as we have won the other battles. Beginning in 1940, before Pearl Harbor, scientific knowledge useful in war was pooled between the United States and Great Britain, and many priceless helps to our victories have come from that arrangement. Under that general policy the research on the atomic bomb was begun. With American and British scientists working together we entered the race of discovery against the Germans. The United States had available the large number of scientists of distinction in the many needed areas of knowledge. It had the tremendous industrial and financial resources necessary for the project and they could be devoted to it without undue impairment of other vital war work. In the United States the laboratory work and the production plants, on which a substantial start had already been made, would be out of reach of enemy bombing, while at that time Britain was exposed to constant air attack andwas still threatened with the possibility of invasion. For these reasons Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt agreed that it was wise to carry on the project here. We now have two great plants and many lesser works devoted to the production of atomic power. Employment during peak construction numbered 125,000 and over 65,000 individuals are even now engaged in operating the plants. Many have worked there for two and a half years. Few know what they have been producing. They see great quantities of material going in and they see nothing coming out of those plants, for the physical size of the explosive charge is exceedingly small. We have spent two billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history— and won. But the greatest marvel is not the size of the enterprise, its secrecy, nor its cost, but the achievement of scientific brains in putting together infinitely complex pieces of knowledge held by many men in different fields of science into a workable plan. And hardly less marvelous has been the capacity of industry to design, and of labor to operate, the machines and methods to do things never done before so that the brain child of many minds came forth in physical shape and performed as it was supposed to do. Both science and industry worked under the direction of the United States Army, which achieved a unique success in managing so

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diverse a problem in the advancement of knowledge in a amazingly short time. It is doubtful if such another combination could be got together in the world. What has been done is the greatest achievement of organized science in history. It was done under high pressure and without failure. We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan’s power to make war. It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware. The Secretary of War, who has kept in personal touch with all phases of the project, will immediately make public a statement giving further details. His statement will give facts concerning the sites at Oak Ridge near Knoxville, Tennessee, and at Richland near Pasco, Washington, and an installation near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Although the workers at the sites have been making materials to be used in producing the greatest destructive force in history they have not themselves been in danger beyond that of many other occupations, for the utmost care has been taken of their safety. The fact that we can release atomic energy ushers in a new era in man’s understanding of nature’s forces. Atomic energy may in the future supplement the power that now comes from coal, oil, and falling water, but at present it cannot be produced on a basis to compete with them  commercially. Before that comes there must be a long period of intensive research. It has never been the habit of the scientists of this country or the policy of this Government to withhold from the world scientific knowledge. Normally, therefore, everything about the work with atomic energy would be made public. But under present circumstances it is not intended to divulge the technical processes of production or all the military applications, pending further examination of possible methods of protecting us and the rest of

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the world from the danger of sudden destruction. I shall recommend that the Congress of the United States consider promptly the establishment of an appropriate commission to control the production and use of atomic power within the United States. I shall give further consideration and make further recommendations to the Congress as to how atomic power can become a powerful and forceful influence towards the maintenance of world peace.

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Excerpts from Telegraphic Message from Moscow George Kennan, February 22, 1946

IN view of recent events, the following remarks will be of interest to the department.

I. Basic features of postwar Soviet outlook, as put forward by official propaganda machine

A. The USSR still lives in antagonistic “capitalist encirclement” with which in the long run there can be no permanent peaceful coexistence. As stated by Stalin in 1927 to a delegation of American workers: In course of further development of international revolution, there will emerge two centers of world significance: a socialist center, drawing to itself the countries which tend toward socialism, and a capitalist center, drawing to itself the countries that incline toward capitalism. Battle between these two centers for command of world economy will decide fate of capitalism and of communism in entire world.

B. Capitalist world is beset with internal conflicts inherent in nature of capitalist society. These conflicts are insoluble by means of peaceful compromise. Greatest of them is that between England and US. Source: George Kennan, Memoirs, 1925-1950 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1967), pp. 547-559.

139

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C. Internal conflicts of capitalism inevitably generate wars. Wars thus generated may be of two kinds: intracapitalist wars between two capitalist states, and wars of intervention against socialist world. Smart capitalists, vainly seeking escape from inner conflicts of capitalism, incline toward latter. D. Intervention against USSR, while it would be disastrous to those who undertook it, would cause renewed delay in progress of Soviet socialism and must therefore be forestalled at all costs. E. Conflicts between capitalist states, though likewise fraught with danger for USSR, nevertheless hold out great possibilities for  advancement of socialist cause, particularly if USSR remains militarily powerful, ideologically monolithic, and faithful to its present brilliant leadership. F. It must be borne in mind that capitalist world is not all bad. In addition to hopelessly reactionary and bourgeois elements, it includes (i) certain wholly enlightened and positive elements united in acceptable communistic parties, and (2) certain other elements (now described for tactical reasons as progressive or democratic) whose reactions, aspirations and activities happen to be “objectively” favorable to interests of the USSR. These last must be encouraged and utilized for Soviet purposes. G. Among negative elements of bourgeois~capitalist society, most dangerous of all are those whom Lenin called false friends of the people, namely moderate Socialist or Social Democratic leaders   in other words, non-Communist left-wing). These are more dangerous than out-and-out reactionaries, for latter at least march under their true colors, whereas moderate left-wing leaders confuse people by employing devices of socialism to serve interests of reactionary capital. So much for premises. To what deductions do they lead from standpoint of Soviet policy? To the following: A. Everything must be done to advance relative strength of USSR as factor in international society. Conversely, no opportunity must be missed to reduce strength and influence, collectively as well as individually, of capitalist powers.

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B. Soviet efforts, and those of Russia’s friends abroad, must be directed toward deepening and exploiting of differences and conflicts between capitalist powers. If these eventually deepen into an “imperialist” war, this war must be turned into revolutionary upheavals within the various capitalist countries. C. “Democratic-progressive” elements abroad are to be utilized to bring pressure to bear on capitalist governments along lines agreeable to Soviet interests. D. Relentless battle must be waged against Socialist and Social Democratic leaders abroad. II. Background of outlook

Before examining ramifications of this party line in practice, there are certain aspects of it to which your attention should be drawn. First, it does not represent natural outlook of Russian people. Latter are, by and large, friendly to outside world, eager for experience of it, eager to measure against it talents they are conscious of possessing, eager above all to live peace and enjoy fruits of their own labor. Party line only represents thesis which official propaganda machines puts forward with great skill and persistence to a public often remarkably resistant in the stronghold of its innermost thoughts. But party line is binding for outlook and conduct of people, and government and it is exclusively with these that we have to deal. Second, please note that premises on which this party line is based are for most part simply not true. Experience has shown that peaceful and  mutually profitable coexistence of capitalist and socialist states is entirely possible. Basic internal conflicts in advanced countries are no longer primarily those arising out of capitalist ownership of means of production, but are ones arising from advanced urbanism and industrialism as such, which Russia has thus far been spared not by socialism but only by her own backwardness. Internal rivalries of capitalism do not always generate wars; and not all wars are attributable to this cause. To speak of possibilities of intervention against USSR today, after elimination of Germany and Japan and after example of recent war, is sheerest nonsense. If not provoked by forces of intolerance and subversion “capitalist” world of today is quite capable of living at peace with itself and with Russia. Finally, no sane

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person has reason to doubt sincerity of moderate Socialist leaders in Western countries. Nor is it fair to deny success of their efforts to improve conditions for working population whenever, as in Scandinavia, they have been given chance to show what they can do. Falseness of these premises, every one of which predates recent war, was amply demonstrated by that conflict itself. Anglo-American differences did not turn out to be major differences of Western world. Capitalist countries, other than those of Axis, showed no disposition to solve their differences by joining in crusade against USSR. Instead of imperialist war turning into civil wars and revolutions, USSR found itself obliged to fight side by side with capitalist powers for an avowed community of aims. Nevertheless, all these theses, however baseless and disproven, are being boldly put forward again today. What does this indicate? It indicates that the Soviet party line is not based on any objective analysis of the situation beyond Russia’s borders; that it has, indeed, little to do with conditions outside of Russia; that it arises mainly from basic innerRussian necessities which existed before recent war and exist today. At the bottom of the Kremlin’s neurotic view of world affairs is traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity. Originally, this was insecurity of a peaceful agricultural people trying to live on vast exposed plain in neighborhood of fierce nomadic peoples. To this was added, as Russia came into contact with economically advanced West, fear of more competent, more powerful, more highly organized societies in that area. But this latter type of insecurity was one which afflicted rather Russian rulers than Russian people; for Russian rulers have invariably sensed that their rule was relatively archaic in form, fragile and artificial in its psychological foundation, unable to stand comparison for contact with political systems of Western countries. For this reason they have always feared foreign penetration, feared direct contact between Western world and their own, feared what would happen if Russians learned truth about world without or if foreigners learned truth about world within. And they have learned to seek security only in patient but deadly struggle for total destruction rival power, never in compacts and compromises with it. It was no coincidence that Marxism, which had smoldered ineffectively for half a century in Western Europe, caught hold and blazed for first time in Russia. Only in this land which had never known a friendly neighbor or indeed any tolerant equilibrium of separate powers, either internal or international, could a doctrine thrive which viewed economic

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conflicts of society as insoluble by peaceful means. After establishment of Bolshevist regime, Marxist dogma, rendered even more truculent and intolerant by Lenin’s interpretation, became a perfect vehicle for sense of insecurity with which Bolsheviks, even more than previous Russian rulers, were afflicted. In this dogma, with its basic altruism of purpose, they found justification for their instinctive fear of outside world, for the dictatorship without which they did not know how to rule, for cruelties they did not dare not to inflict, for sacrifices they felt bound to demand. In the  name of Marxism they sacrificed every single ethical value in their methods and tactics. Today they cannot dispense with it. It is fig leaf of their moral and intellectual respectability. Without it they would stand before history, as best, as only the last of that long succession of cruel and wasteful Russian rulers who have relentlessly forced their country on to ever new heights of military power in order to guarantee external security for their internally weak regimes. This is why Soviet purposes must always be solemnly clothed in trappings of Marxism, and why no one should underrate the importance of dogma in Soviet affairs. Thus Soviet leaders are driven by necessities of their own past and present position to put forward a dogma which pictures the outside world as evil, hostile, and menacing, but as bearing within itself germs of creeping disease and destined to be wracked with growing internal convulsions until it is given final coup de grace by rising power of socialism and yields to new and better world. This thesis provides justification for that increase of military and police power in Russia state, for that isolation of Russian population from the outside world, and for that fluid and constant pressure to extend limits of Russian police power which are together the natural and instinctive urges of Russian rulers. Basically this i~ only the steady advance of uneasy Russian nationalism, a centuries-old movement in which conceptions of offense and defense are inextricably confused. But in new guise of international Marxism, with its honeyed promises to a desperate and wartorn outside world, it is more dangerous and insidious than even before. It should not be thought from above that Soviet party line is necessarily disingenuous and insincere on part of all those who put it forward. Many of them are too ignorant of outside world and mentally too dependent to question self-hypnotism, and have no difficulty making themselves believe what they find it comforting and convenient to believe. Finally we have the unsolved mystery as to who, if anyone, in this great land actually receives accurate and unbiased information about outside world. In an atmosphere

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of Oriental secretiveness and conspiracy which pervades this government, possibilities for distorting or poisoning sources and currents of information are infinite. The very disrespect of Russians for objective truth—indeed, their disbelief in its existence leads them to view all stated facts as instruments for furtherance of one ulterior purpose or another. There is good reason to suspect that this government is actually a conspiracy within a conspiracy, and it is hard to believe that Stalin himself receives anything like an objective picture of outside world. Here there is ample scope for the type of subtle intrigue at which Russians are past masters. Inability of foreign governments to place their case squarely before Russian policy makers extent to which they are delivered up in their relations with Russia to good graces of obscure and unknown advisors whom they never see and cannot influence—this is a most disquieting feature of diplomacy in Moscow, and one which Western statesmen would do well to keep in mind if they would understand nature of difficulties encountered here. III. Projection of Soviet outlook in practical policy on official level

We have now seen nature and background of the Soviet program. What may we expect of its practical implementations? Soviet policy is conducted on two planes: (1) official plane represented by actions undertaken officially in the name of the Soviet government; and (2) subterranean plane of actions undertaken by agencies for which the Soviet government does not admit responsibility. Policy promulgated on both planes will be calculated to serve basic policies A to D outlined in “I.” Actions taken on different planes will differ considerably, but will dovetail into each other in purposes, timing, and effect. On official plane, we must look for following: A. Internal policy devoted to increasing in every way strength and prestige of Soviet state; intensive military-industrialization; maximum development of armed forces; great displays to impress outsiders; continued secretiveness about internal matters, designed to conceal weaknesses and to keep opponents in dark. B. Wherever it is considered timely and promising, efforts will be made to advance official limits of Soviet power. For the moment,

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these efforts are restricted to certain neighboring points conceived of here as being of immediate strategic necessity, such as northern Iran, Turkey, possibly Bornholm. However, other points may at any time come into question, if and as concealed Soviet political power is extended to new areas. Thus a “friendly” Persian government might be asked to grant Russia a port on Persian Gulf. Should Spain fall under Communist control, question of Soviet base at Gilbraltar Strait might be activated. But such claims will appear on official level only when unofficial preparation is complete. C. Russians will participate officially in international organizations where they see opportunity of extending Soviet power or of inhibiting or diluting power of others. Moscow sees in UNO not the mechanism for a permanent and stable world society founded on mutual interest and aims of all nations, but an arena in which aims just mentioned can be favorably pursued. As long as UNO is considered here to serve this purpose, Soviets will remain with it. But if at any time they come to the conclusion that it is serving to embarrass or frustrate their aims for power expansion and if they see better prospects for pursuit of these aims along other lines, they will not hesitate to abandon UNO. This would imply, however, that they felt themselves strong enough to split unity of other nations by their withdrawal, to render UNO ineffective as a threat to their aims or security, and to replace it with an international weapon more effective from their viewpoint. Thus Soviet attitude toward UNO will depend largely on loyalty of other nations to it, and on degree of vigor, decisiveness, and cohesion with which these nations defend in UNO the peaceful and hopeful concept of international life which that organization represents to our way of thinking. I reiterate, Moscow has no abstract devotion to UNO ideals. Its attitude to that organization will remain essentially pragmatic and tactical. D. Toward colonial areas and backward or dependent peoples, Soviet policy, even on official plane, will be directed toward weakening of power and influence and contacts of advanced Western nations, on theory that insofar as this policy is successful, there will be created a vacuum which will favor communist-Soviet penetration. Soviet pressure for participation in trusteeship arrangements thus represents a desire to be in a position to complicate and inhibit

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exertion of Western influence at such points rather than to provide major channel for exerting of Soviet power. Latter motive is not lacking, but for this Soviets prefer to rely on other channels than official trusteeship arrangements. Thus we may expect to find Soviets asking for admission everywhere to trusteeship or similar arrangements and using levers thus acquired to weaken Western influence among such peoples. E. Russians will strive energetically to develop Soviet representation in, and official ties with, countries in which they sense strong possibilities of opposition to Western centers of power. This applies to such widely separated points as Germany, Argentina, Middle Eastern countries, etc. F. In international economic matters, Soviet policy will really be dominated by pursuit of autarchy for Soviet Union and Sovietdominated adjacent areas taken together. That, however, will be underlying policy. As far as official line is concerned, position is not yet clear. Soviet government has shown strange reticence since termination hostilities on subject foreign trade. If large-scale longterm credits should be forthcoming, the Soviet government may eventually again do lip service, as it did in 1930s, to desirability of building up international economic exchanges in general. Otherwise it is possible that Soviet foreign trade may be restricted largely to Soviet’s own security sphere, including occupied areas in Germany, and that a cold official shoulder may be turned to principle of general economic collaboration among nations G. With respect to cultural collaboration, lip service will likewise be rendered to desirability of deepening cultural contacts between peoples, but this will not in practice be interpreted in any way which could weaken security position of Soviet peoples. Actual manifestations of Soviet policy in this respect will be restricted to arid channels of closely shepherded official visits and functions, with superabundance of vodka and speeches and dearth of permanent effects. H. Beyond this, Soviet official relations will take what might be called “correct” course with individual foreign governments, with great stress being laid on prestige of Soviet Union and its representatives and with punctilious attention to protocol, as distinct from good man-nets.

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IV. Following may be said as to what we may expect by way of implementation of basic Soviet policies on unofficial, or subterranean, plane; i.e., on plane for which Soviet government accepts no responsibility

Agencies utilized for promulgation of policies on this plane are the ­following: A. Inner central core of Communist parties in other countries. While many of the persons who compose this category may also appear and act in unrelated public capacities, they are in reality working closely together as an underground operating directorate of world communism, a concealed Comintern tightly coordinated and directed by Moscow. It is important to remember that this inner core is actually working on underground lines, despite legality of parties with which it is associated. B. Rank and file of Communist parties. Note distinction is drawn between these and persons defined in paragraph A. This distinction has become much sharper in recent years. Whereas formerly foreign Communist parties represented a curious (and from Moscow’s standpoint often inconvenient) mixture of conspiracy and legitimate activity, now the conspiratorial element has been neatly concentrated in inner circle and ordered underground, while rank and file—no longer even taken into confidence about realities of movement—are thrust forward as bona fide internal partisans of certain political tendencies within their respective countries, genuinely innocent of conspiratorial connection with foreign states. Only in certain countries where Communists are numerically strong do they now regularly appear and act as a body. As a rule they are used to penetrate, and to influence or dominate, as the case may be, other organizations less likely to be suspected of being tools of Soviet government, with a view to accomplishing their purposes through front organizations, rather than by direct action as a separate political party. C. A wide variety of national associations or bodies which can be dominated or influenced by such penetration. These include: labor unions, youth leagues, women’s organizations, racial societies,

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religious societies, social organizations, cultural groups, liberal magazines, publishing houses, etc. D. International organizations which can be similarly penetrated through influence over various national components. Labor, youth, and women’s organizations are prominent among them. Particular, almost vital, importance is attached in this connection to international labor movement. In this, Moscow sees possibility of sidetracking Western governments in world affairs and building up international lobby capable of compelling governments to take actions favorable to Soviet interests in various countries and of paralyzing actions disagreeable to the USSR. E. Russian Orthodox Church with its foreign branches, and through it the Eastern Orthodox Church in general. F. Pan-Slav movement and other movements (Azerbaijan, Armenian, Turcoman, etc.) based on racial groups within the Soviet Union. G. Governments or governing groups willing to lend themselves to Soviet purposes in one degree or another, such as present Bulgarian and Yugoslav governments, North Persian regime, Chinese Communists, etc. Not only the propaganda machines but the actual policies of these regimes can be placed extensively at the disposal of the USSR. It may be expected that the component parts of this far-flung apparatus will be utilized, in accordance with their individual suitability, as follows:



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1. To undermine general political and strategic potential of major Western powers. Efforts will be made in such countries to disrupt national self-confidence, to hamstring measures of national defense, to increase social and industrial unrest, to stimulate all forms of disunity. All persons with grievances, whether economic or racial, will be urged to seek redress not in mediation and compromise, but in defiant violent struggle for destruction of other elements of society. Here poor will be set against rich, black against white, young against old, newcomers against established residents, etc. 2. On unofficial plane particularly violent efforts will be made to weaken power and influence of Western powers over colonial, backward, or dependent peoples. On this level, no holds will be

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barred. Mistakes and weaknesses of Western colonial administration will be mercilessly exposed and exploited. Liberal opinion in Western countries will be mobilized to weaken colonial policies. Resentment among dependent peoples will be stimulated. And while latter are being encouraged to seek independence of Western powers, Soviet-dominated puppet political machines will be undergoing preparation to take over domestic power in respective colonial areas when independence is achieved. 3. Where individual governments stand in path of Soviet purposes pressure will be brought for their removal from office. This can happen where governments directly oppose Soviet foreign policy aims (Turkey, Iran), where they seal their territories off against Communist penetration (Switzerland, Portugal), or where they compete too strongly, like Labor government in England, for moral domination among elements which it is important for Communists to dominate. (Sometimes, two of these elements are present in a single case. Then Communist opposition becomes particularly shrill and savage.) 4. In foreign countries Communists will, as a rule, work toward destruction of all forms of personal independence, economic, political, or moral. Their system can handle only individuals who have been brought into complete dependence on higher power. Thus persons who are financially independent—such as individual businessmen, estate owners, successful farmers, artisans, and all those who exercise local leadership or have local prestige, such as popular local clergymen or political figures, are anathema. It is not by chance that the USSR local officials are kept constantly on move from one job to another. 5. Everything possible will be done to set major Western powers against each other. Anti-British talk will be plugged among Americans, anti-American talk among British. Continentals, including Germans, will be taught to abhor both Anglo-Saxon powers. Where suspicions exist, they will be fanned; where not, ignited. No effort will be spared to discredit and combat all efforts which threaten to lead to any sort of unity or cohesion among others from which Russia might be excluded. Thus, all forms of international organization not amenable to Communist penetration and control, whether it be the Catholic Church,

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i­nternational economic concerns, or the international fraternity of royalty and aristocracy, must expect to find themselves under fire. 6. In general, all Soviet efforts on unofficial international plane will be negative and destructive in character, designed to tear down sources of strength beyond reach of Soviet control. This is only in line with basic Soviet instinct that there can be no compromise with rival power and that constructive work can start only when Communist power is dominant. But behind all this will be applied insistent, unceasing pressure for penetration and command of key positions in administration and especially in police apparatus of foreign countries. The Soviet regime is a police regime par excellence, reared in the dim half-world of Tsarist police intrigue, accustomed to think primarily in terms of police power. This should never be lost sight of in gauging Soviet motives.

V. Practical deductions from standpoint of US policy

In summary, we have here a political force committed fanatically to the belief that with US there can be no permanent modus vivendi, that it  is  desirable and necessary that the internal harmony of our society be disrupted, our traditional way of life be destroyed, the international authority of our state be broken, if Soviet power is to be secure. This political force has complete power of disposition over energies of one of the world’s greatest peoples and resources of the world’s richest national territory, and is borne along by deep and powerful currents of Russian nationalism. In addition, it has an elaborate and far-flung apparatus for exertion of its influence in other countries, an apparatus of amazing flexibility and versatility, managed by people whose experience and skill in underground methods are presumable without parallel in history. Finally, it is seemingly inaccessible to considerations of reality in its basic reactions. For it, the vast fund of objective fact about human society is not, as with us, the measure against which outlook is constantly being tested and reformed, but a grab bag from which individual items are selected arbitrarily and tendentiously to bolster an outlook already preconceived. This is admittedly not a pleasant picture. Problem of how to cope with this force is undoubtedly greatest task our diplomacy has ever faced and probably the greatest it will ever have to face. It should be the point of departure

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from which our political general staff work at the present juncture should proceed. It should be approached with same thoroughness and care as solution of major strategic problem in war, and if necessary, with no smaller outlay in planning effort. I cannot attempt to suggest all the answers here. But I would like to record my conviction that the problem is  within our power to solve—and that without recourse to any general military conflict. And in support of this conviction there are certain observations of a more encouraging nature I should like to make: (One) Soviet power, unlike that of Hitlerite Germany, is neither schematic nor adventuristic. It does not work by fixed plans. It does not take unnecessary risks. Impervious to logic of reason, and it is highly sensitive to logic of force. For this reason it can easily withdraw—and usually does—when strong resistance is encountered at any point. Thus, if the adversary has sufficient force and makes clear his readiness to use it, he rarely has to do so. If situations are properly handled there need be no prestige-engaging showdowns. (Two) Gauged against Western world as a whole, Soviets are still by far the weaker force. Thus, their success will really depend on degree of cohesion, firmness, and vigor which Western world can muster. And this is factor which it is within our power to influence. (Three) Success of Soviet system, as form of internal power, is not yet finally proven. It has yet to be demonstrated that it can survive supreme test of successive transfer of power from one individual or group to another. Lenin’s death was first such transfer, and its effects wracked Soviet state for fifteen years after. Stalin’s death or retirement will be second. But even this will not be final test. Soviet internal system will now be subjected, by virtue of recent territorial expansions, to a series of additional strains which once proved severe tax on Tsardom. We here are convinced that never since termination of the civil war have the mass of Russian people been emotionally farther removed from doctrines of Communist Party than they are today. In Russia, party has now become a great and—for the moment—highly successful apparatus of dictatorial administration, but it has ceased to be a source of emotional inspiration. Thus, internal soundness and permanence of movement need not yet be regarded as assured. (Four) All Soviet propaganda beyond Soviet security sphere is basically negative and destructive. It should therefore be relatively easy to combat it by any intelligent and really constructive program. For these

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reasons I think we may approach calmly and with good heart the problem of how to deal with Russia. As to how this approach should be made, I only wish to advance, by way of conclusion, the following comments:





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1. Our first step must be to apprehend, and recognize for what it is, the nature of the movement with which we are dealing. We must study it with the same courage, detachment, objectivity, and the same determination not to be emotionally provoked or unseated by it, with which a doctor studies unruly and unreasonable individuals. 2. We must see that our public is educated to realities of Russian situation. I cannot overemphasize the importance of this. Press cannot do this alone. It must be done mainly by government, which is necessarily more experienced and better informed on practical problems involved. In this we need not be deterred by ugliness of the picture. I am convinced that there would be far less hysterical anti-Sovietism in our country today if the realities of this situation were better understood by our people. There is nothing as dangerous or as terrifying as the unknown. It may also be argued that to reveal more information on our difficulties with Russia would reflect unfavorably on Russian-American relations. I feel that if there is any real risk here involved, it is one which we should have the courage to face, and the sooner the better. But I cannot see what we would be risking. Our stake in this country, even coming on the heels of tremendous demonstrations of our friendship for Russian people, is remarkably small. We have here no investments to guard, no actual trade to lose, virtually no citizens to protect, few cultural contacts to preserve. Our only stake lies in what we hope rather than what we have; and I am convinced we have a better chance of realizing those hopes if our public is enlightened and if our dealings with Russians are placed entirely on realistic and matter of fact basis. 3. Much depends on health and vigor of our own society. World communism is like malignant parasite which feeds only on diseased tissue. This is the point at which domestic and foreign policies meet. Every courageous and incisive measure to solve internal problems of our own society, to improve self-confidence, discipline, morale, and community spirit of our own people, is a diplomatic

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victory over Moscow worth a thousand diplomatic notes and joint communique’s. If we cannot abandon fatalism and indifference in face of deficiencies of our own society, Moscow will profit—­ Moscow cannot help profiting by them in its foreign policies. 4. We must formulate and put forward for other nations a much more positive and constructive picture of the sort of world we would like to see than we have put forward in the past. It is not enough to urge the people to develop political processes similar to our own. Many foreign peoples, in Europe at least, are tired and frightened by experiences of the past, and are less interested in abstract freedom than in security. They are seeking guidance rather than responsibilities. We should be better able than the Russians to give them this. And unless we do, the Russians certainly will. 5. Finally, we must have courage and self-confidence to cling to our own methods and conceptions of human society. After all, the greatest danger that can befall us in coping with this problem of Soviet communism is that we shall allow ourselves to become like those with whom we are coping.

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Statement by General Marshall January 7, 1947

I

n this intricate and confused situation, I shall merely endeavor here to touch on some of the more important considerations-as they appeared to me during my connection with the negotiations to bring about peace in China and a stable democratic form of government. In the first place, the greatest obstacle to peace has been the complete, almost overwhelming suspicion with which the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang regard each other. On the one hand, the leaders of the Government are strongly opposed to a communistic form of government. On the other, the Communists frankly state that they are Marxists and intend to work toward establishing a communistic form of government in China, though first advancing through the medium of a democratic form of government of the American or British type. . . . I think the most important factors involved in the recent break-down of negotiations are these: On the side of the National Government, which is in effect the Kuomintang, there is a dominant group of reactionaries who have been opposed, in my opinion, to almost every effort I have made to influence the formation of a genuine coalition government. . . . This group includes military as well as political leaders. On the side of the Chinese Communist Party there are, I believe, liberals as well as radicals, though this view is vigorously opposed by many who believe that the Chinese Communist Party discipline is too rigidly Source: from The Department of State Bulletin, XV1, No. 394 (January 19, 1947), pp. 83-85.

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enforced to admit of such differences of viewpoint. Nevertheless, it has appeared to me that there is a definite liberal group among the Communists, especially of young men who have turned to the Communists in disgust at the corruption evident in the local governments-men who would put the interest of the Chinese people above ruthless measures to establish a Communist ideology in the immediate future. The dyed-in-the-wool Communists do not hesitate at the most drastic measures to gain their end  . . . They completely distrust the leaders of the Kuomintang and appear convinced that every Government proposal is designed to crush the Chinese Communist Party. I must say that the quite evidently inspired mob actions of last February and March, some within a few blocks of where I was then engaged in completing negotiations, gave the Communists good excuse for such suspicions. . . . Sincere efforts to achieve settlement have been frustrated time and again by extremist elements of both sides. The agreements reached by the Political Consultative Conference a year ago were a liberal and forward-looking charter which then offered China a basis for peace and  reconstruction. However, irreconcilable groups within the Kuomintang, interested in the preservation of their own feudal control of China, evidently had no real intention of implementing them. . . . Between this dominant reactionary group in the Government and the irreconcilable Communists who, I must state, did not so appear last February, lies the problem of how peace and well-being are to be brought to the long-suffering and presently inarticulate mass of the people of China. The reactionaries in the Government have evidently counted on substantial American support regardless of their actions. The Communists by their unwillingness to compromise in the national interest arc evidently counting on an economic collapse to bring about the fall of the Government, accelerated by extensive guerrilla action against the long lines of rail communications-regardless of the cost in suffering to the Chinese people. The salvation of the situation, as I see it, would be the assumption of leadership by the liberals in the Government and in the minority parties, a splendid group of men, but who as yet lack the political power to exercise a controlling influence. Successful action on their part under the leadership of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek would, I believe, lead to unity through good government. . . . I have spoken very frankly because in no other way can I hope to bring the people of the United States to even a partial understanding of this

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complex problem. I have expressed all these views privately in the course of negotiations; they are well known, I think, to most of the individuals concerned. I express them now publicly, as it is my duty, to present my estimate of the situation and its possibilities to the American people who have a deep interest in the development of conditions in the Far East promising an enduring peace In the Pacific.

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EXCERPTS FROM ACHESON’S SPEECH TO THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB January 12, 1950

T

his afternoon I should like to discuss with you the relations between the peoples of the United States and the peoples of Asia. . . . What is the situation in regard to the military security of the Pacific area, and what is our policy in regard to it? In the first place, the defeat and the disarmament of Japan has placed upon the United States the necessity of assuming the military defense of Japan so long as that is required, both in the interest of our security and in the interests of the security of the entire Pacific area and, in all honor, in the interest of Japanese security. We have American, and there are Australian troops in Japan. I am not in a position to speak for the Australians, but I can assure you that there is no intention of any sort of abandoning or weakening the defenses of Japan, and that whatever arrangements are to be made, either through permanent settlement or otherwise, that defense must and shall be maintained. This defensive perimeter runs along the Aleutians to Japan and then goes to the Ryukyus. We hold important defense positions in the Ryukyu Islands, and those we will continue to hold. In the interest of the population of the Ryukyu Islands, we will at an appropriate time offer to hold these islands under trusteeship of the United Nations. But they are essential parts of the defensive perimeter of the Pacific, and they must and will be held. The defensive perimeter runs from Ryukyus to the Philippine Islands. Our relations, our defensive relations with the Philippines are contained 159

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in agreements between us. Those agreements are being loyally carried out and will be loyally carried out. Both peoples have learned by bitter experience the vital connections between our mutual defense requirements. So far as the military security of other areas in the Pacific is concerned, it must be clear that no person can guarantee these areas against military attack. But it must also be clear that such a guarantee is hardly sensible or necessary within the realm of practical relationship. Should such an attack occur, one hesitates to say where such an armed attack could come from, the initial reliance must be on the people attacked to resist it and then upon the commitments of the entire civilized world under the Charter of the United Nations, which so far has not proved a weak reed to lean on by any people who are determined to protect their independence against outside aggression. But it is a mistake, I think, in considering Pacific and Far Eastern problems to become obsessed with military considerations. Important as they are, there are other problem that press, and these other problems are not capable of solution through military means. These other problems arise out of the susceptibility of many areas, and many countries in the Pacific area, to subversion and penetration. That cannot be stopped by military means. . . . . . . What we conclude, I believe, is that there is a new day which has dawned in Asia. It is a day in which the Asian peoples are on their own, and know it, and intend to continue on their own. It is a day in which the old relationships between east and west are gone, relationships which at their worst were exploitation and at their best were paternalism. That relationship is over, and the relationship of east and west must now be in the Far East one of mutual respect and mutual helpfulness. We are their friends. Others are their friends. We and those others are willing to help, but we can help only where we are wanted and only where conditions of help are really sensible and possible. So what we can see is that this new day in Asia, this new day which is dawning, may go on to a glorious noon or it may darken and it may drizzle out. But that decision lies within the countries of Asia and within the power of the Asian people. It is not a decision which a friend or even an enemy from the outside can make for them.

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US, Department of State, Intelligence Report Prepared in the Office of Intelligence Research, “Agrarian Reform in Guatemala”1 Washington, March 5, 1953

No. 6001 Washington, March 5, 1953. ABSTRACT

On June 17, 1952, a comprehensive agrarian reform program became law in Guatemala2 Its professed objective is the development of a capitalistic agricultural economy through the abolition of semi-feudal ownerworker relationships, the redistribution of land, and the improvement with state assistance of cultivation methods. The implications of the ­legislation, however, go beyond agrarian reform inasmuch as its provisions furnish a basis for the strengthening of political and Communist control over the rural population. Full implementation of the law would free thousands of agrarian workers from a centuries-old dependence upon the privileged landholding class, but would subject the majority, in all probability, to close 161

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control by the state. This would be exercised through a virtually autonomous National Agrarian Department. Certain limitations, also, would be incumbent upon those using redistributed land. Since the great bulk of the land expropriated would be incorporated into the imprescriptible public domain, holdings could be acquired only on the basis of a life grant or by rental. Private title, however, would be possible by the direct transfer to the peasant of land expropriated from private estates. Another feature of the law facilitating state control is provision for the concentration of agrarian workers on each private plantation into a single village. Administration forces undoubtedly envisage political benefits from the legislation. They are presumably anxious to break the control of the conservative anti-administration large landholders over the farm labor force in order to organize it behind the government. Advantages to the Communists are likely to be enhanced by the opportunity to extend the influence in farm areas through infiltration of the National Agrarian Department, through their expanded control over Guatemalan labor organization, and through greater opportunities to attack the United Fruit Company. The deepening cleavage between moderates and left caused by government sponsorship of the agrarian program will benefit the Communists. Full and rapid implementation of the land distribution program would be likely to produce serious economic repercussions. Already nervousness has depressed business activity. Thus far, however, agricultural production, which provides the basis of Guatemala’s economy, apparently has not been affected. Implementation of the law will be difficult and politically dangerous. Although an abundance of land is made available for redistribution, only a small part of it is desirably located. The extent to which land controlled by foreign agricultural corporations—the greater part of United Fruit Company holdings are possibly subject to expropriation—may be made available for redistribution is largely a matter of speculation. As far as can be ascertained, these enterprises have no special protection under their operating concessions. While they may appeal decisions affecting their interests to the National Agrarian Department, this agency and the civil courts, which probably could not be utilized, are closely subjected to the will of an administration determined to accelerate the agrarian program. Also difficult for the administration to overcome will be the

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long-standing living habits and prejudices of the largely Indian agrarian population. Most significant of all will be the perfecting of a competent administrative organization. The strong probability exists that too rapid acceleration of the agrarian program coupled with increasing Communist strength and influence may lead to violence difficult for the Arbenz administration to contain. AGRARIAN REFORM IN GUATEMALA



1. Background. The Agrarian Reform Law which was adopted on June 17, 1952, is rooted in the Guatemalan revolutionary program  which since 1944 has been a vital force in the formulation of governmental policy. As groundwork for such legislation, the framers of the Constitution adopted in 1945 provided for state direction of the national economy, for the expropriation of unused private lands with prior compensation, for the incorporation of such lands into  the national patrimony, for both the rental and granting of nationalized lands, for the formation of agricultural communities, for collective farming, for the protection of ejido and communal lands, and for state technical and other assistance to agricultural communities. These provisions were the product of several influences. Probably foremost was the socialistic and nationalistic philosophy of Juan Jose Arevalo, spiritual lender of the Revolution, whose ideas paralleled but apparently owed little to Marxist ideology. Also evident was the Mexican experience in land reform, implanted in the Constitution in all probability chiefly by Jorge Garc’a Granados, President of the Constituent Assembly, who for many years prior to the Revolution had been resident in Mexico. During the seven-year interval between the adoption of the Constitution and the enactment of the Agrarian Reform Law a number of land reform proposals were advanced. Some of these were quite radical and several Communist-sponsored. Almost all advocated the expropriation and division of large privately-owned estates. Except for the passage of compulsory land rental legislation in 1950, no positive action was taken by the Arevalo Administration (1945-51). President Jacobo Arbenz, however, firmly committed himself to agrarian reform and in repeated speeches stressed the

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inequity of land ownership, the semi-feudal nature of tenancy and laboring arrangements, and the antiquated cultivation methods employed on small holdings. On May 10, 1952, he submitted to the National Congress the draft legislation which became law the following month. In the final preparation and enactment of this program Communists played a prominent role. 2. Redistribution of Land. Under the provisions of the law certain land is specifically designated for redistribution. This includes uncultivated land, land not cultivated directly by or for the owner,  land rented in any form, land needed to establish rural farm settlements, state farms and certain other national lands, certain municipal lands, and excesses resulting from new surveys prior to expropriation. Excluded, however, are farms of less than 221 acres whether or not cultivated, farms of from 221 to 664 acres if a least two-thirds of this land is cultivated, land belonging to Indian or farm communities, land of agricultural enterprises producing essential crops except land not directly used by the enterprise or exploited by systems established by this law, lands used for cattle raising, lands in the immediate vicinity of Guatemala City and other municipalities, and all legal forest reserves. Of the land available for redistribution under the law, only a small part is desirably located. In the most productive and ­populous ­sections of the country, principally the highlands, the privatelyowned farms are generally small and exempt from expropriation. Those that are larger are situated almost entirely in the undesirable lowland regions or in inaccessible parts of the highlands. Much of the suitably located and available land is that comprised in the state  farms. This situation and the reluctance of  the largely Indian agrarian population to migrate to the unhealthful lowlands probably influenced the administration during August and September 1952, in accordance with a previously announced ­policy, to make the first actual distributions of land from a national plantation and  ther holdings. In November 1952 arrangements were being completed for the breakup of 110 state farms, and several have since been distributed. Effective December 29, 1952, the Department of National Farms was legally dissolved and its affairs and properties transferred to a liquidating commission pending distribution of the land under the Agrarian Reform Law.

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The extent to which land controlled by foreign agriculture corporations may be made available for redistribution is largely a matter of speculation. Largest of these enterprises is the United Fruit Company which owns or leases some 450,000 acres possibly subject to expropriation. As far as can be ascertained, special protection to property of the Company appears not to be afforded either by the Agrarian Law or by the clauses of contracts, including land lease arrangements, between the Company and the Guatemalan Government. Article 12 of the Agrarian Reform Law provides that “there will be no difference between natural and juridical persons who own or rent land in this country, even though they may have signed contracts with the state prior to the date of promulgation of this law insofar as the lands affected are concerned.” This article indicates clearly that the Communistguided framers of the Agrarian Law intended to apply its provisions to foreign enterprises such as the United Fruit Company. The first moves to apply the law to United Fruit Company holdings were made in December 1952 when workers at both the Tiquisate and Bananera subsidiaries filed expropriation applications with the National Agrarian Department. In protesting these proceedings before the Departmental Agrarian Commissions, representatives of the Company pointed out what they regarded as irregularities in the petitions, presented evidence that much of its acreage was exempt from expropriation because it was forested, was pasture, or was producing “technical crops”, and contended that uncultivated lands were needed as a reserve for replacing acreage in bananas forced out of production by plant diseases. The Company also argued that such compensation as might be made would be inadequate if it were based as prescribed by this law upon the tax book value, especially in view of the fact that the Company had sought from 1948 to 1951 to have its land revalued. Moreover, payment in agrarian bonds would be unsatisfactory since they were subject to heavy discounting if cashed soon after issue. Both commissions overruled these arguments and approved the expropriation of the Company’s uncultivated lands. In the Tiquisate case, the commission based its decision on the Company’s inability to show that it was financially able to increase its cultivated acreage, and its failure to sustain with testimony by

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technical experts the contentions that all uncultivated holdings were required for agricultural purposes. Appeals in both cases were immediately filed by the Company with the National Agrarian Council. This body, in January, reversed the decision of the commission which had handled the Tiquisate case on the grounds that it had failed to specify the right of the Company to contest the commission’s ruling within five days. The ruling, however, gave the Company only a temporary respite, for new petitions were immediately filed which have been approved by the National Agrarian Department and President Arbenz. This action, which would expropriate approximately two-thirds of the Company’s Tiquisate holdings, has been appealed to the Guatemalan Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the Company is faced with problem of numerous persons entering its Tiquisate property, staking out claims to unused lands, and making preparations for settling without legal authorization. In that part of the company subsidiary lying in the Department of Suchitepequez, the Governor witnessed the “invasion” and sent soldiers to protect the intruders. On the other hand, the Governor of the Department of Escuintla ordered squatters off the Company’s lands. In view of the proceedings involving the United Fruit Company which have already taken place and the stipulation in the Agrarian Law that no difference exists between “natural and juridical persons”, the Company and other foreign enterprises would appear to be entitled to some legal recourse in case of expropriation. The value of this privilege, however, would be limited by two factors. In the first place, the Agrarian Law provides the cases arising as a result of its implementation may be appealed through the various divisions of the National Agrarian Department to the President, but may not be taken to the civil courts. This limitation, therefore, bars full legal recourse. Secondly, were a constitutional or other loophole to be found for using the civil courts, the appeal, if it reached the Supreme Court, would stand little chance at present of being favorably reviewed since that tribunal is packed with proadministration judges. Moreover, a Supreme Court decision would be subject to congressional review. The packing of the Court took place in February 1953 when four of the five former justices were

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replaced after ruling against the expropriation of uncultivated lands belonging to a private landowner who had unsuccessfully appealed his case through the National Agrarian Department to the President of the Republic. The Supreme Court had accepted the case under a constitutional provision which grants a person the right to ask protection or aid (amparo) in a case where he believes the “law, regulation or other order by an authority is not applicable.” If the Agrarian Law is fully implemented, the impact upon private landholders would be borne chiefly by a minority group. The Guatemalan General Directorate of Statistics estimates that of 341,191 private agricultural holdings only 1,710 would be affected. These 1,710 holdings, however, comprise more than half of the total private acreage. Their owners would not suffer a drastic loss of cultivated land, but would be prevented from expanding future operations were their uncultivated acreage expropriated. For owners whose property is condemned provision exists for indemnification based upon the generally low tax valuations as of May 9, 1952. Compensation, for which the administration has made ­initial provision, is to be in bonds bearing 3 percent interest redeemable in 25 years or less. Although the National Agrarian Department planned in late 1952 to begin distributions from private farms, this phase of the agrarian program was not placed in operation until January 1953 when President Arbenz signed a resolution ordering the first expropriation of four farms in various parts of the country. Financial arrangements for such expropriations had been completed the preceding month with the deposit by the National Agrarian Department in the Bank of Guatemala of $2,500,000 in Agrarian bonds to reimburse landowners. Meanwhile, the failure of the Government to proceed more rapidly with private expropriations led to increasing pressure, part of it Communist-inspired, to bring this about. Petitions were sent to the agrarian authorities and to the President, and after the beginning of 1953 the seizure of private lands by farm workers gained impetus throughout the country. The official press warned that only the state could apply the law, but the Administration showed signs of yielding to the pressure by moving to authorize squatters to stay on the land under the compulsory rental laws,

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by  refusing generally to use the police power to protect the ­private  properties involved, and by accelerating the rate of private expropriations. 3. Social and Political Implications. Envisaged by the law is the far-reaching social change of freeing thousands of agrarian workers from a centuries-old dependence upon the privileged large landholding class. Prohibited are existing forms of servitude such as the lending by one landowner to another of the personal services of farm laborers, the forced distribution of Indians, and the payment of rental for land in labor. A provision for the placing of land rental on an almost exclusively cash basis, and the limiting of payment whether in cash or kind to 5 percent of the value of the crop produced is one designed to free the Indian peasant from his dependent economic status. Under the agrarian program, however, the rural classes would be subjected to rather close control by the state. This would be exercised through a virtually autonomous National Agrarian Department—headed nominally by the President of the Republic and having national, departmental and local subdivisions—whose influence is enhanced by its responsibility for rendering technical and other assistance. Certain limitations would be incumbent upon those using redistributed land. If the holding were acquired from the imprescriptible public domain, use would be on the basis of a life grant or by rental as long as adequate cultivation were maintained. Private title would be possibly only by the direct transfer to the applicant of land expropriated from private estates. Such holdings would be restricted to 43 acres and would not be transferable to another owner for 25 years. Another feature of the law facilitating state control is provision for the concentration of agrarian workers on each private plantation into a single village and for the nationalization of private roads connecting such communities with other centers of population. 4. Communist Participation. Although the Agrarian Law does not  provide for the complete breakup of large privately-owned estates, it otherwise harmonizes generally with the program of the Guatemalan Communist Party, which purports to favor “peasant-middle-class agrarian reforms” bringing “the destruction of feudalism and the opening of the way to capitalism, or rather,

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industrialization.” The Party has accepted the law as “the least that can be done” and with the admission that it is not feasible to go further at the present time. Rapid implementation of the law, however, was urged at a Party Congress held in December 1952. Under the law the Communists have an excellent opportunity to extend their influence over the rural population. One method of accomplishing this is through the representation in the various subdivisions of the National Agrarian Department to which the two major labor confederations are entitled. The Communist-controlled General Confederation of Workers (Confederacion General de Trabajadores de Guatemala, CGTG) and the Communist-influenced National Confederation of Farm Workers (Confederacion Nacional Campesina de Guatemala, CNCG) have 60 percent of the seats in the local agrarian commissions, 40 percent in the departmental commissions, and one-third in the national commission. Already Communists and their sympathizers have infiltrated the National Agrarian Department so extensively that they exert an important voice in both policy making and in the implementation of the law. At the same time, the Communists are tightening their grip on the rural classes by using the law in other ways. Working chiefly through the CGTG and the CNCG, they are propagandizing in behalf of the law, are stimulating farm workers to petition for the redistribution of land, and are helping applicants in their negotiations with the National Agrarian Department. Communist leaders also are taking the initiative resisting the efforts of private landowners to appeal their cases from the National Agrarian Department to the civil courts. Virtually no opposition exists to these activities. A basic reason for this is that the Agrarian Law provides severe penalties for interference with its implementation. Other factors redounding to the advantage of the Communists are an expansion of organizational activities in farm areas by both the CGTG and the CNCG, and the deepened cleavage between moderates and left produced by government sponsorship of the law. 5. Implementation. President Arbenz and his leftist administration forces, particularly the Communists, envisage political benefits from the legislation. They are presumably anxious to eliminate all control of the conservative, anti-administration large landholders over the farm labor force. With this accomplished, agrarian

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­ orkers could be unionized under auspices and with benefits w which would virtually assure their support of the administration. Aside from these broad political advantages, administration leaders will find in the agrarian reform program a greatly enlarged field for graft and patronage. Already the President has moved to keep implementation of the law in his hands by appointing as Chief of the National Agrarian Department the unscrupulous, corrupt, and shrewd Major Alfonso Mart’nez Estevez, his confidant and former private secretary. Next to the presidency, direction of the agrarian program is potentially the most important civilian position in the Guatemalan Government. To finance the operations of the National Agrarian Department, a budget of $404,470 for fiscal 1952-53 was approved in November 1952 by the National Congress. During 1952, implementation of the Agrarian Law proceeded slowly and produced some confusion and controversy. Many misinformed rural workers evidenced keen disappointment when informed that lands exempt from expropriation could not be distributed to them. Under Communist inspiration, pressure mounted for more rapid distribution. The acceleration of the program became the central issue of the 1952-53 congressional electoral campaign and has been officially marked as the ­primary government objective for 1953. In the course of the accelerated land distribution program, “squatting” and forced seizures by the peasantry have taken place and have been upheld by the government. 6. Economic Repercussions. Thus far, a serious business recession, particularly affecting Guatemala City, has been the major ­economic repercussion of the implementation of the reform program. The government has been forced to deny reports that private property in general will come under attack. Rapid and immoderate implementation of the law may well affect agricultural production, the basis of Guatemala’s economy, but this has not yet taken place. Dangers predicted locally include labor shortages, loss of land, the depreciation of land values, and a decline in credit.

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Conclusion

The adoption on June 17, 1952 of a comprehensive agrarian reform program presages significant sociological, economic and political changes in Guatemala. Full implementation of the law would free thousands of agrarian workers from a centuries-old dependence upon the privileged landholding class, but would subject the majority, in all probability, to close control by the state through supervision by a virtually autonomous National Agrarian Department, through limitation upon land usage, through population concentrations, and through the extension of technical and other assistance. Full and rapid implementation of the land distribution program would be likely to produce serious economic repercussions. Already nervousness has depressed business activity. Thus far, however, agricultural production, which provides the basis of Guatemala’s economy, apparently has not been affected. Administration forces in all probability will use the law to eliminate all control of the conservative, large landholding classes over farm workers. With the assistance of the Communists, who will take advantage of the opportunity to extend their influence over the rural classes, a stronger backing for the government should result. Advantages to the Communists also are likely to be enhanced by greater opportunities to attack the United Fruit Company, and by the deepening cleavage between ­moderates and left resulting from government sponsorship of the reform program. Foreign agricultural enterprises, especially the United Fruit Company, will probably have their uncultivated holdings expropriated since they appear to have no special protection under their operating concessions. While they may appeal decisions affecting their interests to the National Agrarian Department, this agency and the civil courts, which probably could not be utilized, are so closely subjected to the will of the administration that such recourse would avail little. Implementation of the law will be difficult because of the unavailability of suitably located land, because of the long-standing living habits and prejudices of the largely Indian agrarian population, and because of the likelihood that a competent administrative organization cannot be perfected. The strong probability exists that too rapid acceleration of the agrarian program coupled with increasing Communist strength and influence may lead to violence difficult for the Arbenz Administration to contain.

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Notes 1 Central Intelligence Agency, Job 79-01025A, Box 7, Folder 1. Confidential. According to a typed note, this report was prepared by the Division of Research for American Republics. A cover sheet and table of contents are not printed. 2 On February 26 President Arbenz signed an order issued by the Guatemalan National Agrarian Council calling for the expropriation, under provisions of the Agrarian Reform Law of June 17, 1952, of approximately 234,000 acres of United Fruit Company property near Tiquisate on the Pacific side of Guatemala, and ­offering the  company government bonds as compensation. See Foreign Relations, 1952-1954, vol. IV, pp. 1056-1057 (Document 13).

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Radio and Television Address on Communism in Guatemala John Foster Dulles, 1954

T

onight I should like to talk with you about Guatemala. It is the scene of dramatic events. They expose the evil purpose of the Kremlin to destroy the inter-American system, and they test the ability of the American States to maintain the peaceful integrity of this hemisphere. For several years international communism has been probing here and there for nesting places in the Americas. It finally chose Guatemala as a spot which it could turn into an official base from which to breed subversion which would extend to other American Republics. This intrusion of Soviet despotism was, of course, a direct challenge to our Monroe Doctrine, the first and most fundamental of our foreign policies. In Guatemala, international communism had an initial success. It began 10 years ago, when a revolution occurred in Guatemala. The revolution was not without justification. But the Communists seized on  it, not as an opportunity for real reform, but as a chance to gain political power. Communist agitators devoted themselves to infiltrating the public and private organizations of Guatemala. They sent recruits to Russia and other Communist countries for revolutionary training and indoctrination in such institutions as the Lenin School at Moscow. Operating in the guise of “reformers,” they organized the workers and peasants under Communist leadership. Having gained control of what they call “mass organizations,” they moved on to take over the official press and radio of  the Guatemalan Government. They dominated the social security 173

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organization and ran the agrarian reform program. Through the ­technique of the “popular front” they dictated to the Congress and the President. The judiciary made one valiant attempt to protect its integrity and independence. But the Communists, using their control of the legislative body, caused the Supreme Court to be dissolved when it refused to give  approval to a Communist-contrived law. Arbenz, who until this week  was  President of Guatemala, was openly manipulated by the leaders of communism. Guatemala is a small country. But its power, standing alone, is not a measure of the threat. The master plan of international communism is to gain a solid political base in this hemisphere, a base that can be used to extend Communist penetration to the other peoples of the other American Governments. It was not the power of the Arbenz government that concerned us but the power behind it. If world communism captures any American State, however small, a new and perilous front is established which will increase the danger to the  entire free world and require even greater sacrifices from the American people. This situation in Guatemala had become so dangerous that the American States could not ignore it. At Caracas last March the American States held their Tenth Inter-American Conference. They then adopted a momentous statement. They declared that “the domination or control of the political institutions of any American State by the international Communist movement . . . would constitute a threat to the sovereignty and political independence of the American States, endangering the peace of America.” There was only one American State that voted against this declaration. That State was Guatemala. This Caracas declaration precipitated a dramatic chain of events. From their European base the Communist leaders moved rapidly to build up the military power of their agents in Guatemala. In May a large shipment of arms moved from behind the Iron Curtain into Guatemala. The shipment was thought to be secreted by false manifests and false clearances. Its ostensible destination was changed three times while en route. At the same time, the agents of international communism in Guatemala intensified efforts to penetrate and subvert the neighboring Central American States. They attempted political assassinations and political strikes. They used consular agents for political warfare.

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Many Guatemalan people protested against their being used by Communist dictatorship to serve the Communists’ lust for power. The response was mass arrests, the suppression of constitutional guaranties, the killing of opposition leaders, and other brutal tactics normally employed by communism to secure the consolidation of its power. Throughout the period I have outlined, the Guatemalan Government and Communist agents throughout the world have persistently attempted to obscure the real issue—that of Communist imperialism—by claiming that the United States is only interested in protecting American business. We regret that there have been disputes between the Guatemalan Government and the United Fruit Company. We have urged repeatedly that these disputes be submitted for settlement to an international tribunal or to international arbitration. That is the way to dispose of problems of this sort. But this issue is relatively unimportant. All who know the temper of the U.S. people and Government must realize that our overriding concern is that which, with others, we recorded at Caracas, namely the endangering by international communism of the peace and security of this hemisphere. The people of Guatemala have not been heard from. Despite the armaments piled up by the Arbenz government, it was unable to enlist the spiritual cooperation of the people. Led by Col. Castillo Armas, patriots arose in Guatemala to challenge the Communist leadership—and to change it. Thus, the situation is being cured by the Guatemalans themselves. Last Sunday, President Arbenz of Guatemala resigned and seeks asylum. Others are following his example. Tonight, just as I speak, Col. Castillo Armas is in conference in El Salvador with Colonel Monzon, the head of the Council which has taken over the power in Guatemala City. It was this power that the just wrath of the Guatemalan people wrested from President Arbenz, who then took flight. Now the future of Guatemala lies at the disposal of the Guatemalan people themselves. It lies also at the disposal of leaders loyal to Guatemala who have not treasonably become the agents of an alien despotism which sought to use Guatemala for its own evil ends. . . . Above all, we can be grateful that there were loyal citizens of Guatemala who, in the face of terrorism and violence and against what seemed insuperable odds, had the courage and the will to eliminate the traitorous tools of foreign despots.

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The need for vigilance is not past. Communism is still a menace everywhere. But the people of the United States and of the other American Republics can feel tonight that at least one grave danger has been averted. Also an example is set which promises increased security for the future. The ambitious and unscrupulous will be less prone to feel that communism is the wave of their future. In conclusion, let me assure the people of Guatemala. As peace and freedom are restored to that sister Republic, the Government of the United States will continue to support the just aspirations of the Guatemalan people. A prosperous and progressive Guatemala is vital to a healthy hemisphere. The United States pledges itself not merely to political opposition to communism but to help to alleviate conditions in Guatemala and elsewhere which might afford communism an opportunity to spread its tentacles throughout the hemisphere. Thus we shall seek in positive ways to make our Americas an example which will inspire men everywhere.

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CIA Report on Overthrow of Mossadegh

SUMMARY

By the end of 1952, it had become clear that the Mossadeq government in Iran was incapable of reaching an oil settlement with interested Western countries; was reaching a dangerous and advanced stage of illegal, deficit financing; was disregarding the Iranian constitution in prolonging Premier Mohammed Mossadeq’s tenure of office; was motivated mainly by Mossadeq’s desire for personal power; was governed by irresponsible policies based on emotion; had weakened the Shan and the Iranian Army to a dangerous degree; and had cooperated closely with the Tudeh (communist) Party of Iran. In view of these factors, it was estimated that Iran was in real danger of falling behind the Iron Curtain; if that happened it would mean a victory for the Soviets in the Cold War and a major setback for the West in the Middle East. No remedial action other than the covert action plan set forth below could be found to improve the existing state of affairs. It was the aim of the TPAJAX project to cause the fall of the Mossadeq government; to reestablish the prestige and power of the Shan; and to replace the Mossadeq government with one which would govern Iran according to constructive policies. Specifically, the aim was to bring to power a government which would reach an equitable oil settlement, enabling Iran to become economically sound and financially solvent, and  which would vigorously prosecute the dangerously strong Communist Party. Once it had been determined definitely that it was not in American interests for the Mossadeq government to remain in power and CIA had been so informed by the Secretary of State in March 1953, CIA began 177

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drafting a plan whereby the aims stated above could be realized through covert action. An estimate entitled “Factors Involved in the Overthrow of Mossadeq” was completed on 16 April 1953. It was here determined that an overthrow of Mossadeq was possible through covert operations. In April it was determined that CIA should conduct the envisioned operation jointly with the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). By the end of April, it was decided that CIA and SIS officers would draw up a plan on Cyprus which would be submitted to CIA and SIS Headquarters, and to the Department of State and the Foreign Office for final approval. On 3 June 1953, US Ambassador Loy Wesley Henderson arrived in the United States where he was fully consulted with regard to the objective and aims, as stated above, as well as CIA’s intentions to design covert means of achieving the objective and aims. The plan was completed by 10 June 1953 at which time Mr. Kermit Roosevelt, Chief of the Near East and Africa Division, CIA (who carried with him the views of the Department of State, CIA, and Ambassador Henderson); Mr. Roger Goiran, CIA Chief of Station, Iran; and two CIA planning officers met in Beirut to consider the plan. With minor changes the operational proposal was submitted to the SIS in London on 14 June 1953. On 19 June 1953, the final operational plan, agreed upon by Mr. Roosevelt for CIA and by British Intelligence in London, was submitted in Washington to the Department of State; to Mr. Allen W. Dulles, Director of CIA; and to Ambassador Henderson for approval. Simultaneously, it was submitted to the British Foreign Office by SIS for approval. The Department of State wanted to be assured of two things before it would grant approval of the plan:



1. that the United States Government could provide adequate grant aid to a successor Iranian Government so that such a government could be sustained until an oil settlement was reached; 2. that the British Government would signify in writing, to the satisfaction of the Department of State, its intention to reach an early oil settlement with a successor Iranian Government in a spirit of good will and equity.

The Department of State satisfied itself on both of these scores. In mid-July 1953, the Department of State and the British Foreign Office granted authorization for the implementation of the TPAJAX project, and the Director of CIA obtained the approval of the President of the

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United States. The SIS, with the concurrence of the CIA Director and Ambassador Henderson, proposed that Mr. Roosevelt assume field command in Tehran of the final phases of the operation. It was determined by the Department of State that it would be advisable for Ambassador Henderson to postpone his return to Iran, from Washington consultation, until the operation has been concluded. Arrangements were made jointly with SIS whereby operational liaison would be conducted  on Cyprus where a CIA officer would be temporarily stationed, and support liaison would be conducted in Washington. Rapid three-way communications were arranged through CIA facilities between Tehran, Cyprus, and Washington. The time set for the operation was mid-August. In Iran, CIA and SIS propaganda assets were to conduct an increasingly intensified propaganda effort through the press, handbills, and the Tehran clergy in a campaign designed to weaken the Mossadeq government in anyway possible. In the United States, high-ranking US officials were to make official statements which would shatter any hopes held by Premier Mossadeq that American economic aid would be forthcoming, and disabuse the Iranian public of the Mossadeq myth that the United States supported his regime. General Fazlolloh Zahedi, former member of Mossadeq’s cabinet, was chosen as the most suitable successor to the Premier since he stood out as the only person of stature who has consistently been openly in opposition to Mossadeq and who claimed any significant following. Zahedi was to be approached by CIA and be told of our operation and its aim of installing him as the new prime minister. He was to name a military secretariat with which CIA would conclude a detailed staff plan of action. From the outset, the cooperation of the Shah was considered to an essential part of the plan. His cooperation was necessary to assure the action required of the Tehran military garrisons, and to legalize the succession of a new prime minister. Since the Shah has shown himself to be a man of indecision, it was determined that pressure on him to cooperate would take the following forms:

1. The Shah’s dynamic and forceful twin sister, Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, was to come from Europe to urge the Shah to dismiss Mossadeq. She would say she had been in contact with US and UK officials who had requested her to do so.

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2. Arrangements were made for a visit to Iran by General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, former head of the US Gendarme Mission, whom the Shah liked and respected. Schwarzkopf was to explain the proposed project and get from the Shah signed firmans (royal decrees) dismissing Mossadeq, appointing Zahedi, and calling on the Army to remain loyal to the Crown. 3. The principal indigenous British agent, whose bona fides has been established with the Shah, was to reinforce Schwarzkopf’s message and assure the Shah that this was a joint US–UK action. 4. Failing results from the above, Mr. Roosevelt, representing the President of the United States, would urge the Shah to sign the above-mentioned firmans. When received, the firmans would be released by CIA to Zahedi on the day called for in the plan. On D-Day, the Shah was to be at some location outside of Tehran so that Zahedi, armed with the royal firmans and with military support, could take over the government without danger of the Shah’s reversing his stand, and to avoid any attempt on the Shah’s life.

Through agents in the Tehran military, CIA was to ensure, to the degree possible, Tehran Army cooperation in support of the Shahappointed new prime minister. The following public statements made in the United States has tremendous impact on Iran and Mossadeq, and contributed greatly to Mossadeq’s downfall:





1. The publication, on 9 July 1953, of President Eisenhower’s 29 June 1953 letter to Premier Mossadeq made it clear that increased aid would not be forth–coming to Iran. 2. The Secretary of State’s press conference of 28 July 1953 stated that “. . . . The growing activities of the illegal Communist Part in Iran and the toleration of them by the Iranian Government has caused our government concern. These developments make it more difficult to grant aid to Iran.” 3. The President’s Seattle speech at the Governors’ convention, in which he stated that the United States would not sit by and see Asian countries fall behind the Iron Curtain, has definite effect.

In cooperation with the Department of State, CIA had several articles planted in major American newspapers and magazines which, when

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reproduced in Iran, had the desired psychological effect in Iran and contributed to the war of nerves against Mossadeq. After considerable pressure from Princess Ashraf and General Schwarzkopf, and after several meetings with Mr. Roosevelt, the Shah finally signed the required firmans on 15 August 1953. Action was set for 16 August. However, owing to a security leak in the Iranian military, the chief of the Shah’s bodyguard, assigned to seize Mossadeq with the help of two truckloads of pro-Shah soldiers, was overwhelmed by superior armed forced still loyal to Mossadeq. The balance of the military plan was thus frustrated for the day. Upon hearing that the plan has misfired, the Shah flew to Baghdad. This was an act of prudence and had been at least partially foreseen in the plan. Zahedi remained in hiding in CIA custody. With his key officers, he eluded Mossadeq’s security forces which were seeking to apprehend the major opposition elements. Early in the afternoon of 17 August 1953, Ambassador Henderson returned to Tehran. General Zahedi, through a CIA-arranged secret press conference and through CIA covert printing facilities, announced to Iran that he was legally prime minister and that Mossadeq had staged an illegal coup against him. CIA agent assets disseminated a large quantity of photographs of the firmans, appointing Zahedi prime minister and dismissing Mossadeq. This had tremendous impact on the people of Tehran who had already been shocked and angered when they realized that the Shah had been forced to leave Iran because of Mossadeq’s actions. US Ambassador Burton Y. Berry, in Baghdad, contacted the Shah and stated that he had confidence that the Shah would return soon to Iran despite the apparent adverse situation at that time. Contact was also established with the Shah in Rome after he had flown there from Baghdad. Mr. Roosevelt and the station consistently reported that Mossadeq’s apparent victory was misleading; that there were very concrete signs that the Army was still loyal to the Shah; and that a favorable reversal of the situation was possible. The station further urged both the British Foreign Office and the Department of State to make a maximum effort to persuade the Shah to make public statements encouraging the Army and populace to reject Mossadeq and to accept Zahedi as prime minister. On 19 August 1953, a pro-Shah demonstration, originating in the bazaar area, took on overwhelming proportions. The demonstration appeared to start partially spontaneously, revealing the fundamental prestige of the Shah and the public alarm at the undisguised republican move being started by the Communists as well as by certain National

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Frontists. Station political action assets also contributed to the beginnings of the pro–Shah demonstrations. The Army very soon joined the pro–Shah movement and by noon of that day it was clear that Tehran, as well as certain provincial areas, were controlled by pro–Shah street groups and Army units. The situation was such that the above-mentioned military plan could them be implemented. At the station’s signal Zahedi came out of hiding to lead the movement. He first broadcast over Radio Tehran and announced that the government was his. The General Staff  offices were then seized, Mossadeq’s home was gutted, and proMossadeq politicians and officers arrested. By the end of 19 August, the country was in the hands of the new Premier, Zahedi, and members of the Mossadeq government were either in hiding or were incarcerated. The Shah returned shortly to Iran where he was given a rousing popular reception. The Shah was deeply moved by the fact that his people and Army has revolted in the face of adversity against a vindictive Mossadeq and a Communist Party riding the crest of temporary victory and clearly planning to declare Iran a republic. The Shah felt for the first time that he had the mandate of his people, and he returned determined to regain firm control of the Army. In order to give Zahedi badly needed immediate financial assistance so that month-end payrolls could be met before the United States could ­provide large scale grant aid, CIA covertly made available $5,000,000 within two days of Zahedi’s assumption of power.

The C.I.A.’s secret history of the 1953 coup in Iran was a nearly 200-page document, comprising the author’s own account of the operation and a set of planning documents he attached. The New York Times on the Web is publishing the introduction and many of the planning documents. But the Times decided not to publish the main body of the text after consulting prominent historians who believed there might be serious risk that some of those named as foreign agents would face retribution in Iran. Because the introductory summary and the main body of the document are inconsistent on a few dates and facts, readers may note discrepancies between accounts. In its reporting, the Times has relied upon details in the C.I.A. document not published here. In addition, certain names and identifying descriptions have been removed from the documents available on the Web.

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Memorandum From the Chief of WH/4/PM, Central Intelligence Agency (Hawkins) to the Chief of WH/4 of the Directorate for Plans (Esterline) Washington, January 4, 1961

SUBJECT

Policy Decisions Required for Conduct of Strike Operations Against Government of Cuba 1. Purpose

The purpose of this memorandum is to outline the current status of our preparations for the conduct of amphibious/airborne and tactical air operations against the Government of Cuba and to set forth certain requirements for policy decisions which must be reached and implemented if these operations are to be carried out.

Source: U.S., Department of State, Foreign Relations of The United States, 1961-1963, Volume X, Cuba, 1961-1962.

183

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2. Concept

As a basis for the policy requirements to be presented below, it would appear appropriate to review briefly the concept of the strike operations contemplated and outline the objectives which these operations are designed to accomplish. The concept envisages the seizure of a small lodgement on Cuban soil by an all-Cuban amphibious/airborne force of about 750 men. The landings in Cuba will be preceded by a tactical air preparation, beginning at dawn of D-1 Day. The primary purpose of the air preparation will be to destroy or neutralize all Cuban military aircraft and naval vessels constituting a threat to the invasion force. When this task is accomplished, attacks will then be directed against other military targets, including artillery parks, tank parks, military vehicles, supply dumps, etc. Close air support will be provided to the invasion force on D-Day and thereafter as long as the force is engaged in combat. The primary targets during this time will be opposing military formations in the field. Particular efforts will be made to interdict opposing troop movements against the lodgement. The initial mission of the invasion force will be to seize and defend a small area, which under ideal conditions will include an airfield and access to the sea for logistic support. Plans must provide, however, for the eventuality that the force will be driven into a tight defensive formation which will preclude supply by sea or control of an airfield. Under such circumstances supply would have to be provided entirely by air drop. The primary objective of the force will be to survive and maintain its integrity on Cuban soil. There will be no early attempt to break out of the lodgement for further offensive operations unless and until there is a general uprising against the Castro regime or overt military intervention by United States forces has taken place. It is expected that these operations will precipitate a general uprising throughout Cuba and cause the revolt of large segments of the Cuban Army and Militia. The lodgement, it is hoped, will serve as a rallying point for the thousands who are ready for overt resistance to Castro but who hesitate to act until they can feel some assurance of success. A general revolt in Cuba, if one is successfully triggered by our operations, may serve to topple the Castro regime within a period of weeks. If matters do not eventuate as predicted above, the lodgement established by our force can be used as the site for establishment of a provisional government which can be recognized by the United States, and

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hopefully by other American states, and given overt military assistance. The way will then be paved for United States military intervention aimed at pacification of Cuba, and this will result in the prompt overthrow of the Castro Government. While this paper is directed to the subject of strike operations, it should not be presumed that other paramilitary programs will be suspended or abandoned. These are being intensified and accelerated. They include the supply by air and sea of guerrilla elements in Cuba, the conduct of sabotage operations, the introduction of specially trained paramilitary teams, and the expansion of our agent networks throughout the island. 3. Status of Forces

a. Air. The Project tactical air force includes ten B-28 aircraft currently based in Guatamala and at Eglin Air Force Base. However, there are only five Cuban B-26 pilots available at this time who are considered to be of highly technical competence. Six additional Cuban pilots are available, but their proficiency is questionable. It is planned that seven C-54 and four C-46 transports will be available for strike operations. Here again, the number of qualified Cuban crews is insufficient. There is one qualified C-54 crew on hand at this time, and three C-46 crews. Aviation ordnance for conduct of strike operations is yet to be positioned at the strike base in Nicaragua. Necessary construction and repairs at this base are now scheduled to commence, and there appears to be no obstacle to placing this facility in a state of readiness in time for operations as planned. Conclusions



(1) The number of qualified Cuban B-26 crews available is inadequate for conduct of strike operations. (2) The number of qualified Cuban transport crews is grossly inadequate for supply operations which will be required in support of the invasion forces and other friendly forces which are expected to join or operate in conjunction with it in many parts of Cuba. It is anticipated that multiple sorties will be required on a daily basis.

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b. Maritime. Amphibious craft for the operation, including three LOU’s and four LCVP’s are now at Viaques, Puerto Rico, where Cuban crew training is progressing satisfactorily. These craft with their crews will soon be ready for operations. The Barbara J (LCI), now enroute to the United States from Puerto Rico, requires repairs which may take up to two weeks for completion. The sister ship, the Blagar, is outfitting in Miami, and its crew is being assembled. It is expected that both vessels will be fully operational by mid-January at the latest. In view of the difficulty and delay encountered in purchasing, outfitting and readying for sea the two LCI’s, the decision has been reached to purchase no more major vessels, but to charter them instead. The motor ship, Rio Escondido (converted LCT) will be chartered this week and one additional steam ship, somewhat larger, will be chartered early in February. Both ships belong to a Panamanian Corporation controlled by the Garcia family of Cuba, who are actively cooperating with this Project. These two ships will provide sufficient lift for troops and supplies in the invasion operation. Conclusion

Maritime assets required will be available in ample time for strike operations in late February.

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a. Ground. There are approximately 500 Cuban personnel now in training in Guatemala. Results being achieved in the FRD recruiting drive now underway in Miami indicate that extraordinary measures may be required if the ranks of the Assault Brigade are to be filled to its planned strength of 750 by mid-January. Special recruiting teams comprised of members of the Assault Brigade are being brought to Miami to assist in recruiting efforts in that city and possibly in other countries, [less than 1 line of source text not declassified]. All recruits should be available by mid-January to allow at least four to six weeks of training prior to commitment. The Assault Brigade has been formed into its basic organization (a quadrangular infantry battalion, including four rifle companies, and a weapons company). Training is proceeding to the extent possible with the limited number of military instructors

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available. This force cannot be adequately trained for combat unless additional military trainers are provided. Conclusion







(1) It is probable that the Assault Brigade can reach its planned strength of 750 prior to commitment, but it is possible that upwards of 100 of these men will be recruited too late for adequate training. (2) Unless U.S. Army Special Forces training teams as requested are sent promptly to Guatemala, the Assault Brigade cannot be readied for combat by late February as planned and desired. (3) The Assault Brigade should not be committed to action until it has received at least four and preferably six weeks of training under supervision of the U.S. Army team. This means that the latter half of February is the earliest satisfactory time for the strike operation.

4. Major Policy Questions Requiring Resolution

In order that planning and preparation for the strike operation may proceed in an orderly manner and correct positioning of hundreds of  tons of supplies and equipment can be effected, a number of firm decisions concerning major questions or policy are required. These are discussed below. a. The Concept Itself

Discussion. The question of whether the incoming administration of President-Elect Kennedy will concur in the conduct of the strike operations outlined above needs to be resolved at the earlist possible time. If these operations are not to be conducted, then preparations for them should cease forthwith in order to avoid the needless waste of great human effort and many millions of dollars. Recruitment of additional Cuban personnel should be stopped, for every new recruit who is not employed in operations as intended presents an additional problem of eventual disposition. Recommendation. That the Director of Central Intelligence attempt to determine the position of the President-Elect and his Secretary of StateDesignate in regard to this question as soon as possible.

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b. Timing of the Operation

If Army Special Forces training teams are made available and dispatched to Guatemala by mid-January, the Assault Brigade can achieve acceptable readiness for combat during the latter half of February, 1961. All other required preparations can be made by that same time. The operation should be launched during this period. Any delay beyond 1 March, 1961, would be inadvisable for the following reasons:







(1) It is doubtful that Cuban forces can be maintained at our Guatemalan training base beyond 1 March, 1961. Pressures upon the Government of Guatemala may become unmanageable if Cuban ground troops are not removed by that date. (2) Cuban trainees cannot be held in training for much longer. Many have been in the camp for months under most austere and restrictive conditions. They are becoming restive and if not committed to action soon there will probably be a general lowering of morale. Large-scale desertions could occur with attendant possibilities of surfacing the entire program. (3) While the support of the Castro Government by the Cuban populace is deteriorating rapidly and time is working in our favor in that sense, it is working to our disadvantage in a military sense. Cuban jet pilots are being trained in Czechoslovakia and the appearance of modern radar throughout Cuba indicates a strong possibility that Castro may soon have an all-weather jet intercept capability. His ground forces have received vast quantities of military equipment from the Bloc countries, including medium and heavy tanks, field artillery, heavy mortars and anti-aircraft artillery. Bloc technicians are training his forces in the use of this formidable equipment. Undoubtedly, within the near future Castro’s hard core of loyal armed forces will achieve technical proficiency in the use of available modern weapons. (4) Castro is making rapid progress in establishing a Communist-style police state which will be difficult to unseat by any means short of overt intervention by U.S. military forces.

Recommendation. That the strike operation be conducted in the latter half of February, and not later than 1 March, 1961.

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c. Air Strike

The question has been raised in some quarters as to whether amphibious/ airborne operation could not be mounted without tactical air preparation or support or with minimal air support. It is axiomatic in amphibious operations that control of air and sea in the objective area is absolutely required. The Cuban Air Force and naval vessels capable of opposing our landing must be knocked out or neutralized before our amphibious shipping makes its final run into the beach. If this is not done, we will be courting disaster. Also, since our invasion force is very small in comparison to forces which may be thrown against it, we must compensate for numerical inferiority by effective tactical air support not only during the landing but thereafter as long as the force remains in combat. It is essential that opposing military targets such as artillery parks, tank parks, supply dumps, military convoys and troops in the field be brought under effective and continuing air attack. Psychological considerations also make such attacks essential. The spectacular aspects of air operations will go far toward producing the uprising in Cuba that we seek. Recommendations



(1) That the air preparation commence not later than dawn of D minus 1 day. (2) That any move to curtail the number of aircraft to be employed from those available be firmly resisted. (3) That the operation be abandoned if policy does not provide for use of adequate tactical air support.

d. Use of American Contract Pilots

The paragraph above outlines the requirement for precise and effective air strikes, while an earlier paragraph points up the shortage of qualified Cuban pilots. It is very questionable that the limited number of Cuban B-26 pilots available to us can produce the desired results unless augmented by highly skillful American contract pilots to serve as section and flight leaders in attacks against the more critical targets. The Cuban pilots are inexperienced in war and of limited technical competence in navigation and gunnery. There is reason also to suspect that they may lack the motivation to take the stern measures required against targets in their

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own country. It is considered that the success of the operation will be jeopardized unless a few American contract B-26 pilots are employed. With regard to logistical air operations, the shortage of Cuban crews has already been mentioned. There is no prospect of producing sufficient Cuban C-54 crews to run the seven C-54 aircraft to be used in the operation. Our experience to date with the Cuban transport crews has left much to be desired. It is concluded that the only satisfactory solution to the problem of air logistical support of the strike force and other forces joining it will be to employ a number of American contract crews. Recommendation

That policy approval be obtained for use of American contract crews for tactical and transport aircraft in augmentation of the inadequate number of Cuban crews available. e. Use of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua

The airfield at Puerto Cabezas is essential for conduct of the air strike operation unless a base is made available in the United States. Our air lease [base?] in Guatemala is 800 miles from central Cuba—too distant for B-26 operations and for air supply operations of the magnitude required, using the C-46 and C-54 aircraft. Puerto Cabezas is only 500 miles from central Cuba—acceptable, although too distant to be completely desirable, for B-26 and transport operations. Puerto Cabezas will also serve as the staging area for loading assault troops into transports much more satisfactorily than Puerto Barries, Guatemala which is exposed to hostile observation and lacks security. It is planned that troops will be flown in from Guatemala to Puerto Cabezas, placed in covered trucks, loaded over the docks at night into amphibious shipping, which will then immediately retire to sea. Conclusion

The strike operation cannot be conducted unless the Puerto Cabezas air facility is available for our use, or unless an air base in the United States is made available. Recommendation. That firm policy be obtained for use of Puerto Cabezas as an air strike base and staging area.

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f. Use of U.S. Air Base for Logistical Flights

An air base in southern Florida would be roughly twice as close to central Cuba as Puerto Cabezas. This means that the logistical capability of our limited number of transport aircraft would be almost doubled if operated from Florida rather than Puerto Cabezas. Logistical support of the strike force in the target would be much more certain and efficient if flown from Florida. There is also a possibility that once the strike operations commence, conditions would develop which would force us out of the Nicaraguan air base. Without some flexibility of air base with pre-positioned supplies in the United States, we could conceivably be confronted with a situation wherein the Assault Brigade would be left entirely without logistical air support. Supply by sea cannot be relied upon, for the Brigade may be driven by superior forces from the beach area. Such a situation could lead to complete defeat of the Brigade and failure of the mission. It seems obvious that the only real estate which the United States can, without question, continue to employ once the operation commences is its own soil. Therefore, an air base for logistical support should be provided in the United States. This will offer the possibility of continued, flexible operations, if one or both of our bases in Guatemala and/or Nicaragua are lost to our use. Recommendation

That policy be established to permit use of an air base in southern Florida (preferably Opa Locka which is now available to us and has storage facilities for supplies) for logistical support flights to Cuba. J. Hawkins1 Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps

1 

Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.

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Cuban Missile Crisis Address to the Nation John F. Kennedy, 22 October 1962

Good evening, my fellow citizens: This Government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere. Upon receiving the first preliminary hard information of this nature last Tuesday morning at 9 A.M., I directed that our surveillance be stepped up. And having now confirmed and completed our evaluation of the evidence and our decision on a course of action, this Government feels obliged to report this new crisis to you in fullest detail. The characteristics of these new missile sites indicate two distinct types of installations. Several of them include medium range ballistic missiles, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead for a distance of more than 1,000 nautical miles. Each of these missiles, in short, is capable of striking Washington, D.C., the Panama Canal, Cape Canaveral, Mexico City, or any other city in the southeastern part of the United States, in Central America, or in the Caribbean area. Additional sites not yet completed appear to be designed for intermediate range ballistic missiles—capable of traveling more than twice as far— and thus capable of striking most of the major cities in the Western Hemisphere, ranging as far north as Hudson Bay, Canada, and as far

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south as Lima, Peru. In addition, jet bombers, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, are now being uncrated and assembled in Cuba, while the necessary air bases are being prepared. This urgent transformation of Cuba into an important strategic base—by the presence of these large, long-range, and clearly offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction—constitutes an explicit threat to the peace and security of all the Americas, in flagrant and deliberate defiance of the Rio Pact of 1947, the traditions of this nation and hemisphere, the joint resolution of the 87th Congress, the Charter of the United Nations, and my own public warnings to the Soviets on September 4 and 13. This action also contradicts the repeated assurances of Soviet spokesmen, both publicly and privately delivered, that the arms buildup in Cuba would retain its original defensive character, and that the Soviet Union had no need or desire to station strategic missiles. on the territory of any other nation. The size of this undertaking makes clear that it has been planned for some months. Yet, only last month, after I had made clear the distinction between any introduction of ground-to-ground missiles and the existence of defensive antiaircraft missiles, the Soviet Government publicly stated on September 11 that, and I quote, “the armaments and military equipment sent to Cuba are designed exclusively for defensive purposes,” that there is, and I quote the Soviet Government, “there is no need for the Soviet Government to shift its weapons for a retaliatory blow to any other country, for instance Cuba,” and that, and I quote their government, “the Soviet Union has so powerful rockets to carry these nuclear warheads that there is no need to search for sites for them beyond the boundaries of the Soviet Union.” That statement was false. Only last Thursday, as evidence of this rapid offensive buildup was already in my hand, Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko told me in my office that he was instructed to make it clear once again, as he said his government had already done, that Soviet assistance to Cuba, and I quote, “pursued solely the purpose of contributing to the defense capabilities of Cuba,” that, and I quote him, “training by Soviet specialists of Cuban nationals in handling defensive armaments was by no means offensive, and if it were otherwise,” Mr. Gromyko went on, “the Soviet Government would never become involved in rendering such assistance.”

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That statement also was false. Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation’s security to constitute maximum peril. Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift, that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace. For many years, both the Soviet Union and the United States, recognizing this fact, have deployed strategic nuclear weapons with great care, never upsetting the precarious status quo which insured that these weapons would not be used in the absence of some vital challenge. Our own strategic missiles have never been transferred to the territory of any other nation under a cloak of secrecy and deception; and our history—unlike that of the Soviets since the end of World War II—demonstrates that we have no desire to dominate or conquer any other nation or impose our system upon its people. Nevertheless, American citizens have become adjusted to living daily on the bull’s-eye of Soviet missiles located inside the U.S.S.R. or in submarines. In that sense, missiles in Cuba add to an already clear and present danger—although it should be noted the nations of Latin America have never previously been subjected to a potential nuclear threat. But this secret, swift, extraordinary buildup of Communist missiles—in an area well known to have a special and historical relationship to the United States and the nations of the Western Hemisphere, in violation of Soviet assurances, and in defiance of American and hemispheric policy—this sudden, clandestine decision to station strategic weapons for the first time outside of Soviet soil—is a deliberately provocative and unjustified change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country, if our courage and our commitments are ever to be trusted again by either friend or foe. The 1930’s taught us a clear lesson: aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged, ultimately leads to war. This nation is opposed to war. We are also true to our word. Our unswerving objective, therefore, must be to prevent the use of these missiles against this or any other country, and to secure their withdrawal or elimination from the Western Hemisphere.

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Our policy has been one of patience and restraint, as befits a peaceful and powerful nation which leads a worldwide alliance. We have been determined not to be diverted from our central concerns by mere irritants and fanatics. But now further action is required, and it is under way; and these actions may only be the beginning. We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth; but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced. Acting, therefore, in the defense of our own security and of the entire Western Hemisphere, and under the authority entrusted to me by the Constitution as endorsed by the Resolution of the Congress, I have directed that the following initial steps be taken immediately: First: To halt this offensive buildup a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation or port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948. Second: I have directed the continued and increased close surveillance of Cuba and its military buildup. The foreign ministers of the OAS [Organization of American States], in their communiqué’ of October 6, rejected secrecy on such matters in this hemisphere. Should these offensive military preparations continue, thus increasing the threat to the hemisphere, further action will be justified. I have directed the Armed Forces to prepare for any eventualities; and I trust that in the interest of both the Cuban people and the Soviet technicians at the sites, the hazards to all concerned of continuing this threat will be recognized. Third: It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union. Fourth: As a necessary military precaution, I have reinforced our base at Guantanamo, evacuated today the dependents of our personnel there, and ordered additional military units to be on a standby alert basis. Fifth: We are calling tonight for an immediate meeting of the Organ[ization] of Consultation under the Organization of American States, to consider this threat to hemispheric security and to invoke

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articles 6 and 8 of the Rio Treaty in support of all necessary action. The United Nations Charter allows for regional security arrangements, and the nations of this hemisphere decided long ago against the military presence of outside powers. Our other allies around the world have also been alerted. Sixth: Under the Charter of the United Nations, we are asking tonight that an emergency meeting of the Security Council be convoked without delay to take action against this latest Soviet threat to world peace. Our resolution will call for the prompt dismantling and withdrawal of all offensive weapons in Cuba, under the supervision of U.N. observers, before the quarantine can be lifted. Seventh and finally: I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our two nations. I call upon him further to abandon this course of world domination, and to join in an historic effort to end the perilous arms race and to transform the history of man. He has an opportunity now to move the world back from the abyss of destruction by returning to his government’s own words that it had no need to station missiles outside its own territory, and withdrawing these weapons from Cuba by refraining from any action which will widen or deepen the present crisis, and then by participating in a search for peaceful and permanent solutions. This nation is prepared to present its case against the Soviet threat to peace, and our own proposals for a peaceful world, at any time and in any forum—in the OAS, in the United Nations, or in any other meeting that could be useful—without limiting our freedom of action. We have in the past made strenuous efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. We have proposed the elimination of all arms and military bases in a fair and effective disarmament treaty. We are prepared to discuss new proposals for the removal of tensions on both sides, including the possibilities of a genuinely independent Cuba, free to determine its own destiny. We have no wish to war with the Soviet Union—for we are a peaceful people who desire to live in peace with all other peoples. But it is difficult to settle or even discuss these problems in an atmosphere of intimidation. That is why this latest Soviet threat—or any other threat which is made either independently or in response to our actions this week—must and will be met with determination. Any hostile move anywhere in the world against the safety and freedom of peoples to

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whom we are committed, including in particular the brave people of West Berlin, will be met by whatever action is needed. Finally, I want to say a few words to the captive people of Cuba, to whom this speech is being directly carried by special radio facilities. I  peak to you as a friend, as one who knows of your deep attachment to your fatherland, as one who shares your aspirations for liberty and justice for all. And I have watched and the American people have watched with deep sorrow how your nationalist revolution was betrayed—and how your fatherland fell under foreign domination. Now your leaders are no longer Cuban leaders inspired by Cuban ideals. They are puppets and agents of an international conspiracy which has turned Cuba against your friends and neighbors in the Americas, and turned it into the first Latin American country to become a target for nuclear war—the first Latin American country to have these weapons on its soil. These new weapons are not in your interest. They contribute nothing to your peace and well-being. They can only undermine it. But this country has no wish to cause you to suffer or to impose any system upon you. We know that your lives and land are being used as pawns by those who deny your freedom. Many times in the past, the Cuban people have risen to throw out tyrants who destroyed their liberty. And I have no doubt that most Cubans today look forward to the time when they will be truly free—free from foreign domination, free to choose their own leaders, free to select their own system, free to own their own land, free to speak and write and worship without fear or degradation. And then shall Cuba be welcomed back to the society of free nations and to the associations of this hemisphere. My fellow citizens, let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out. No one can foresee precisely what course it will take or what costs or casualties will be incurred. Many months of sacrifice and self-discipline lie ahead—months in which both our patience and our will will be tested, months in which many threats and denunciations will keep us aware of our dangers. But the greatest danger of all would be to do nothing. The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are; but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.

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Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right; not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere, and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved. Thank you and good night.

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chapter five

civil rights

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Power Anywhere Where There’s People1 A Speech By Fred Hampton

POWER ANYWHERE WHERE THERES PEOPLE!

Power anywhere where there’s people. Power anywhere where there’s people. Let me give you an example of teaching people. Basically, the way they learn is observation and participation. You know a lot of us go around and joke ourselves and believe that the masses have PhDs, but that’s not true. And even if they did, it wouldn’t make any difference. Because with some things, you have to learn by seeing it or either participating in it. And you know yourselves that there are people walking around your community today that have all types of degrees that should be at this meeting but are not here. Right? Because you can have as many degrees as a thermometer. If you don’t have any practice, they you can’t walk across the street and chew gum at the same time. Let me tell you how Huey P. Newton, the leader, the organizer, the founder, the main man of the Black Panther Party, went about it. The community had a problem out there in California. There was an intersection, a four-way intersection; a lot of people were getting killed, cars running over them, and so the people went down and redressed their grievances to the government. You’ve done it before. I know you people in the community have. And they came back and the pigs said “No! You can’t have any.” Oh, they dont usually say you can’t have it. They’ve gotten a little hipper than that now. That’s what those degrees on the

Speech delivered at Olivet Church, 1969.

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thermometer will get you. They tell you “Okay, we’ll deal with it. Why dont you come back next meeting and waste some time?” And they get you wound up in an excursion of futility, and you be in a cycle of insaneness, and you be goin’ back and goin’ back, and goin’ back, and goin’ back so many times that you’re already crazy. So they tell you, they say, “Okay niggers, what you want?” And they you jump up and you say, “Well, it’s been so long, we don’t know what we want”, and then you walk out of the meeting and you’re gone and they say, “Well, you niggers had your chance, didnt you?” Let me tell you what Huey P. Newton did. Huey Newton went and got Bobby Seale, the chairman of the Black Panther Party on a national level. Bobby Seale got his 9mm, that’s a pistol. Huey P. Newton got his shotgun and got some stop signs and got a hammer. Went down to the intersection, gave his shotgun to Bobby, and Bobby had his 9mm. He said, “You hold this shotgun. Anybody mess with us, blow their brains out.” He put those stop signs up. There were no more accidents, no more problem. Now they had another situation. That’s not that good, you see, because its two people dealing with a problem. Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, no matter how bad they may be, cannot deal with the problem. But let me explain to you who the real heroes are. Next time, there was a similar situation, another four-way corner. Huey went and got Bobby, went and got his 9mm, got his shotgun, got his hammer and got more stop signs. Placed those stop signs up, gave the shotgun to Bobby, told Bobby “If anybody mess with us while were putting these stop signs up, protect the people and blow their brains out.” What did the people do? They observed it again. They participated in it. Next time they had another four-way intersection. Problems there; they had accidents and death. This time, the people in the community went and got their shotguns, got their hammers, got their stop signs. Now, let me show you how were gonna try to do it in the Black Panther Party here. We just got back from the south side. We went out there. We went out there and we got to arguing with the pigs or the pigs got to arguing-he said, “Well, Chairman Fred, you supposed to be so bad, why dont you go and shoot some of those policemen? You always talking about you got your guns and got this, why dont you go shoot some of them?” And I’ve said, “you’ve just broken a rule. As a matter of fact, even though you have on a uniform it doesn’t make me any difference. Because

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I dont care if you got on nine uniforms, and 100 badges. When you step outside the realm of legality and into the realm of illegality, then I feel that you should be arrested.” And I told him, “You being what they call the law of entrapment, you tried to make me do something that was wrong, you encouraged me, you tried to incite me to shoot a pig. And that ain’t cool, Brother, you know the law, dont you?” I told that pig that, I told him “You got a gun, pig?” I told him, “You gotta get your hands up against the wall. We’re gonna do what they call a citizens arrest.” This fool dont know what this is. I said, “Now you be just as calm as you can and don’t make too many quick moves, cause we don’t wanna have to hit you.” And I told him like he always told us, I told him, “Well, I’m here to protect you. Don’t worry about a thing, ‘m here for your benefit.” So I sent another Brother to call the pigs. You gotta do that in a citizen’s arrest. He called the pigs. Here come the pigs with carbines and shotguns, walkin’ out there. They came out there talking about how they’re gonna arrest Chairman Fred. And I said, “No fool. This is the man you got to arrest. He’s the one that broke the law.” And what did they do? They bugged their eyes, and they couldn’t stand it. You know what they did? They were so mad, they were so angry that they told me to leave. And what happened? All those people were out there on 63rd Street. What did they do? They were around there laughing and talking with me while I was making the arrest. They looked at me while I was rapping and heard me while I was rapping. So the next time that the pig comes on 63rd Street, because of the thing that our Minister of Defense calls observation and participation, that pig might be arrested by anybody! So what did we do? We were out there educating the people. How did we educate them? Basically, the way people learn, by observation and participation. And that’s what were trying to do. That’s what we got to do here in this community. And a lot of people don’t understand, but there’s three basic things that you got to do anytime you intend to have yourself a successful revolution. A lot of people get the word revolution mixed up and they think revolutions a bad word. Revolution is nothing but like having a sore on your body and then you put something on that sore to cure that infection. And Im telling you that were living in an infectious society right now. Im telling you that were living in a sick society. And anybody that

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endorses integrating into this sick society before its cleaned up is a man whos committing a crime against the people. If you walk past a hospital room and see a sign that says “Contaminated” and then you try to lead people into that room, either those people are mighty dumb, you understand me, cause if they weren’t, they’d tell you that you are an unfair, unjust leader that does not have your followers’ interests in mind. And what were saying is simply that leaders have got to become, we’ve got to start making them accountable for what they do. They’re goin’ around talking about so-and-so’s an Uncle Tom so we’re gonna open up a cultural center and teach him what blackness is. And this n****r is more aware than you and me and Malcolm and Martin Luther King and everybody else put together. That’s right. They’re the ones that are most aware. They’re most aware, cause they’re the ones that are gonna open up the center. They’re gonna tell you where bones come from in Africa that you can’t even pronounce the names. Thats right. They’ll be telling you about Chaka, the leader of the Bantu freedom fighters, and Jomo Kenyatta, those dingo-dingas. They’ll be running all of that down to you. They know about it all. But the point is they do what they’re doing because it is beneficial and it is profitable for them. You see, people get involved in a lot of things that’s profitable to them, and we’ve got to make it less profitable. We’ve got to make it less beneficial. I’m saying that any program that’s brought into our community should be analyzed by the people of that community. It should be analyzed to see that it meets the relevant needs of that community. We don’t need no n*****s coming into our community to be having no company to open business for the n*****s. There’s too many n*****s in our community that can’t get crackers out of the business that they’re gonna open. We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I’m talking about the white masses, I’m talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We’ve got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you do’nt fight racism with racism. We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don’t fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism. We ain’t gonna fight no reactionary pigs who run up and down the street being reactionary; we’re gonna organize and dedicate ourselves to

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r­ evolutionary political power and teach ourselves the specific needs of resisting the power structure, arm ourselves, and we’re gonna fight reactionary pigs with INTERNATIONAL PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION. That’s what it has to be. The people have to have the power: it belongs to the people. We have to understand very clearly that there’s a man in our community called a capitalist. Sometimes he’s black and sometimes he’s white. But that man has to be driven out of our community, because anybody who comes into the community to make profit off the people by exploiting them can be defined as a capitalist. And we don’t care how many programs they have, how long a dashiki they have. Because political power does not flow from the sleeve of a dashiki; political power flows from the barrel of a gun. It flows from the barrel of a gun! A lot of us running around talking about politics don’t even know what politics is. Did you ever see something and pull it and you take it as far as you can and it almost outstretches itself and it goes into something else? If you take it so far that it is two things? As a matter of fact, some things if you stretch it so far, it’ll be another thing. Did you ever cook something so long that it turns into something else? Ain’t that right? That’s what were talking about with politics. That politics ain’t nothing, but if you stretch it so long that it can’t go no further, then you know what you got on your hands? You got an antagonistic contradiction. And when you take that contradiction to the highest level and stretch it as far as you can stretch it, you got what you call war. Politics is war without bloodshed, and war is politics with bloodshed. If you don’t understand that, you can be a Democrat, Republican, you can be Independent, you can be anything you want to, you ain’t nothing. We don’t want any of those n*****s and any of these hunkies and nobody else, radicals or nobody talking about, “I’m on the Independence ticket.” That means you sell out the republicans; Independent means you’re out for graft and you’ll sell out to the highest bidder. You understand? We want people who want to run on the People’s Party, because the people are gonna run it whether they like it or not. The people have proved that they can run it. They run it in China, they’re gonna run it right here. They can call it what they want to, they can talk about it. They can call it communism, and think that that’s gonna scare somebody, but it ain’t gonna scare nobody.

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We had the same thing happen out on 37th Road. They came out to 37th road where our Breakfast for children program is, and started getting those women who were kind of older, around 58—that’s, you know, I call that older cause Im young. I aint 20, right, right! But you see, they’re gonna get them and brainwash them. And you ain’t seen nothin till you see one of them beautiful Sisters with their hair kinda startin getting grey, and they ain’t got many teeth, and they were tearin’ them policemen up! They were tearing em up! The pigs would come up to them and say “You like communism?” The pigs would come up to them and say, “You scared of communism?” And the Sisters would say, “No scared of it, I ain’t never heard of it.” “You like socialism?” “No scared of it. I ain’t never heard of it.” The pigs, they be crackin’ up, because they enjoyed seeing these people frightened of these words. “You like capitalism?” Yeah, well, that’s what I live with. I like it. “You like the Breakfast For Children program, n****r?” “Yeah, I like it.” And the pigs say, “Oh-oh.” The pigs say, “Well, the Breakfast For Children program is a socialistic program. Its a communistic program.” And the women said, “Well, I tell you what, boy. I’ve been knowing you since you were knee-high to a grasshopper, n****r. And I don’t know if I like communism and I don’t know if I like socialism. But I know that that Breakfast For Children program feeds my kids, n****r. And if you put your hands on that Breakfast For Children program, I’m gonna come off this can and I’m gonna beat your ass like a . . . .” That’s what they be saying. That’s what they be saying, and it is a beautiful thing. And that’s what the Breakfast For Children program is. A lot of people think it is charity, but what does it do? It takes the people from a stage to another stage. Any program that’s revolutionary is an advancing program. Revolution is change. Honey, if you just keep on changing, before you know it, in fact, not even knowing what socialism is, you dont have to know what it is, they’re endorsing it, they’re participating in it, and they’re supporting socialism. And a lot of people will tell you, way, Well, the people dont have any theory, they need some theory. They need some theory even if they don’t have any practice. And the Black Panther Party tells you that if a man

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tells you that he’s the type of man who has you buying candy bars and eating the wrapping and throwing the candy away, he’d have you walking East when you’re supposed to be walking West. Its true. If you listen to what the pig says, you be walkin’ outside when the sun is shining with your umbrella over your head. And when it’s raining youll be goin’ outside leaving your umbrella inside. That’s right. You gotta get it together. Im saying that’s what they have you doing. Now, what do WE do? We say that the Breakfast For Children program is a socialistic program. It teaches the people basically that by practice, we thought up and let them practice that theory and inspect that theory. What’s more important? You learn something just like everybody else. Let me try to break it down to you. You say this Brother here goes to school 8 years to be an auto mechanic. And that teacher who used to be an auto mechanic, he tells him, “Well, n****r, you gotta go on what we call on-the-job-training.” And he says, “Damn, with all this theory I got, I gotta go to on-the-jobtraining? What for?” He said, “On on-the-job-training he works with me. Ive been here for 20 years. When I started work, they didn’t even have auto mechanics. I ain’t got no theory, I just got a whole bunch of practice.” What happened? A car came in making a whole lot of funny noise. This Brother here go get his book. He on page one, he ain’t got to page 200. I’m sitting here listening to the car. He says, “What do you think it is?” I say, “I think its the carburetor.” He says, “No I don’t see anywhere in here where it says a carburetor make no noise like that.” And he says, “How do you know its the carburetor?” I said, “Well, n****r, with all them degrees as many as a thermometer, around 20 years ago, 19 to be exact, I was listening to the same kind of noise. And what I did was I took apart the voltage regulator and it wasn’t that. Then I took apart the alternator and it wasn’t that. I took apart the generator brushes and it wasn’t that. I took apart the generator and it wasn’t that. I took apart the generator and it wasn’t even that. After I took apart all that I finally got to the carburetor and when I got to the carburetor I found that that’s what it was. And I told myself that ‘fool, next time you hear this sound you better take apart the carburetor first.’” How did he learn? He learned through practice. I dont care how much theory you got, if it don’t have any practice applied to it, then that theory happens to be irrelevant. Right? Any theory

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you get, practice it. And when you practice it you make some mistakes. When you make a mistake, you correct that theory, and then it will be corrected theory that will be able to be applied and used in any situation. Thats what we’ve got to be able to do. Every time I speak in a church I always try to say something, you know, about Martin Luther King. I have a lot of respect for Martin Luther King. I think he was one of the greatest orators that the country ever produced. And I listened to anyone who speaks well, because I like to listen to that. Martin Luther King said that it might look dark sometime, and it might look dark over here on the North Side. Maybe you thought the room was going to be packed with people and maybe you thought you might have to turn some people away and you might not have enough people here. Maybe some of the people you think should be here are not here and you think that, well if they’re not here then it won’t be as good as we thought it could have been. And maybe you thought that you need more people here than you have here. Maybe you think that the pigs are going to be able to pressure you and put enough pressure to squash your movement even before it starts. But Martin Luther King said that he heard somewhere that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And we’re not worried about it being dark. He said that the arm of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward heaven. We got Huey P. Newton in jail, and Eldridge Cleaver underground. And Alprentice Bunchy Carter has been murdered; Bobby Hutton and John Huggins been murdered. And a lot of people think that the Black Panther Party in a sense is giving up. But let us say this: That we’ve made the kind of commitment to the people that hardly anyone else has ever made. We have decided that although some of us come from what some of you would call petty-bourgeois families, though some of us could be in a sense on what you call the mountaintop. We could be integrated into the society working with people that we may never have a chance to work  with. Maybe we could be on the mountaintop and maybe we wouldn’t have to be hidin’ when we go to speak places like this. Maybe we wouldn’t have to worry about court cases and going to jail and being  sick. We  say  that even though all of those luxuries exist on the mountaintop, we understand that you people and your problems are right here in the valley. We in the Black Panther Party, because of our dedication and understanding, went into the valley knowing that the people are in the valley,

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knowing that our plight is the same plight as the people in the valley, knowing that our enemies are on the mountain, to our friends are in the valley, and even though its nice to be on the mountaintop, we’re going back to the valley. Because we understand that there’s work to be done in the valley, and when we get through with this work in the valley, then we got to go to the mountaintop. We’re going to the mountaintop because there’s a motherfucker on the mountaintop that’s playing King, and he’s been bullshitting us. And weve got to go up on the mountain top not for the purpose of living his life style and living like he lives. We’ve got to go up on the mountain top to make this motherfucker understand, goddamnit, that we are coming from the valley!

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The Civil Rights Movement: Fraud, Sham, and Hoax George C. Wallace, July 4, 1964

W

e come here today in deference to the memory of those stalwart patroits who on July 4, 1776, pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to establish and defend the proposition that governments are created by the people, empowered by the people, derive their just powers from the consent of the people, and must forever remain subservient to the will of the people. Today, 188 years later, we celebrate that occasion and find inspiration and determination and courage to preserve and protect the great principles of freedom enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. It is therefore a cruel irony that the President of the United States has only yesterday signed into law the most monstrous piece of legislation ever enacted by the United States Congress. It is a fraud, a sham, and a hoax. This bill will live in infamy. To sign it into law at any time is tragic. To do so upon the eve of the celebration of our independence insults the intelligence of the American people. It dishonors the memory of countless thousands of our dead who offered up their very lives in defense of principles which this bill destroys. Never before in the history of this nation have so many human and property rights been destroyed by a single enactment of the Congress. It is an act of tyranny. It is the assassin’s knife stuck in the back of liberty. With this assassin’s knife and a blackjack in the hand of the Federal forcecult, the left-wing liberals will try to force us back into bondage. Bondage to a tyranny more brutal than that imposed by the British monarchy which 213

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claimed power to rule over the lives of our forefathers under sanction of the Divine Right of kings. Today, this tyranny is imposed by the central government which claims the right to rule over our lives under sanction of the omnipotent black-robed despots who sit on the bench of the United States Supreme Court. This bill is fraudulent in intent, in design, and in execution. It is misnamed. Each and every provision is mistitled. It was rammed through the congress on the wave of ballyhoo, promotions, and publicity stunts reminiscent of P. T. Barnum. It was enacted in an atmosphere of pressure, intimidation, and even cowardice, as demonstrated by the refusal of the United States Senate to adopt an amendment to submit the bill to a vote of the people. To illustrate the fraud—it is not a Civil Rights Bill. It is a Federal Penal Code. It creates Federal crimes which would take volumes to list and years to tabulate because it affects the lives of 192 million American citizens. Every person in every walk and station of life and every aspect of our daily lives becomes subject to the criminal provisions of this bill. It threatens our freedom of speech, of assembly, or association, and makes the exercise of these Freedoms a federal crime under certain conditions. It affects our political rights, our right to trial by jury, our right to the full use and enjoyment of our private property, the freedom from search and seizure of our private property and possessions, the freedom from harassment by Federal police and, in short, all the rights of individuals inherent in a society of free men. Ministers, lawyers, teachers, newspapers, and every private citizen must guard his speech and watch his actions to avoid the deliberately imposed booby traps put into this bill. It is designed to make Federal crimes of our customs, beliefs, and traditions. Therefore, under the fantastic powers of the Federal judiciary to punish for contempt of oucrt and under their fantastic powers to regulate our most intimate aspects of our lives by injunction, every american citizen is in jeopardy and must stand guard against these despots. Yet there are those who call this a good bill. It is people like Senator Hubert Humphrey and other members of Americans for Democratic Action. It is people like Ralph McGill and other left-wing radical apologists. They called it a good bill before it was amended to restore the right to trial by jury in certain cases.

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Yet a Federal judge may still try one without a jury under the provisions of this bill. It was the same persons who said it was a good bill before the amendment pretending to forbid busing of pupils from neighborhood schools. Yet a Federal judge may still order busing from one neighborhood school to another. They have done it, they will continue to do it. As a matter of fact, it is but another evidence of the deceitful intent of the sponsors of this bill for them to claim that it accomplished any such thing. It was left-wing radicals who led the fight in the Senate for the so-called civil rights bill now about to enslave our nation. We find Senator Hubert Humphrey telling the people of the United States that “non-violent” demonstrations would continue to serve a good purpose through a “long, busy and constructive summer.” Yet this same Senator told the people of this country that passage of this monstrous bill would ease tensions and stop demonstrations. This is the same Senator who has suggested, now that the Civil Rights Bill is passed, that the President call the fifty state Governors together to work out ways and means to enforce this rotten measure. There is no need for him to call on me. I am not about to be a party to anything having to do with the law that is going to destroy individual freedom and liberty in this country. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that will destroy our free enterpirse system. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that will destroy neighborhood schools. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that will destroy the rights of private property. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that destroys your right—and my right—to choose my neighbors—or to sell my house to whomever I choose. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that destroys the labor seniority system. I am having nothing to do with this so-called civil rights bill. The liberal left-wingers have passed it. Now let them employ some pinknik social engineers in Washington, D.C., To figure out what to do with it. The situation reminds me of the little boy looking at the blacksmith as he hammered a red-hot horseshoe into the proper shape. After minutes of hammering, the blacksmith took the horseshoe, splashed it into a tub of water and threw it steaming onto a sawdust pile.

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The little fellow picked up the horseshoe, dropped it quickly. “What’s the matter, son,” the blacksmith said, “is that shoe too hot to handle?” “No sir,” the little boy said, “it just don’t take me long to look at a horseshoe.” It’s not going to take the people of this country long to look at the Civil Rights Bill, either. And they are going to discard it just as quickly as the little boy tossed away the still hot horseshoe. But I am not here to talk about the separate provisions of the Federal Penal Code. I am here to talk about principles which have been overthrown by the enactment of this bill. The principles that you and I hold dear. The principles for which our forefathers fought and died to establish and to defend. The principles for which we came here to rededicate ourselves. But before I get into that, let me point out one important fact. It would have been impossible for the American people to have been deceived by the sponsors of this bill had there been a responsible american press to tell the people exactly what the bill contained. If they had had the integrity and the guts to tell the truth, this bill would never have been enacted. Whoever heard of truth put to the worst in free and open encounter? We couldn’t get the truth to the American people. You and I know that that’s extremely difficult to do where our newspapers are owned by out-of-state interests. Newspapers which are run and operated by left-wing liberals, Communist sympathizers, and members of the Americans for Democratic Action and other Communist front organizations with high sounding names. However, we will not be intimidated by the vultures of the liberal leftwing press. We will not be deceived by their lies and distortions of truth. We will not be swayed by their brutal attacks upon the character and reputation of any honest citizen who dares stand up and fight for liberty. And, we are not going to be influenced by intellectually bankrupt editors of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, one of whom has presided over the dissolution of the once great Atlanta Constitution. We can understand his bitterness in his bleak failure, but we need not tolerate his vituperative and venomous attacks upon the integrity and character of our people. These editors, like many other left-wingers in the liberal

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press, are not influenced by tradition. Theirs is a tradition of scalawags. Their mealy-mouthed platitudes disgrace the honored memory of their predecessors—such men of character as Henry Grady, Joel Chandler Harris, and Clarke Howell, men who made the name of the Atlanta Constitution familiar in every household throughout the South. They are not worthy to shine the shoes of those great men. In this connection I want to pay my highest respects and compliments to the dedicated men of Atlanta and of Georgia who gave to the people of their state what is destined to become the true voice of the south. I have reference to the great newspaper the Atlanta Times. It is a sad commentary on the period in which we live that it is necessary for the people of a great city to start their own newspaper in order to get the truth. I hope you have some success in this venture and I assure you that there will be many subscribers in the State of Alabama including myself. As I have said before, that Federal Penal Code could never have been enacted into law if we had had a responsible press who was willing to tell the american people the truth about what it actually provides. Nor would we have had a bill had it not been for the United States Supreme Court. Now on the subject of the court let me make it clear that I am not attacking any member of the United States Supreme Court as an individual. However, I do attack their decisions, I question their intelligence, their common sense and their judgment, I consider the Federal Judiciary system to be the greatest single threat to individual freedom and liberty in the United States today, and I’m going to take off the gloves in talking about these people. There is only one word to describe the Federal judiciary today. That word is “lousy.” They assert more power than claimed by King George III, more power than Hitler, Mussolini, or Khrushchev ever had. They assert the power to declare unconstitutional our very thoughts. To create for us a system of moral and ethical values. To outlaw and declare unconstitutional, illegal, and immoral the customs, traditions, and beliefs of the people, and furthermore they assert the authority to enforce their decrees in all these subjects upon the American people without their consent. This is a matter that has been of great concern to many legal authorities. The Council of State Governments composed of representatives of the fifty States sponsored the proposal just last year seeking to curb the

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powers of this body of judicial tyrants. The Conference of Chief Justices of all of the state Supreme Courts of this nation has also issued an historic statement urging judicial restraint upon the Court. This latter group said, “the value of a firm statement by us lies in the fact that we speak as members of all the state appellate courts with a background of many years experience in the determination of thousands of cases of all kinds. Surely there are those who will respect the declaration of what we believe. “It has long been an American boast that we have a government of laws and not of men. We believe that any study of recent decisions of the supreme court will raise at least considerable doubt as to the validity of that boast.” In addition, the state legislatures have for years flooded the Congress with resolutions condemning usurpations of power by the Federal judiciary. The court today, just as in 1776, is deaf to the voices of the people and their repeated entreaties: they have become arrogant, contemptuous, highhanded, and literal despots. It has been said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There was never greater evidence as to the proof of this statement than in the example of the present Federal Judiciary. I want to touch upon just a few of the acts of tyranny which have been sanctioned by the United States Supreme Court and compare these acts with the acts of tyranny enumerated in the Declaration of Independence. The colonists objected most strenuously to the imposition of taxes upon the people without their consent. Today, the Federal judiciary asserts the same tyrannical power to levy taxes in Prince Edward County, Virginia, and without the consent of the people. Not only that, but they insist upon the power to tell the people for what purposes their money must be spent. The colonists stated, “he has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.” Today, the Federal judiciary, in one of its most recent decisions, has deprived the American people of the right to use the unit system of representation in  their own state governments for the accommodation of large districts of people, and has itself prescribed the manner in which the people shall structure the legislative branch of their own government, and have prescribed how the people shall allocate the legislative powers of state government.

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More than that they have even told the American people that we may not, with a majority of the people voting for the measure, or with twothirds of those voting, or even if by unanimous consent, adopt a provision in our state constitutions to allocate the legislative power of state government in any manner other than as prescribed by the court. One justice of the United States Supreme Court said in this connection, and I quote, “to put the matter plainly, there is nothing in all the history of this Court’s decisions which supports this Constitutional rule. The Court’s draconian pronouncement which makes unconstitutional the legislatures of most of the fifty states finds no support in the words of the constitution in any prior decision of this court or in the 175-year political history of our Federal union . . . These decisions mark a long step backward into the unhappy era where a majority of the members of this court were thought by many to have convinced themselves and each other that the demands of the constitution were to be measured not by what it says buy by their own notions of wise political theory.” Two other Justices of the Court said, “such a massive repudiation of the experience of our whole past in asserting destructively novel Judicial power demands analysis of the role of this Court and our Constitutional scheme . . . It may well impair the Court’s position as the ultimate organ of the Supreme Law of the Land . . .” The only reason it is the Supreme Law of the Land today is because we have a President who cares so little for freedom that he would send the armed forces into the states to enforce the dictatorial decree. Our colonist forefather had something to say about that too. The Declaration of Independence cited as an act of tyranny the fact that, “. . . Kept among us in times of peace standing armies without the consent of the legislature.” Today, 188 years later, we have actually witnessed the invasion of the State of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama by the armed forces of the United States and maintained in the state against the will of the people and without consent of state legislatures. It is a form of tyranny worse than that of King George III who had sent mercenaries against the colonies because today the Federal Judicial tyrants have sanctioned the use of brother against brother and father against son by federalizing the National Guard. In 1776 the colonists also complained that the monarch “. . . Has incited domestic insurrections among us . . .”

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Today, we have absolute proof that the Federal Department of Justice has planned, supervised, financed and protected acts of insurrection in the southern states, resulting in vandalism, property damage, personal injury, and staggering expense to the states. In 1776 it was charged that the monarchy had asserted power to “. . . Dissolve representative houses and to punish. . . For opposing with manly firmness his invasions of the rights of the people . . .” Today, the Federal judiciary asserts the power not only to dissolve state legislatures but to create them and to dissolve all state laws and state judicial decrees, and to punish a state governor by trial without jury “. . . For opposing with manly firmness his invasions of the rights of the people.” The colonists also listed as acts of tyranny: “.The erection of a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and to eat out their substance.;” “. . . Suspending our own legislatures and declaring themselves invested with the power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever;” “. . . Abolishing the free system of the English laws . . .;” —it had “abdicated government here;” —refusing to assent to the laws enacted by the people, “. . . Laws considered most wholesome and necessary for the public good;”—and “. . . For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury . . .; For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally form of our government; for suspending our own legislatures and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.” The United States Supreme Court is guilty of each and every one of these acts of tyranny. Therefore, I echo the sentiments of our forefathers who declared: “a prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” Ladies and gentlemen, I have listed only a few of the many acts of tyranny which have been committed or specifically sanctioned by the United States Supreme Court. I feel it important that you should know and understand what it is that these people are trying to do. The written opinions of the court are filled with double talk, semantics, jargon, and meaningless phrases. The words they use are not important. The ideas that they represent are the things which count.

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It is perfectly obvious from the left-wing liberal press and from the left-wing law journals that what the court is saying behind all the jargon is that they don’t like our form of government. They think they can establish a better one. In order to do so it is necessary that they overthrow our existing form, destroy the democratic institutions created by the people, change the outlook, religion, and philosophy, and bring the whole area of human thought, aspiration, action and organization, under the absolute control of the court. Their decisions reveal this to be the goal of the liberal element on the court which is in a majority at present. It has reached the point where one may no longer look to judicial decisions to determine what the court may do. However, it is possible to predict with accuracy the nature of the opinions to be rendered. One may find the answer in the Communist Manifesto. The Communists are dedicated to the overthrow of our form of government. They are dedicated to the destruction of the concept of private property. They are dedicated to the object of destroying religion as the basis of moral and ethical values. The Communists are determined that all natural resources shall be controlled by the central government, that all productive capacity of the nation shall be under the control of the central government, that the political sovereignty of the people shall be destroyed as an incident to control of local schools. It is their objective to capture the minds of our outh in order to indoctrinate them in what to think and not how to think. I do not call the members of the United States Supreme Court Communists. But I do say, and I submit for your judgment the fact that every single decision of the court in the past ten years which related in any way to each of these objectives has been decided against freedom and in favor of tyranny. A politician must stand on his record. Let the Court stand on its record. The record reveals, for the past number of years, that the chief, if not the only beneficiaries of the present Court’s rulings, have been duly and  awfully convicted criminals, Communists, atheists, and clients of vociferous left-wing minority groups. You can’t convict a Communist in our Federal court system. Neither can you convict one of being a Communist in Russia, China, or Cuba. The point is that the United States Supreme Court refuses to recognize the Communist conspiracy and their intent to “bury us.” let us look at the record further with respect to the court’s contribution to the destruction of the concept of God and the abolition of religion.

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The Federal court rules that your children shall not be permitted to read the bible in our public school systems. Let me tell you this, though. We still read the bible in alabama schools and as long as I am governor we will continue to read the bible no matter what the Supreme Court says. Federal courts will not convict a “demonstrator” invading and destroying private property. But the Federal courts rule you cannot say a simple “God is great, God is good, we thank Thee for our food,” in kindergartens supported by public funds. Now, let us examine the manner in which the Court has continuously chipped away at the concept of private property. It is contended by the left-wing liberals that private property is merely a legal fiction. That one has no inherent right to own and possess property. The courts have restricted and limited the right of acquisition of property in life and have decreed its disposition in death and have ruthlessly set aside the wills of the dead in order to attain social ends decreed by the court. The court has substituted its judgment for that of the testator based on social theory. The courts assert authority even in decree the use of private ­cemeteries. They assert the right to convert a private place of business into a public place of business without the consent of the owner and without compensation to him. One justice asserts that the mere licensing of a business by the state is sufficient to convert it into control by the Federal judiciary as to its use and disposition. Another asserts that the guarantees of equal protection and due process of law cannot be extended to a corporation. In one instance, following the edicts of the United States Supreme Court, a state Supreme Court has ordered and directed a private citizen to sell his home to an individual contrary to the wishes of the owner. In California we witnessed a state Supreme Court taking under advisement the question as to whether or not it will compel a bank to make a load to an applicant on the basis of his race. We have witnessed the sanction by the courts of confiscatory taxation. Let us take a look at the attitude of the court with respect to the control of the private resources of the nation and the allocation of the productive capacity of the nation. The Supreme Court decisions have sanctioned enactment of the civil rights bill.

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What this bill actually does is to empower the United States government to reallocate the entire productive capacity of the agricultural economy covered by quotas and acreage allotments of various types on the basis of race, creed, color and national origin. It, in effect, places in the hands of the Federal government the right of a farmer to earn a living, making that right dependent upon the consent of the Federal government precisely as is the case in russia. The power is there. I am not in the least impressed by the protestations that the government will use this power with benevolent discretion. We know that this bill authorizes the President of the united states to allocate all defense productive capacity of this country on the basis of race, creed, or color. It does not matter in the least that he will make such allocations with restraint. The face is that it is possible with a politically dominated agency to punish and to bankrupt and destroy any business that deals with the Federal government if it does not bow to the wishes and demands of the president of the United States. All of us know what the court has done to capture the minds of our children. The Federal judiciary has asserted the authority to prescribe regulations with respect to the management, operation, and control of our local schools. The second brown decision in the infamous school segregation case authorized Federal district courts to supervise such matters as teacher hiring, firing, promotion, the expenditure of local  funds, both administratively and for capital improvements, additions, and renovations, the location of new schools, the drawing of school boundaries, busing and transportation of school children, and, believe it or not, it has asserted the right in the Federal judiciary to pass judgment upon the curricula adopted in local public schools. A comparatively recent Federal court decision in a Florida case actually entered an order embracing each and every one of these assertions of Federal supervision. In ruling after ruling, the Supreme Court has overstepped its constitutional authority. While appearing to protect the people’s interest, it has in reality become a judicial tyrant. It’s the old pattern. The people always have some champion whom they set over them . . . And nurse into greatness. This, and no other, is  the foot from which a tyrant springs, after first appearing as a ­protector.

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This is another way of saying that the people never give up their liberties . . . And their freedom . . . But under some delusion. But yet there is hope. There is yet a spirit of resistance in this country which will not be oppressed. And it is awakening. And I am sure there is an abundance of good sense in this country which cannot be deceived. I have personal knowledge of this. Thirty-four percent of the Wisconsin Democrats supported the beliefs you and I uphold and expound. Thirty percent of the Democrats in Indiana join us in fighting this grab for executive power by those now in control in Washington. And, listen to this, forty-three percent of the Democrats in Maryland, practically in view of the nation’s capital, believe as you and I believe. So, let me say to you today. Take heart. Millions of Americans believe just as we in this great region of the United States believe. I shall never forget last spring as I stood in the midst of a great throng of South Milwaukee supporters at one of the greatest political rallies I have ever witnessed. A fine-looking man grabbed my hand and said: “Governor, I’ve never been south of South Milwaukee, but I am a Southerner!” Of course, he was saying he believed in the principles and philosophy of the southern people . . . Of you here today and the people of my state of Alabama. He was right. Being a southerner is no longer geographic. It’s a philosophy and an attitude. One destined to be a national philosophy—embraced by millions of Americans—which shall assume the mantle of leadership and steady a governmental structure in these days of crises. Certainly I am a candidate for President of the United States. If the left-wingers do not think I am serious—let them consider this. I am going to take our fight to the people—the court of public opinion—where truth and common sense will eventually prevail. At this time, I have definite, concrete plans to get presidential electors pledged to me on the ballots in the following states: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, New York, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, and of course Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Other states are under serious consideration. A candidate for President must receive 270 electoral votes to win.

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The states I am definitely going to enter represent 218 electoral votes. Conservatives of this nation constitute the balance of power in presidential elections. I am a conservative. I intend to give the American people a clear choice. I welcome a fight between our philosophy and the liberal left-wing dogma which now threatens to engulf every man, woman, and child in the United States. I am in this race because I believe the American people have been pushed around long enough and that they, like you and I, are fed up with the continuing trend toward a socialist state which now subjects the individual to the dictates of an all-powerful central government. I am running for President because I was born free. I want to remain free. I want your children and mine and our prosperity to be unencumbered by the manipulations of a soulless state. I intend to fight for a positive, affirmative program to restore constitutional government and to stop the senseless bloodletting now being performed on the body of liberty by those who lead us willingly and dangerously close to a totalitarian central government. In our nation, man has always been sovereign and the state has been his servant. This philosophy has made the United States the greatest free nation in history. This freedom was not a gift. It was won by work, by sweat, by tears, by war, by whatever it took to be—and to remain free. Are we today less resolute, less determined and courageous than our fathers and our grandfathers? Are we to abandon this priceless heritage that has carried us to our present position of achievement and leadership? I say if we are to abandon our heritage, let it be done in the open and full knowledge of what we do. We are not unmindful and careless of our future. We will not stand aside while our conscientious convictions tell us that a dictatorial Supreme Court has taken away our rights and our liberties. We will not stand idly by while the Supreme Court continues to invade the prerogatives left rightfully to the states by the constitution. We must not be misled by left-wing incompetent news media that day after day feed us a diet of fantasy telling us we are bigots, racists and  hate-mongers to oppose the destruction of the constitution and our nation.

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A left-wing monster has risen up in this nation. It has invaded the government. It has invaded the news media. It has invaded the leadership of many of our churches. It has invaded every phase and aspect of the life of freedom-loving people. It consists of many and various and powerful interests, but it has combined into one massive drive and is held together by the cohesive power of the emotion, setting forth civil rights as supreme to all. But, in reality, it is a drive to destroy the rights of private property, to destroy the freedom and liberty of you and me. And, my friends, where there are no property rights, there are no human rights. Red China and Soviet Russia are prime examples. Politically evil men have combined and arranged themselves against us. The good people of this nation must now associate themselves together, else we will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a struggle which threatens to engulf the entire nation. We can win. We can control the election of the president in november. Our object must be our country, our whole country and nothing but our country. If we will stand together—the people of this state—the people of my state—the people throughout this great region—yes, throughout the United States—then we can be the balance of power. We can determine who will be the next president. Georgia is a great state. Atlanta is a great city. I know you will demonstrate that greatness in november by joining alabama and other states throughout the south in electing the next president of the United States. We are not going to change anything by sitting on our hands hoping that things will change for the better. Those who cherish individual freedom have a job to do. First, let us let it be known that we intend to take the offensive and carry our fight for freedom across this nation. We will wield the power that is ours—the power of the people. Let it be known that we will no longer tolerate the boot of tyranny. We will no longer hide our heads in the sand. We will reschool our thoughts in the lessons our forefathers knew so well. We must destroy the power to dictate, to forbit, to require, to demand, to distribute, to edict, and to judge what is best and enforce that will of judgment upon free citizens. We must revitalize a government founded in this nation on faith in god.

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I ask that you join with me and that together, we give an active and courageous leadership to the millions of people throughout this nation who look with hope and faith to our fight to preserve our constitutional system of government with its guarantees of liberty and justice for all within the framework of our priceless freedoms.

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LOVING ET UX. v. VIRGINIA Supreme Court of the United States 388 U.S. 1 June 12, 1967, Decided

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court

This case presents a constitutional question never addressed by this Court: whether a statutory scheme adopted by the State of Virginia to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. For reasons which seem to us to reflect the central meaning of those constitutional commands, we conclude that these statutes cannot stand consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment. In June 1958, two residents of Virginia, Mildred Jeter, a Negro woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were married in the District of Columbia pursuant to its laws. Shortly after their marriage, the Lovings returned to Virginia and established their marital abode in Caroline County. At the October Term, 1958, of the Circuit Court of Caroline County, a grand jury issued an indictment charging the Lovings with violating Virginia’s ban on interracial marriages. On January 6, 1959, the Lovings pleaded guilty to the charge and were sentenced to one year in jail; however, the trial judge suspended the sentence for a period of 25 years on the condition that the Lovings leave the State and not return to Virginia together for 25 years. He stated in an opinion that:

229

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Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

After their convictions, the Lovings took up residence in the District of Columbia. On November 6, 1963, they filed a motion in the state trial court to vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence on the ground that the statutes which they had violated were repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment. . . . The two statutes under which appellants were convicted and sentenced are part of a comprehensive statutory scheme aimed at prohibiting and punishing interracial marriages. The Lovings were convicted of violating § 20-58 of the Virginia Code: “Leaving State to evade law.—If any white person and colored person shall go out of this State, for the purpose of being married, and with the intention of returning, and be married out of it, and afterwards return to and reside in it, cohabiting as man and wife, they shall be punished as provided in § 20-59, and the marriage shall be governed by the same law as if it had been solemnized in this State. The fact of their cohabitation here as man and wife shall be evidence of their marriage.” Section 20-59, which defines the penalty for miscegenation, provides: “Punishment for marriage.—If any white person intermarry with a colored person, or any colored person intermarry with a white person, he shall be guilty of a felony and shall be punished by confinement in the penitentiary for not less than one nor more than five years.” Other central provisions in the Virginia statutory scheme are § 20-57, which automatically voids all marriages between “a white person and a colored person” without any judicial proceeding, and §§ 20-54 and 1-14 which, respectively, define “white persons” and “colored persons and Indians” for purposes of the statutory prohibitions. The Lovings have never disputed in the course of this litigation that Mrs. Loving is a “colored person” or that Mr. Loving is a “white person” within the meanings given those terms by the Virginia statutes. Virginia is now one of 16 States which prohibit and punish marriages on the basis of racial classifications. The present statutory scheme dates from the adoption of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, passed during the

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period of extreme nativism which followed the end of the First World War. The central features of this Act, and current Virginia law, are the absolute prohibition of a “white person” marrying other than another “white person,” a prohibition against issuing marriage licenses until the issuing official is satisfied that the applicants’ statements as to their race are correct, certificates of “racial composition” to be kept by both local and state registrars, and the carrying forward of earlier prohibitions against racial intermarriage. I.

In upholding the constitutionality of these provisions in the decision below, the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia referred to its 1955 decision in Naim v. Naim as stating the reasons supporting the validity of these laws. In Naim, the state court concluded that the State’s legitimate purposes were “to preserve the racial integrity of its citizens,” and to prevent “the corruption of blood,” “a mongrel breed of citizens,” and “the obliteration of racial pride,” obviously an endorsement of the doctrine of White Supremacy. The court also reasoned that marriage has traditionally been subject to state regulation without federal intervention, and, consequently, the regulation of marriage should be left to exclusive state control by the Tenth Amendment. The State does not contend in its argument before this Court that its powers to regulate marriage are unlimited notwithstanding the commands of the Fourteenth Amendment. Nor could it do so. Instead, the State argues that the meaning of the Equal Protection Clause, as illuminated by the statements of the Framers, is only that state penal laws containing an interracial element as part of the definition of the offense must apply equally to whites and Negroes in the sense that members of each race are punished to the same degree. Thus, the State contends that, because its miscegenation statutes punish equally both the white and the Negro participants in an interracial marriage, these statutes, despite their reliance on racial classifications, do not constitute an invidious discrimination based upon race. The second argument advanced by the State assumes the validity of its equal application theory. The argument is that, if the Equal Protection Clause does not outlaw miscegenation statutes because of their reliance on racial classifications, the question of constitutionality would thus become whether there was any rational basis for a State to treat

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interracial marriages differently from other marriages. On this question, the State argues, the scientific evidence is substantially in doubt and, consequently, this Court should defer to the wisdom of the state legislature in adopting its policy of discouraging interracial marriages. Because we reject the notion that the mere “equal application” of a statute containing racial classifications is enough to remove the classifications from the Fourteenth Amendment’s proscription of all invidious racial discriminations, we do not accept the State’s contention that these statutes should be upheld if there is any possible basis for concluding that they serve a rational purpose. The mere fact of equal application does not mean that our analysis of these statutes should follow the approach we have taken in cases involving no racial discrimination where the Equal Protection Clause has been arrayed against a statute discriminating between the kinds of advertising which may be displayed on trucks in New York City or an exemption in Ohio’s ad valorem tax for merchandise owned by a nonresident in a storage warehouse. In these cases, involving distinctions not drawn according to race, the Court has merely asked whether there is any rational foundation for the discriminations, and has deferred to the wisdom of the state legislatures. In the case at bar, however, we deal with statutes containing racial classifications, and the fact of equal application does not immunize the statute from the very heavy burden of justification which the Fourteenth Amendment has traditionally required of state statutes drawn according to race. The State argues that statements in the Thirty-ninth Congress about the time of the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment indicate that the Framers did not intend the Amendment to make unconstitutional state miscegenation laws. Many of the statements alluded to by the State concern the debates over the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, which President Johnson vetoed, and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, enacted over his veto. While these statements have some relevance to the intention of Congress in submitting the Fourteenth Amendment, it must be understood that they pertained to the passage of specific statutes and not to the broader, organic purpose of a constitutional amendment. As for the various statements directly concerning the Fourteenth Amendment, we have said in connection with a related problem, that although these historical sources “cast some light” they are not sufficient to resolve the problem; “[at] best, they are inconclusive. The most avid proponents of the post-War Amendments undoubtedly intended them to remove all legal distinctions

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among ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States.’ Their opponents, just as certainly, were antagonistic to both the letter and the spirit of the Amendments and wished them to have the most limited effect.” We have rejected the proposition that the debates in the Thirtyninth Congress or in the state legislatures which ratified the Fourteenth Amendment supported the theory advanced by the State, that the requirement of equal protection of the laws is satisfied by penal laws defining offenses based on racial classifications so long as white and Negro participants in the offense were similarly punished. . . . The Equal Protection Clause requires the consideration of whether the classifications drawn by any statute constitute an arbitrary and invidious discrimination. The clear and central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate all official state sources of invidious racial discrimination in the States. There can be no question but that Virginia’s miscegenation statutes rest solely upon distinctions drawn according to race. The statutes proscribe generally accepted conduct if engaged in by members of different races. Over the years, this Court has consistently repudiated “distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry” as being “odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.” At the very least, the Equal Protection Clause demands that racial classifications, especially suspect in criminal statutes, be subjected to the “most rigid scrutiny,” Korematsu v. United States (1944), and, if they are ever to be upheld, they must be shown to be necessary to the accomplishment of some permissible state objective, independent of the racial discrimination which it was the object of the Fourteenth Amendment to eliminate. Indeed, two members of this Court have already stated that they “cannot conceive of a valid legislative purpose . . . which makes the color of a person’s skin the test of whether his conduct is a criminal offense.” There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy. We have consistently denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race. There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.

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II.

These statutes also deprive the Lovings of liberty without due process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men. Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State. These convictions must be reversed. MR. JUSTICE STEWART, concurring. I have previously expressed the belief that “it is simply not possible for a state law to be valid under our Constitution which makes the criminality of an act depend upon the race of the actor.” Because I adhere to that belief, I concur in the judgment of the Court.

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1984 Democratic National Convention Address Jesse Jackson, 18 July 1984, San Francisco

T

hank you very much.

Tonight we come together bound by our faith in a mighty God, with genuine respect and love for our country, and inheriting the legacy of a great Party, the Democratic Party, which is the best hope for redirecting our nation on a more humane, just, and peaceful course. This is not a perfect party. We are not a perfect people. Yet, we are called to a perfect mission. Our mission: to feed the hungry; to clothe the naked; to house the homeless; to teach the illiterate; to provide jobs for the jobless; and to choose the human race over the nuclear race. We are gathered here this week to nominate a candidate and adopt a platform which will expand, unify, direct, and inspire our Party and the nation to fulfill this mission. My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected, and the despised. They are restless and seek relief. They have voted in record numbers. They have invested the faith, hope, and trust that they have in us. The Democratic Party must send them a signal that we care. I pledge my best not to let them down. There is the call of conscience, redemption, expansion, healing, and unity. Leadership must heed the call of conscience, redemption, expansion, healing, and unity, for they are the key to achieving our mission. Time is neutral and does not change things. With courage and initiative, leaders change things. No generation can choose the age or circumstance in which it is born, but through leadership it can choose to make the age in which 235

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it is born an age of enlightenment, an age of jobs, and peace, and justice. Only leadership—that intangible combination of gifts, the discipline, information, circumstance, courage, timing, will and divine inspiration—can lead us out of the crisis in which we find ourselves. Leadership can mitigate the misery of our nation. Leadership can part the waters and lead our nation in the direction of the Promised Land. Leadership can lift the boats stuck at the bottom. I have had the rare opportunity to watch seven men, and then two, pour out their souls, offer their service, and heal and heed the call of duty to direct the course of our nation. There is a proper season for everything. There is a time to sow and a time to reap. There’s a time to compete and a time to cooperate. I ask for your vote on the first ballot as a vote for a new direction for this Party and this nation—a vote of conviction, a vote of conscience. But I will be proud to support the nominee of this convention for the Presidency of the United States of America. Thank you. I have watched the leadership of our party develop and grow. My respect for both Mr. Mondale and Mr. Hart is great. I have watched them struggle with the crosswinds and crossfires of being public servants, and I believe they will both continue to try to serve us faithfully. I am elated by the knowledge that for the first time in our history a woman, Geraldine Ferraro, will be recommended to share our ticket. Throughout this campaign, I’ve tried to offer leadership to the Democratic Party and the nation. If, in my high moments, I have done some good, offered some service, shed some light, healed some wounds, rekindled some hope, or stirred someone from apathy and indifference, or in any way along the way helped somebody, then this campaign has not been in vain. For friends who loved and cared for me, and for a God who spared me, and for a family who understood, I am eternally grateful. If, in my low moments, in word, deed or attitude, through some error of temper, taste, or tone, I have caused anyone discomfort, created pain, or revived someone’s fears, that was not my truest self. If there were occasions when my grape turned into a raisin and my joy bell lost its resonance, please forgive me. Charge it to my head and not to my heart. My head—so limited in its finitude; my heart, which is boundless in its love for the human family. I am not a perfect servant. I am a public servant doing my best against the odds. As I develop and serve, be patient: God is not finished with me yet.

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This campaign has taught me much; that leaders must be tough enough to fight, tender enough to cry, human enough to make mistakes, humble enough to admit them, strong enough to absorb the pain, and resilient enough to bounce back and keep on moving. For leaders, the pain is often intense. But you must smile through your tears and keep moving with the faith that there is a brighter side somewhere. I went to see Hubert Humphrey three days before he died. He had just called Richard Nixon from his dying bed, and many people wondered why. And I asked him. He said, “Jesse, from this vantage point, the sun is setting in my life, all of the speeches, the political conventions, the crowds, and the great fights are behind me now. At a time like this you are forced to deal with your irreducible essence, forced to grapple with that which is really important to you. And what I’ve concluded about life,” Hubert Humphrey said, “When all is said and done, we must forgive each other, and redeem each other, and move on.” Our party is emerging from one of its most hard fought battles for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in our history. But our healthy competition should make us better, not bitter. We must use the insight, wisdom, and experience of the late Hubert Humphrey as a balm for the wounds in our Party, this nation, and the world. We must forgive each other, redeem each other, regroup, and move one. Our flag is red, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbow—red, yellow, brown, black and white—and we’re all precious in God’s sight. America is not like a blanket—one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt: many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread. The white, the Hispanic, the black, the  Arab, the Jew, the woman, the native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay, and the disabled make up the American quilt. Even in our fractured state, all of us count and fit somewhere. We have proven that we can survive without each other. But we have not proven that we can win and make progress without each other. We must come together. From Fannie Lou Hamer in Atlantic City in 1964 to the Rainbow Coalition in San Francisco today; from the Atlantic to the Pacific, we have experienced pain but progress, as we ended American apartheid

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laws. We got public accommodations. We secured voting rights. We obtained open housing, as young people got the right to vote. We lost Malcolm, Martin, Medgar, Bobby, John, and Viola. The team that got us here must be expanded, not abandoned. Twenty years ago, tears welled up in our eyes as the bodies of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney were dredged from the depths of a river in Mississippi. Twenty years later, our communities, black and Jewish, are in anguish, anger, and pain. Feelings have been hurt on both sides. There is a crisis in communications. Confusion is in the air. But we cannot afford to lose our way. We may agree to agree; or agree to disagree on issues; we must bring back civility to these tensions. We are co-partners in a long and rich religious history—the JudeoChristian traditions. Many blacks and Jews have a shared passion for social justice at home and peace abroad. We must seek a revival of the spirit, inspired by a new vision and new possibilities. We must return to higher ground. We are bound by Moses and Jesus, but also connected with Islam and Mohammed. These three great religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, were all born in the revered and holy city of Jerusalem. We are bound by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Heschel, crying out from their graves for us to reach common ground. We are bound by shared blood and shared sacrifices. We are much too intelligent, much too bound by our Judeo-Christian heritage, much too victimized by racism, sexism, militarism, and anti-Semitism, much too threatened as historical scapegoats to go on divided one from another. We must turn from finger pointing to clasped hands. We must share our burdens and our joys with each other once again. We must turn to each other and not on each other and choose higher ground. Twenty years later, we cannot be satisfied by just restoring the old coalition. Old wine skins must make room for new wine. We must heal and expand. The Rainbow Coalition is making room for Arab Americans. They, too, know the pain and hurt of racial and religious rejection. They must not continue to be made pariahs. The Rainbow Coalition is making room for Hispanic Americans who this very night are living under the threat of the Simpson-Mazzoli bill; and farm workers from Ohio who are fighting the Campbell Soup Company with a boycott to achieve legitimate workers’ rights. The Rainbow is making room for the Native American, the most exploited people of all, a people with the greatest moral claim amongst us.

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We support them as they seek the restoration of their ancient land and claim amongst us. We support them as they seek the restoration of land and water rights, as they seek to preserve their ancestral homeland and the beauty of a land that was once all theirs. They can never receive a fair share for all they have given us. They must finally have a fair chance to develop their great resources and to preserve their people and their culture. The Rainbow Coalition includes Asian Americans, now being killed in our streets—scapegoats for the failures of corporate, industrial, and economic policies. The Rainbow is making room for the young Americans. Twenty years ago, our young people were dying in a war for which they could not even vote. Twenty years later, young America has the power to stop a war in Central America and the responsibility to vote in great numbers. Young America must be politically active in 1984. The choice is war or peace. We must make room for young America. The Rainbow includes disabled veterans. The color scheme fits in the Rainbow. The disabled have their handicap revealed and their genius concealed; while the able-bodied have their genius revealed and their disability concealed. But ultimately, we must judge people by their values and their contribution. Don’t leave anybody out. I would rather have Roosevelt in a wheelchair than Reagan on a horse. The Rainbow is making room for small farmers. They have suffered tremendously under the Reagan regime. They will either receive 90 percent parity or 100 percent charity. We must address their concerns and make room for them. The Rainbow includes lesbians and gays. No American citizen ought be denied equal protection from the law. We must be unusually committed and caring as we expand our family to include new members. All of us must be tolerant and understanding as the fears and anxieties of the rejected and the party leadership express themselves in many different ways. Too often what we call hate—as if it were some deeply-rooted philosophy or strategy—is simply ignorance, anxiety, paranoia, fear, and insecurity. To be strong leaders, we must be long-suffering as we seek to right the wrongs of our Party and our nation. We must expand our Party, heal our Party, and unify our Party. That is our mission in 1984. We are often reminded that we live in a great nation—and we do. But it can be greater still. The Rainbow is mandating a new definition of greatness. We must not measure greatness from the mansion down, but

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the manger up. Jesus said that we should not be judged by the bark we wear but by the fruit that we bear. Jesus said that we must measure greatness by how we treat the least of these. President Reagan says the nation is in recovery. Those 90,000 corporations that made a profit last year but paid no federal taxes are recovering. The 37,000 military contractors who have benefited from Reagan’s more than doubling of the military budget in peacetime, surely they are recovering. The big corporations and rich individuals who received the bulk of a three-year, multibillion tax cut from Mr. Reagan are recovering. But no such recovery is under way for the least of these. Rising tides don’t lift all boats, particularly those stuck at the bottom. For the boats stuck at the bottom there’s a misery index. This Administration has made life more miserable for the poor. Its attitude has been contemptuous. Its policies and programs have been cruel and unfair to working people. They must be held accountable in November for increasing infant mortality among the poor. In Detroit one of the great cities of the western world, babies are dying at the same rate as Honduras, the most underdeveloped nation in our hemisphere. This Administration must be held accountable for policies that have contributed to the growing poverty in America. There are now 34 million people in poverty, 15  percent of our nation. 23 million are White; 11 million Black, Hispanic, Asian, and others—mostly women and children. By the end of this year, there will be 41 million people in poverty. We cannot stand idly by. We must fight for a change now. Under this regime we look at Social Security. The ‘81 budget cuts included nine permanent Social Security benefit cuts totaling 20 billion over five years. Small businesses have suffered under Reagan tax cuts. Only 18 percent of total business tax cuts went to them; 82 percent to big businesses. Health care under Mr. Reagan has already been sharply cut. Education under Mr. Reagan has been cut 25 percent. Under Mr. Reagan there are now 9.7 million female head families. They represent 16 percent of all families. Half of all of them are poor. 70 percent of all poor children live in a house headed by a woman, where there is no man.  Under Mr. Reagan, the Administration has cleaned up only 6 of 546 priority toxic waste dumps. Farmers’ real net income was only about half its level in 1979. Many say that the race in November will be decided in the South. President Reagan is depending on the conservative South to return him

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to office. But the South, I tell you, is unnaturally conservative. The South is the poorest region in our nation and, therefore, [has] the least to conserve. In his appeal to the South, Mr. Reagan is trying to substitute flags and prayer cloths for food, and clothing, and education, health care, and housing. Mr. Reagan will ask us to pray, and I believe in prayer. I have come to this way by the power of prayer. But then, we must watch false prophecy. He cuts energy assistance to the poor, cuts breakfast programs from children, cuts lunch programs from children, cuts job training from children, and then says to an empty table, “Let us pray.” Apparently, he is not familiar with the structure of a prayer. You thank the Lord for the food that you are about to receive, not the food that just left. I think that we should pray, but don’t pray for the food that left. Pray for the man that took the food to leave. We need a change. We need a change in November. Under Mr. Reagan, the misery index has risen for the poor. The danger index has risen for everybody. Under this administration, we’ve lost the lives of our boys in Central America and Honduras, in Grenada, in Lebanon, in nuclear standoff in Europe. Under this Administration, one-third of our children believe they will die in a nuclear war. The danger index is increasing in this world. All the talk about the defense against Russia; the Russian submarines are closer, and their missiles are more accurate. We live in a world tonight more miserable and a world more dangerous. While Reaganomics and Reaganism is talked about often, so often we miss the real meaning. Reaganism is a spirit, and Reaganomics represents the real economic facts of life. In 1980, Mr. George Bush, a man with reasonable access to Mr. Reagan, did an analysis of Mr. Reagan’s economic plan. Mr. George Bush concluded that Reagan’s plan was ‘‘voodoo economics.’’ He was right. Third-party candidate John Anderson said “a  combination of military spending, tax cuts, and a balanced budget by  ‘84 would be accomplished with blue smoke and mirrors.” They were both right. Mr. Reagan talks about a dynamic recovery. There’s some measure of recovery. Three and a half years later, unemployment has inched just below where it was when he took office in 1981. There are still 8.1 million people officially unemployed; 11 million working only part-time. Inflation has come down, but let’s analyze for a moment who has paid the price for this superficial economic recovery.

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Mr. Reagan curbed inflation by cutting consumer demand. He cut consumer demand with conscious and callous fiscal and monetary policies. He used the Federal budget to deliberately induce unemployment and curb social spending. He then weighed and supported tight monetary policies of the Federal Reserve Board to deliberately drive up interest rates, again to curb consumer demand created through borrowing. Unemployment reached 10.7 percent. We experienced skyrocketing interest rates. Our dollar inflated abroad. There were record bank failures, record farm foreclosures, record business bankruptcies; record budget deficits, record trade deficits. Mr. Reagan brought inflation down by destabilizing our economy and disrupting family life. He promised—he promised in 1980 a balanced budget. But instead we now have a record 200 billion dollar budget deficit. Under Mr. Reagan, the cumulative budget deficit for his four years is more than the sum total of deficits from George Washington to Jimmy Carter combined. I tell you, we need a change. How is he paying for these short-term jobs? Reagan’s economic recovery is being financed by deficit spending—200 billion dollars a year. Military spending, a major cause of this deficit, is projected over the next five years to be nearly 2 trillion dollars, and will cost about 40,000 dollars for every taxpaying family. When the Government borrows 200 billion dollars annually to finance the deficit, this encourages the private sector to make its money off of interest rates as opposed to development and economic growth. Even money abroad, we don’t have enough money domestically to finance the debt, so we are now borrowing money abroad, from foreign banks, governments and financial institutions: 40 billion dollars in 1983; 70-80 billion dollars in 1984—40 percent of our total; over 100 billion dollars—50 percent of our total—in 1985. By 1989, it is projected that 50 percent of all individual income taxes will be going just to pay for interest on that debt. The United States used to be the largest exporter of capital, but under Mr. Reagan we will quite likely become the largest debtor nation. About two weeks ago, on July the 4th, we celebrated our Declaration of Independence, yet every day supply-side economics is making our nation more economically dependent and less economically free. Five to six percent of our Gross National Product is now being eaten up with President Reagan’s budget deficits. To depend on foreign military powers

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to protect our national security would be foolish, making us dependent and less secure. Yet, Reaganomics has us increasingly dependent on foreign economic sources. This consumer-led but deficit-financed recovery is unbalanced and artificial. We have a challenge as Democrats to point a way out. Democracy guarantees opportunity, not success. Democracy guarantees the right to participate, not a license for either a majority or a minority to dominate. The victory for the Rainbow Coalition in the Platform debates today was not whether we won or lost, but that we raised the right issues. We could afford to lose the vote; issues are non-negotiable. We could not afford to avoid raising the right questions. Our self-respect and our moral integrity were at stake. Our heads are perhaps bloody, but not bowed. Our back is straight. We can go home and face our people. Our vision is clear. When we think, on this journey from slave-ship to championship, that we have gone from the planks of the Boardwalk in Atlantic City in 1964 to fighting to help write the planks in the platform in San Francisco in ‘84, there is a deep and abiding sense of joy in our souls in spite of the tears in our eyes. Though there are missing planks, there is a solid foundation upon which to build. Our party can win, but we must provide hope which will inspire people to struggle and achieve; provide a plan that shows a way out of our dilemma and then lead the way. In 1984, my heart is made to feel glad because I know there is a way out—justice. The requirement for rebuilding America is justice. The linchpin of progressive politics in our nation will not come from the North; they, in fact, will come from the South. That is why I argue over and over again. We look from Virginia around to Texas, there’s only one black Congressperson out of 115. Nineteen years later, we’re locked out of the Congress, the Senate and the Governor’s mansion. What does this large black vote mean? Why do I fight to win second primaries and fight gerrymandering and annexation and at-large [elections]. Why do we fight over that? Because I tell you, you cannot hold someone in the ditch unless you linger there with them. Unless you linger there. If you want a change in this nation, you enforce that Voting Rights Act. We’ll get 12 to 20 Black, Hispanics, female and progressive congresspersons from the South. We can save the cotton, but we’ve got to fight the boll weevils. We’ve got to make a judgment. We’ve got to make a judgment.

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It is not enough to hope ERA will pass. How can we pass ERA? If Blacks vote in great numbers, progressive Whites win. It’s the only way progressive Whites win. If Blacks vote in great numbers, Hispanics win. When Blacks, Hispanics, and progressive Whites vote, women win. When women win, children win. When women and children win, workers win. We must all come up together. We must come up together. Thank you. For all of our joy and excitement, we must not save the world and lose our souls. We should never short-circuit enforcing the Voting Rights Act at every level. When one of us rise[s], all of us will rise. Justice is the way out. Peace is the way out. We should not act as if nuclear weaponry is negotiable and debatable. In this world in which we live, we dropped the bomb on Japan and felt guilty, but in 1984 other folks [have] also got bombs. This time, if we drop the bomb, six minutes later we, too, will be destroyed. It’s not about dropping the bomb on somebody. It is about dropping the bomb on everybody. We must choose to develop minds over guided missiles, and think it out and not fight it out. It’s time for a change. Our foreign policy must be characterized by mutual respect, not by gunboat diplomacy, big stick diplomacy, and threats. Our nation at its best feeds the hungry. Our nation at its worst, at its worst, will mine the harbors of Nicaragua, at its worst will try to overthrow their government, at  its worst will cut aid to American education and increase the aid to El Salvador; at its worst, our nation will have partnerships with South Africa. That’s a moral disgrace. It’s a moral disgrace. It’s a moral disgrace. We look at Africa. We cannot just focus on Apartheid in Southern Africa. We must fight for trade with Africa, and not just aid to Africa. We cannot stand idly by and say we will not relate to Nicaragua unless they have elections there, and then embrace military regimes in Africa overthrowing democratic governments in Nigeria and Liberia and Ghana. We must fight for democracy all around the world and play the game by one set of rules. Peace in this world. Our present formula for peace in the Middle East is inadequate. It will not work. There are 22 nations in the Middle East. Our nation must be able to talk and act and influence all of them. We must build upon Camp David, and measure human rights by one yard stick. In that region we have too many interests and too few friends.

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There is a way out—jobs. Put America back to work. When I was a child growing up in Greenville, South Carolina, the Reverend Sample used to preach every so often a sermon relating to Jesus. And he said, “If I be lifted up, I’ll draw all men unto me.” I didn’t quite understand what he meant as a child growing up, but I understand a little better now. If you raise up truth, it’s magnetic. It has a way of drawing people. With all this confusion in this Convention, the bright lights and parties and big fun, we must raise up the simple proposition: If we lift up a program to feed the hungry, they’ll come running; if we lift up a program to study war no more, our youth will come running; if we lift up a program to put America back to work, and an alternative to welfare and despair, they will come working. If we cut that military budget without cutting our defense, and use that money to rebuild bridges and put steel workers back to work, and use that money and provide jobs for our cities, and use that money to build schools and pay teachers and educate our children and build hospitals and train doctors and train nurses, the whole nation will come running to us. As I leave you now, we vote in this convention and get ready to go back across this nation in a couple of days. In this campaign, I’ve tried to be faithful to my promise. I lived in old barrios, ghettos, and reservations and housing projects. I have a message for our youth. I challenge them to put hope in their brains and not dope in their veins. I told them that like Jesus, I, too, was born in the slum. But just because you’re born in the slum does not mean the slum is born in you, and you can rise above it if your mind is made up. I told them in every slum there are two sides. When I see a broken window—that’s the slummy side. Train some youth to become a glazier—that’s the sunny side. When I see a missing brick—that’s the slummy side. Let that child in the union and become a brick mason and build—that’s the sunny side. When I see a missing door—that’s the slummy side. Train some youth to become a carpenter— that’s the sunny side. And when I see the vulgar words and hieroglyphics of destitution on the walls—that’s the slummy side. Train some youth to become a painter, an artist—that’s the sunny side. We leave this place looking for the sunny side because there’s a brighter side somewhere. I’m more convinced than ever that we can win. We will vault up the rough side of the mountain. We can win. I just want young America to do me one favor, just one favor. Exercise the right to dream.

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You must face reality—that which is. But then dream of a reality that ought to be—that must be. Live beyond the pain of reality with the dream of a bright tomorrow. Use hope and imagination as weapons of survival and progress. Use love to motivate you and obligate you to serve the human family. Young America, dream. Choose the human race over the nuclear race. Bury the weapons and don’t burn the people. Dream—dream of a new value system. Teachers who teach for life and not just for a living; teach because they can’t help it. Dream of lawyers more concerned about justice than a judgeship. Dream of doctors more concerned about public health than personal wealth. Dream of preachers and priests who will prophesy and not just profiteer. Preach and dream! Our time has come. Our time has come. Suffering breeds character. Character breeds faith. In the end, faith will not disappoint. Our time has come. Our faith, hope, and dreams will prevail. Our time has come. Weeping has endured for nights, but now joy cometh in the morning. Our time has come. No grave can hold our body down. Our time has come. No lie can live forever. Our time has come. We must leave racial battle ground and come to economic common ground and moral higher ground. America, our time has come. We come from disgrace to amazing grace. Our time has come. Give me your tired, give me your poor, your huddled masses who yearn to breathe free and come November, there will be a change because our time has come.

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SUPPLEMENTARY DETAILED STAFF REPORTS ON INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES AND THE RIGHTS OF AMERICANS April 23, 1976

Final Report Of The Select Committee To Study Governmental Operations With Respect To Intelligence Activities United States Senate ...

5. BLACK NATIONALIST-HATE GROUPS. -- In marked contrast to prior COINTELPROs, which grew out of years of intensive intelligence investigation, the Black Nationalist COINTELPRO and the racial intelligence investigative section were set up at about the same time in 1967. Prior to that time, the Division’s investigation of “Negro matters” was limited to instances of alleged Communist infiltration of civil rights groups and to monitoring civil rights protest activity. However, the long,

COINTELPRO: The FBI’s covert action programs against American citizens

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hot summer of 1967 led to intense pressure on the Bureau to do something to contain the problem, and once again, the Bureau heeded the call. The originating letter was sent out to twenty-three field offices on August 25, 1967, describing the program’s purpose as ... to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist, hate-type organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters, and to counter their propensity for violence and civil disorder. . . . Efforts of the various groups to consolidate their forces or to recruit new or youthful adherents must be frustrated.

Initial group targets for “intensified attention” were the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Revolutionary Action Movement, Deacons for Defense and Justice, Congress of Racial Equality, and the Nation of Islam. Individuals named targets were Stokely Carmichael, H. “Rap” Brown, Elijah Muhammed, and Maxwell Stanford. The targets were chosen by conferring with Headquarters personnel supervising the racial cases; the list was not intended to exclude other groups known to the field. According to the Black Nationalist supervisor, individuals and organizations were targeted because of their propensity for violence or their “radical or revolutionary rhetoric [and] actions”: Revolutionary would be [defined as] advocacy of the overthrow of the Government.... Radical [is] a loose term that might cover, for example, the separatist view of the Nation of Islam, the influence of a group called U.S. Incorporated.... Generally, they wanted a separate black nation.... They [the NOI] advocated formation of a separate black nation on the territory of five Southern states.

The letter went on to direct field offices to exploit conflicts within and between groups; to use news media contacts to disrupt, ridicule, or discredit groups; to preclude “violence-prone” or “rabble rouser” leaders of these groups from spreading their philosophy publicly; and to gather

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information on the “unsavory backgrounds” -- immorality, subversive activity, and criminal activity-- of group members. According to George C. Moore, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was included because ... at that time it was still under investigation because of the communist infiltration. As far as I know, there were not any violent propensities, except that I note ... in the cover memo [expanding the program] or somewhere, that they mentioned that if Martin Luther King decided to go a certain way, he could cause some trouble.... I cannot explain it satisfactorily . . . this is something the section inherited.

On March 4, 1968, the program was expanded from twenty-three to forty-one field offices. The letter expanding the program lists five longrange goals for the program:







(1) to prevent the “coalition of militant black nationalist groups,” which might be the first step toward a real “Mau Mau” in America; (2) to prevent the rise of a “messiah” who could “unify, and electrify,” the movement, naming specifically Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, and Elijah Muhammed; (3) to prevent violence on the part of black nationalist groups, by pinpointing “potential troublemakers” and neutralizing them “before they exercise their potential for violence;” (4) to prevent groups and leaders from gaining “respectability” by discrediting them to the “responsible” Negro community, to the white community (both the responsible community and the “liberals” -- the distinction is the Bureau’s), and to Negro radicals; and (5) to prevent the long range growth of these organizations, especially among youth, by developing specific tactics to “prevent these groups from recruiting young people.”

6. THE PANTHER DIRECTIVES. -- The Black Panther Party (“BPP”) was not included in the first two lists of primary targets (August 1967 and March 1968) because it had not attained national importance. By

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November 1968, apparently the BPP had become sufficiently active to be considered a primary target. A letter to certain field offices with BPP activity dated November 25, 1968, ordered recipient offices to submit “imaginative and hard-hitting counterintelligence measures aimed at crippling the BPP.” Proposals were to be received every two weeks. Particular attention was to be given to capitalizing upon the differences between the BPP and US, Inc. (Ron Karenga’s group), which had reached such proportions that “it is taking on the aura of gang warfare with attendant threats of murder and reprisals.” On January 30, 1969, this program against the BPP was expanded to additional offices, noting that the BPP was attempting to create a better image. In line with this effort, Bobby Seale was conducting a “purge” 96 of the party, including expelling police informants. Recipient offices were instructed to take advantage of the opportunity to further plant the seeds of suspicion concerning disloyalty among ranking officials. Bureau witnesses are not certain whether the Black Nationalist program was effective. Mr. Moore stated: I know that the ... overall results of the Klan [COINTELPRO] was much more effective from what I have been told than the Black Extremism [COINTELPRO] because of the number of informants in the Klan who could take action which would be more effective. In the Black Extremism Group . . . we got a late start because we did not have extremist - activity [until] ‘67 and ‘68. Then we had to play catch-up.... It is not easy to measure effectiveness.... There were policemen killed in those days. There were bombs thrown. There were establishments burned with molotov cocktails.... We can measure that damage. You cannot measure over on the other side, what lives were saved because somebody did not leave the organization or suspicion was sown on his leadership and this organization gradually declined and [there was] suspicion within it, or this organization did not join with [that] organization as a result of a black power conference which was aimed towards consolidation efforts. All we know, either through their own ineptitude, maybe it emerged through counterintelligence, maybe, I think we like to think that that helped to do it, that there was not this development. . . . What part did counterintelligence [play?] We hope that it did play a part. Maybe we just gave it a nudge.”

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chapter six

movements of the 60s

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INTERVIEW WITH HUGH HEFNER

INT: How would you define the American dream. HUGH HEFNER: It is related to personal freedom, economic freedom, political freedom. INT: How do you think that that concept has evolved. HUGH: Well I think that it is there in the original founding fathers of the . . . . constitution. I think it is a global dream now. I think to some extent the reinforcement of it comes from Hollywood. There’s a lot of it comes from, from, I think that our best export is America, is actually the American dream and I think that it’s in contemporary terms, in terms of this century it’s an immigrant dream, and that come directly from Hollywood, most of which was founded by immigrants, and it reinforces you know that belief in that dream of personal freedom is alive and well around the world now. INT: How do you think that the pursuit of happiness that was written in the American constitution has arrived as a concept, where does that come from. HUGH: Well I don’t know the historical origins of it. It’s certainly something that I strongly endorse. It is not entirely consistent with our religious heritage. the religious heritage sort of suggests implicitly and explicitly that you pay your dues and you get your reward later on, that’s a little inconsistent with the notion of personal, happiness. I am a strong believer in a set of values that are rooted in the notion of happiness and personal fulfillment, and you know all the old cliches about a quest for truth and beauty. 253

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INT: Would you say that the American dream therefore has a rather schizoid identity. HUGH: Oh well I think. I don’t know if the dream does but I certainly think that America’s very schizophrenic, there’s no question. I think you see and it is as American as apple pie, you see the conflict between the notion of personal freedom as espoused by the founding fathers and the puritan values that were there before, and that that conflict is, is what America is all about, and we see it even, you know even as we come to the end of the century. INT: Going back to the 1940’s and 1950’s after the second world war, how aware were you of the cold war. What did the cold war mean to you. HUGH: Very aware it, I think that to some extent, see you know, I was in the service right out of high school, during world war two and I came out like a lot of other fellas, believing that somehow we had, we had fought in a war, the last really moral war and that we would celebrate that in some form. I felt quite frankly having been raised during the depression and looking back at the roaring twenties, the jazz age, which was a very magic timer in my mind because it was something that I had missed. I expected something comparable after world war two and we didn’t get that, all we got was a lot of conformity, and conservatism and when I was in college at the university of Illinois the skirt lengths dropped instead of going up as they had during the roaring twenties and I knew that was a very bad sign, and it is symbolic and reflective of a very repressive time, and some of that was laid the feet of the cold war. It was the time of the House on American Activities committee, the time of McCarthyism, and it had a big impact on me. I was as I say a student at the university of Illinois, Larry Parks the actor who played Al Jolson in the Jolson story in the forties came from the university of Illinois and he was one of the people who were singled as being a little left of center, during that period and his career and a lot of other careers were destroyed by them. I was very . . . of him, and I think that it to some extent radicalized me. I was a, I was raised in the thirties as in a republican household but I was a Roosevelt democrat and to some extent what came after the war was almost a, you know it was a conservative backlash to the liberalism, politically the did exist during Roosevelt’s time in America.

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INT: You’re a student of psychology, is there a relationship between authoritarian systems. HUGH: I think that if you, if you are going to, and it’s all very much in Orwell in 1984. you really don’t create an authoritarian society unless you control the personal choices including the sexual choices of the people. So I think that sexual oppression and dictatorship go hand in hand. INT: To what extent do you think that the cold war lent legitimacy to that kind of moral HUGH: I think that the cold war and the fear of nuclear holocaust were used. Some, some of the fears were very understandable, but it was used by some of the darker parts of our own society to support the military and to change this into at during that period a very conservative political climate, so that to some extent I felt during that period that we had become, as a country, a part of what we fought the war to be the enemy ourselves. INT: How would you describe the Playboy philosophy. HUGH: Well I think the Playboy philosophy is very, very connected to the American dream, it the political philosophy that I’ve always, that I grew up with and that I espoused in the editorial series, was really personal freedom, political freedom, economic freedom. With the emphasis on the personal. The notion that we indeed did and do own our own minds and bodies, and that anything from church or state that limits that is inappropriate and inconsistent with the . . . society that America is supposed to be. INT: Do you think that making that kind of statement put you in any kind of risk, any possibility of retaliation by HUGH: (Guffaw) I already suspected it, I lived it for sure, of course. INT: In what way did you live it. HUGH: Well I think that from the very beginning it wasn’t simply, what made Playboy so popular was not simply the naked ladies, there were naked ladies in other magazines, what made the magazine so popular was, even before I started writing the philosophy, there was a point of view in the magazine, it prior to that you couldn’t run nude pictures

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without some kind of rational that they were art. I made them into, I put them into a context of a positive or what I perceived as a positive attitude on male female relationships. I suggested that sex was not the enemy, that violence was the enemy, that nice girls like sex. The centerfold itself, the girl next door centerfold, in a very simplistic way was rooted in that philosophy, that that sex is OK, it’s a natural part of life. a very radical idea in America, and I paid dues very early on the post office that had been the arbiter of communication in America since the comstocka in Victorian times, still believe that, despite some court decisions to the contrary, believe that they had a right to define without consideration of the courts, what they, what you could send through the mail, so they didn’t want to give me my sector mail, my sector mailing permit, sectored mailing permit, that all magazines need to survive. We had to go to court to get that. and then they found other ways, I was, I was on the enemies list during the Nixon era because I was supporting and donating funds to more liberal democratic, democrat causes, but the being on the list really began in the very early days in the middle fifties along with a lot a great many other Americans although I didn’t know it at the time, I was being watched by the FBI and they had a record of what I was doing , in 1960 when we opened the first Playboy club, Chicago officials that key clubs that had been operating in Chicago for twenty five years were suddenly illegal. We had to go to court to win that case. In 1963 they decided that a very innocent pictorial on a movie by Jane Mansfield was obscene, we had to fight them in court to win that case. In 19 after the enemies list came out in 1975, 74 they concocted a phony drug case against me because my secretary had been involved with a guy who was a street dealer, and literally fabricated evidence to convict her in the hope that somehow do something with me. And then in the early 1980’s when America and England became more politically conservative, we lost our casino licenses in England and our casino license in Atlantic city. Not on the basis of anything but that was really going on there, but because the climate had changed, and to some extent the fact that the first amendment protects me in America in the magazine. But the very fact that we were able to operate for so many years with liquor licenses and with casino licenses which require the approval of the powers that be is probably in itself quite remarkable. So I fought the good fight, but have always felt that was part of the territory. I didn’t start the magazine as a crusade but there’s always been a little bit of the crusader in me, and you

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know, you need dragons to slay, without the conflict and the controversy I think that what I managed to do less, and I take a great deal of pride in the accomplishment. INT: You describe a society which is very conservative, what is your position on race and civil rights. HUGH: My views on tolerance and race from my parents. my mother in particular, but both my parents were very idealistic people. As a matter of fact I accepted their values on every area except sex, they were raised in a very oppressive typically puritan farm families in Nebraska. So that was really the only area that I really had problems with my family. I think that the sexual revolution grew to some degree out of you know the civil rights movement and I was actively involved in it from the late fifties on, when we held our first jazz festival in Chicago in 1959. We donated the funds from that to the urban league, and when I formed the Playboy foundation in 1950 in 1965 it became the activist arm of the Playboy philosophy. I started doing the philosophy in 1963, the end of 1962 actually and then formed the foundation. The foundation became as the magazine and the company prospered, a way of putting our money where our mouth was, and by the early nineteen seventies we had ­donated several million dollars to a variety of controversial causes. Many of them related to sex laws, sex research with Mathers and Johnson and the McKensey Institute and the civil rights movement. In the process also we helped to fight the series of cases that lead eventually to Rowe versus Wade and legalized abortion. I met Martin Luther King for the first time, in fact the only time, a short time before his death, and he was in Chicago to try to meet with Mayor Daley and to segregation was still, then and now a part of the Chicago scene, in the schools. INT: To what do you ascribe racism in America. HUGH: The phenomena there is something in us that on the one hand bonds us with like people but somehow makes us suspicious of other people. and it is one of the sad things of humankind and unfortunately nationalism and organized religion feed it. It turns into a kind of them and us phenomena and it is particularly pathetic and sad when it comes to religion because most organized religion, most of the fundamental premises of religion are very similar, they tend towards a single god in some form and that religion can then turn in to the source of animosity and hatred and bigotry, is one of the great ironies I think.

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INT: The nineteen sixties were a period of great change, what do you think overall were the causes of this change. HUGH: Well I think we came out of a very conservative time in the ­fifties, part of it raised by the political climate at the time but also reflected in conservatism, in lifestyle and I think that a new generation was growing up that was responding to that. To some extent you see a kind of cause effect that is like a pendulum, it swings back and forth. I think that the conservatism that occurred in the nineteen eighties was a direct reaction to and response to the liberal changes that took place in the ­sixties and seventies and I think that’s the way of things. With all of this kind of thing we get two steps forward and one step back and you know one hopes were coming out of the tunnel again. Always we find reasons to thwart and work against the personal freedom with some other ­explanation. During the fifties it was the cold war much of the repression that occurred, the sexual repression in particular that occurred during the eighties, they related it to Aids. The politicization of the disease it was cause and effect backwards, because it’s not really the disease that caused the conservative agenda, the conservative agenda was there already and we have had in America a rather dramatic rise in the Christian right, in America they actually elected Reagan and gave us for one of the first times, starting in my lifetime a rather unholy alliance that existed between religion and the state, and that in turn gave us the Mise commission and the Mise commission was nothing more than a cross country witch hunt that had nothing to do with, with research related to sex and there are many other evidences of it, I can’t, it’s very difficult for me to believewhen I was a kid I grew up, fascinated with Darwin and fascinated with the monkey trial in the nineteen twenties, the fact that, that controversy would still exist. That creationism would still be perceived in some quarters as a viable perception and there would be controversy as there is in American schools, with evolution on the one hand, with science on the one hand and religious state of superstition on the other, in the form of creationism is strange, but this is the nature of the way we are, we and I don’t just mean America I mean, I mean the world, we you know we have in this century you know reached the moon and the stars, our technology and our science is at such an incredible level and in so many other ways we are still superstitious savages in the jungle with some of our social and religious values.

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INT: How much importance do you ascribe to music in influencing changes in the 1960’s. HUGH: Well I always think, quite frankly that pop culture is a lot more important than a lot of people realize. I think that the major influence certainly in terms of influencing people in this century has been the mass communication that includes, and that is what is unique about America about this century. What is unique about this century is transportation and transportation of ideas and with movies, radio, television now the internet, and the recording of sound and music, I think that these are the major influences at least as much as the political leaders, and I think that, I was fortunate enough top be raised in a, in a very romantic time in terms of music, and the music itself simple reflected the much more romantic time. as we’ve become more cynical and lost some of our innocence, we have seen that incredible phenomena during this century, the music reflects it to some degree, but there is a fascination now with retro and I did a little of that . . . hero three or four issues ago, . . . Playboy 2000 said in effect that everything old was new again. Look to the best of where we’ve been to define who we want to be in the century ahead. Because we have a tremendous opportunity now, the disappearance of the wall, the Berlin wall and the other boundaries and walls between people, and the arrival of the technology with the internet and global television. We have a tremendous opportunity to try to start solving some of our overwhelming problems with population related environment, related to the hatred that exists between countries and religions, so we have a tremendous opportunity, but the dangers are very clearly there.

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TESTIMONY OF ABBIE HOFFMAN

MR. WEINGLASS: Will you please identify yourself for the record? THE WITNESS: My name is Abbie. I am an orphan of America. MR. SCHULTZ: Your Honor, may the record show it is the defendant Hoffman who has taken the stand? THE COURT: Oh, yes. It may so indicate. . . . MR. WEINGLASS: Where do you reside? THE WITNESS: I live in Woodstock Nation. MR. WEINGLASS: Will you tell the Court and jury where it is? THE WITNESS: Yes. It is a nation of alienated young people. We carry it around with us as a state of mind in the same way as the Sioux Indians carried the Sioux nation around with them. It is a nation dedicated to cooperation versus competition, to the idea that people should have better means of exchange than property or money, that there should be some other basis for human interaction. It is a nation dedicated to— THE COURT: Just where it is, that is all. THE WITNESS: It is in my mind and in the minds of my brothers and sisters. It does not consist of property or material but, rather, of ideas and certain values. We believe in a society— THE COURT: No, we want the place of residence, if he has one, place of doing business, if you have a business. Nothing about philosophy or India, sir. Just where you live, if you have a place to live. Now you said Woodstock. In what state is Woodstock? 261

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THE WITNESS: It is in the state of mind, in the mind of myself and my brothers and sisters. It is a conspiracy. Presently, the nation is held ­captive, in the penitentiaries of the institutions of a decaying system. MR. WEINGLASS: Can you tell the Court and jury your present age? THE WITNESS: My age is 33. 1 am a child of the 60s. MR. WEINGLASS: When were you born? THE WITNESS: Psychologically, 1960. MR. SCHULTZ: Objection, if the Court please. I move to strike the answer. MR. WEINGLASS: What is the actual date of your birth? THE WITNESS: November 30,1936. MR. WEINGLASS: Between the date of your birth, November 30, 1936, and May 1, 1960, what if anything occurred in your life? THE WITNESS: Nothing. I believe it is called an American education. MR. SCHULTZ: Objection. THE COURT: I sustain the objection. THE WITNESS: Huh. MR. WEINGLASS: Abbie, could you tell the Court and jury— MR. SCHULTZ: His name isn’t Abbie. I object to this informality. MR. WEINGLASS: Can you tell the Court and jury what is your present occupation? THE WITNESS: I am a cultural revolutionary. Well, I am really a ­defendant—full-time. MR. WEINGLASS: What do you mean by the phrase “cultural ­revolutionary?” THE WITNESS: Well, I suppose it is a person who tries to shape and participate in the values, and the mores, the customs and the style of living of new people who eventually become inhabitants of a new nation and a new society through art and poetry, theater, and music. MR. WEINGLASS: What have you done yourself to participate in that revolution?

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THE WITNESS: Well, I have been a rock and roll singer. I am a reporter with the Liberation News Service. I am a poet. I am a film maker. I made a movie called “Yippies Tour Chicago or How I Spent My Summer Vacation.” Currently, I am negotiating with United Artists and MGM to do a movie in Hollywood. I have written an extensive pamphlet on how to live free in the city of New York. I have written two books, one called Revolution for The Hell of It under the pseudonym Free, and one called, Woodstock Nation. MR. WEINGLASS: Taking you back to the spring of 1960, approximately May 1, 1960, will you tell the Court and jury where you were? MR. SCHULTZ: 1960? THE WITNESS: That’s right. MR. SCHULTZ: Objection. THE COURT: I sustain the objection. MR. WEINGLASS: Your Honor, that date has great relevance to the trial. May 1, 1960, was this witness’ first public demonstration. I am going to bring him down through Chicago. THE COURT: Not in my presence, you are not going to bring him down. I sustain the objection to the question. THE WITNESS: My background has nothing to do with my state of mind? THE COURT: Will you remain quiet while I am making a ruling? I know you have no respect for me. MR. KUNSTLER: Your Honor, that is totally unwarranted. I think your remarks call for a motion for a mistrial. THE COURT: And your motion calls for a denial of the motion. Mr. Weinglass, continue with your examination. MR. KUNSTLER: You denied my motion? I hadn’t even started to argue it. THE COURT: I don’t need any argument on that one. The witness turned his back on me while he was on the witness stand. THE WITNESS: I was just looking at the pictures of the long hairs up on the wall . . . .

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THE COURT: . . . . I will let the witness tell about this asserted conversation with Mr. Rubin on the occasion described. MR. WEINGLASS: What was the conversation at that time? THE WITNESS: Jerry Rubin told me that he had come to New York to be project director of a peace march in Washington that was going to march to the Pentagon in October, October 21. He said that the peace movement suffered from a certain kind of attitude, mainly that it was based solely on the issue of the Vietnam war. He said that the war in Vietnam was not just an accident but a direct by-product of the kind of system, a capitalist system in the country, and that we had to begin to put forth new kinds of values, especially to young people in the country, to make a kind of society in which a Vietnam war would not be possible. And he felt that these attitudes and values were present in the hippie movement and many of the techniques, the guerrilla theater techniques that had been used and many of these methods of communication would allow for people to participate and become involved in a new kind of democracy. I said that the Pentagon was a five-sided evil symbol in most religions and that it might be possible to approach this from a religious point of view. If we got large numbers of people to surround the Pentagon, we could exorcize it of its evil spirits. So I had agreed at that point to begin working on the exorcism of the Pentagon demonstration. MR. WEINGLASS: Prior to the date of the demonstration which is October, did you go to the Pentagon? THE WITNESS: Yes. I went about a week or two before with one of my close brothers, Martin Carey, a poster maker, and we measured the Pentagon, the two of us, to see how many people would fit around it. We only had to do one side because it is just multiplied by five. We got arrested. It’s illegal to measure the Pentagon. I didn’t know it up to that point. When we were arrested they asked us what we were doing. We said it was to measure the Pentagon and we wanted a permit to raise it 300 feet in the air, and they said “How about 10?” So we said “OK”. And they threw us out of the Pentagon and we went back to New York and had a press conference, told them what it was about. We also introduced a drug called lace, which, when you squirted it at the policemen made them take their clothes off and make love, a very potent drug.

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MR. WEINGLASS: Did you mean literally that the building was to rise up 300 feet off the ground? MR. SCHULTZ: I can’t cross-examine about his meaning literally. THE COURT: I sustain the objection. MR. SCHULTZ: I would ask Mr. Weinglass please get on with the trial of this case and stop playing around with raising the Pentagon 10 feet or 300 feet off the ground. MR. WEINGLASS: Your Honor, I am glad to see Mr. Schultz finally ­concedes that things like levitating the Pentagon building, putting LSD in the water, 10,000 people walking nude on Lake Michigan, and a $200,000 bribe attempt are all playing around. I am willing to concede that fact, that it was all playing around, it was a play idea of this witness, and if he is willing to concede it, we can all go home. THE COURT: I sustain the objection. MR. WEINGLASS: Did you intend that the people who surrounded the Pentagon should do anything of a violent nature whatever to cause the building to rise 300 feet in the air and be exercised of evil spirits? MR. SCHULTZ: Objection. THE COURT: I sustain the objection. MR. WEINGLASS: Could you indicate to the Court and jury whether or not the Pentagon was, in fact, exercised of its evil spirits? THE WITNESS: Yes, I believe it was. . . . MR. WEINGLASS: Now, drawing your attention to the first week of December 1967, did you have occasion to meet with Jerry Rubin and the others? THE WITNESS: Yes. MR. WEINGLASS: Will you relate to the Court and jury what the conversation was? THE WITNESS: Yes. We talked about the possibility of having demonstrations at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, Illinois, that was going to be occurring that August. I am not sure that we knew at that point that it was in Chicago. Wherever it was, we were planning on going.

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Jerry Rubin, I believe, said that it would be a good idea to call it the Festival of Life in contrast to the Convention of Death, and to have it in some kind of public area, like a park or something, in Chicago. One thing that I was very particular about was that we didn’t have any concept of leadership involved. There was a feeling of young people that they didn’t want to listen to leaders. We had to create a kind of situation in which people would be allowed to participate and become in a real sense their own leaders. I think it was then after this that Paul Krassner said the word “YIPPIE,” and we felt that that expressed in a kind of slogan and advertising sense the spirit that we wanted to put forth in Chicago, and we adopted that as our password, really. . . . Anita [Hoffman] said that “Yippie” would be understood by our ­generation, that straight newspapers like the New York Times and the U.S. Government and the courts and everything wouldn’t take it seriously unless it had a formal name, so she came up with the name: “Youth International Party.” She said we could play a lot of jokes on the concept of “party” because everybody would think that we were this huge international ­conspiracy, but that in actuality we were a party that you had fun at. Nancy [Kursham] said that fun was an integral ingredient, that people in America, because they were being programmed like IBM cards, weren’t having enough fun in life and that if you watched television, the only people that you saw having any fun were people who were buying lousy junk on television commercials, and that this would be a whole new attitude because you would see people, young people, having fun while they were protesting the system, and that young people all around this country and around the world would be turned on for that kind of an attitude. I said that fun was very important, too, that it was a direct rebuttal of the kind of ethics and morals that were being put forth in the country to keep people working in a rat race which didn’t make any sense because in a few years that machines would do all the work anyway, that there was a whole system of values that people were taught to postpone their pleasure, to put all their money in the bank, to buy life insurance, a whole bunch of things that didn’t make any sense to our generation at all, and that fun actually was becoming quite subversive. Jerry said that because of our action at the Stock Exchange in throwing out the money, that within a few weeks the Wall Street brokers there had

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totally enclosed the whole stock exchange in bulletproof, shatterproof glass, that cost something like $20,000 because they were afraid we’d come back and throw money out again. He said that for hundreds of years political cartoonists had always pictured corrupt politicians in the guise of a pig, and he said that it would be great theater if we ran a pig for President, and we all took that on as like a great idea and that’s more or less—that was the founding. MR. WEINGLASS: The document that is before you, D-222 for identification, what is that document? THE WITNESS: It was our initial call to people to describe what Yippie was about and why we were coming to Chicago. MR. WEINGLASS: Now, Abbie, could you read the entire document to the jury. THE WITNESS: It says: “A STATEMENT FROM YIP! “Join us in Chicago in August for an international festival of youth, music, and theater. Rise up and abandon the creeping meatball! Come all you rebels, youth spirits, rock minstrels, truth-seekers, peacock-freaks, poets, barricade-jumpers, dancers, lovers and artists! “It is summer. It is the last week in August, and the NATIONAL DEATH PARTY meets to bless Lyndon Johnson. We are there! There are 50,000 of us dancing in the streets, throbbing with amplifiers and harmony. We are making love in the parks. We are reading, singing, laughing, printing newspapers, groping, and making a mock convention, and celebrating the birth of FREE AMERICA in our own time. “Everything will be free. Bring blankets, tents, draft-cards, bodypaint, Mr. Leary’s Cow, food to share, music, eager skin, and happiness. The threats of LBJ, Mayor Daley, and J. Edgar Freako will not stop us. We are coming! We are coming from all over the world! “The life of the American spirit is being torn asunder by the forces of violence, decay, and the napalm-cancer fiend. We demand the Politics of Ecstasy! We are the delicate spores of the new fierceness that will change America. We will create our own reality, we are Free America! And we will not accept the false theater of the Death Convention. “We will be in Chicago. Begin preparations now! Chicago is yours! Do it!”

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“Do it!” was a slogan like “Yippie.” We use that a lot and it meant that each person that came should take on the responsibility for being his own leader-that we should, in fact, have a leaderless society. We shortly thereafter opened an office and people worked in the office on what we call movement salaries, subsistence, thirty dollars a week. We had what the straight world would call a staff and an office although we called it an energy center and regarded ourselves as a tribe or a family. MR. WEINGLASS: Could you explain to the Court and jury, if you know, how this staff functioned in your office? THE WITNESS: Well, I would describe it as anarchistic. People would pick up the phone and give information and people from all over the country were now becoming interested and they would ask for more information, whether we were going to get a permit, how the people in Chicago were relating, and we would bring flyers and banners and posters. We would have large general meetings that were open to anybody who wanted to come. MR. WEINGLASS: How many people would attend these weekly ­meetings? THE WITNESS: There were about two to three hundred people there that were attending the meetings. Eventually we had to move into Union Square and hold meetings out in the public. There would be maybe three to five hundred people attending meetings. . . . MR. WEINGLASS: Where did you go [March 23], if you can recall THE WITNESS: I flew to Chicago to observe a meeting being sponsored, I believe, by the National Mobilization Committee. It was held at a place called Lake Villa, I believe, about twenty miles outside of Chicago here. MR. WEINGLASS: Do you recall how you were dressed for that meeting? THE WITNESS: I was dressed as an Indian. I had gone to Grand Central Station as an Indian and so I just got on a plane and flew as an Indian. MR. WEINGLASS: Now, when you flew to Chicago, were you alone? THE WITNESS: No. Present were Jerry, myself, Paul Krassner, and Marshall Bloom, the head of this Liberation News Service. MR. WEINGLASS: When you arrived at Lake Villa, did you have ­occasion to meet any of the defendants who are seated here at this table?

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THE WITNESS: Yes, I met for the first time Rennie, Tom Hayden—who I had met before, and that’s it, you know. . . . MR. WEINGLASS: Was any decision reached at that meeting about coming to Chicago? THE WITNESS: I believe that they debated for two days about whether they should come or not to Chicago. They decided to have more meetings. We said we had already made up our minds to come to Chicago and we passed out buttons and posters and said that if they were there, good, it would be a good time. MR. WEINGLASS: Following the Lake Villa conference, do you recall where you went? THE WITNESS: Yes. The next day, March 25, 1 went to the Aragon Ballroom. It was a benefit to raise money again for the Yippies but we had a meeting backstage in one of the dressing rooms with the Chicago Yippies. MR. WEINGLASS: Do you recall what was discussed? THE WITNESS: Yes. We drafted a permit application for the Festival to take place in Chicago. We agreed that Grant Park would be best. MR. WEINGLASS: Directing your attention to the following morning, which was Monday morning, March 26, do you recall where you were at that morning? THE WITNESS: We went to the Parks Department. Jerry was there, Paul, Helen Runningwater, Abe Peck, Reverend John Tuttle—there were a group of about twenty to thirty people, Yippies. MR. WEINGLASS: Did you meet with anyone at the Park District at that time? THE WITNESS: Yes. There were officials from the Parks Department to greet us, they took us into this office, and we presented a permit application. MR. WEINGLASS: Did you ever receive a reply to this application? THE WITNESS: Not to my knowledge. MR. WEINGLASS: After your meeting with the Park District, where, if anywhere, did you go?

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THE WITNESS: We held a brief press conference on the lawn in front of the Parks Department, and then we went to see Mayor Daley at City Hall. When we arrived, we were told that the mayor was indisposed and that Deputy Mayor David Stahl would see us. MR. WEINGLASS: When you met with Deputy Mayor Stahl, what, if anything, occurred? THE WITNESS: Helen Runningwater presented him with a copy of the permit application that we had submitted to the Parks Department. It was rolled up in the Playmate of the Month that said “To Dick with Love, the Yippies,” on it. And we presented it to him and gave him a kiss and put a Yippie button on him, and when he opened it up, the Playmate was just there. And he was very embarrassed by the whole thing, and he said that we had followed the right procedure, the city would give it proper attention and things like that . . . . December 29, 1969 MR. WEINGLASS: I direct your attention now to August 5, 1968, and I ask you where you were on that day. THE WITNESS: I was in my apartment, St. Marks Place, on the Lower East Side in New York City. MR. WEINGLASS: Who was with you? THE WITNESS: Jerry Rubin was there, Paul Krassner was there, and Nancy. Anita was there; five of us, I believe. MR. WEINGLASS: Can you describe the conversation which occurred between you and Abe Peck on the telephone? THE WITNESS: Mr. Peck and other people from Chicago, Yippies—had just returned from a meeting on Monday afternoon with David Stahl and other people from the City administration. He said that he was quite shocked because—they said that they didn’t know that we wanted to sleep in the park. Abe Peck said that it had been known all along that one of the key elements of this Festival was to let us sleep in the park, that it was impossible for people to sleep in hotels since the delegates were staying there and it would only be natural to sleep in the park.

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He furthermore told me in his opinion the City was laying down ­certain threats to them in order to try and get them to withdraw their permit application, and that we should come immediately back to Chicago. MR. WEINGLASS: After that phone conversation what occurred? THE WITNESS: We subsequently went to Chicago on August 7 at night. MR.WEINGLASS: Did a meeting occur on that evening? THE WITNESS: Yes, in Mayor Daley’s press conference room, where he holds his press conferences. MR. WEINGLASS: Can you relate what occurred at this meeting? THE WITNESS: It was more or less an informal kind of meeting. Mr. Stahl made clear that these were just exploratory talks, that the mayor didn’t have it in his power to grant the permits. We said that that was absurd, that we had been negotiating now for a period of four or five months, that the City was acting like an ostrich, sticking its head in the sand, hoping that we would all go away like it was some bad dream. I pointed out that it was in the best interests of the City to have us in Lincoln Park ten miles away from the Convention hall. I said we had no intention of marching on the Convention hall, that I didn’t particularly think that politics in America could be changed by marches and rallies, that what we were presenting was an alternative life style, and we hoped that people of Chicago would come up, and mingle in Lincoln Park and see what we were about. I said that the City ought to give us a hundred grand, a hundred thousand dollars to run the Festival. It would be so much in their best interests. And then I said, “Why don’t you just give two hundred grand, and I’ll split town?” It was a very informal meeting. We were just sitting around on metal chairs that they had. All the time David Stahl had been insisting that they did not make decisions in the city, that he and the mayor did not make the decisions. We greeted this with a lot of laughter and said that it was generally understood all around the country that Daley was the boss of Chicago and made all the decisions. I also said that I considered that our right to assemble in Lincoln Park and to present our society was a right that I was willing to die for, that this was a fundamental human right . . . .

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MR. WEINGLASS: On August 14, approximately three days later, in the morning of that day, do you recall where you were? THE WITNESS: I went to speak to Jay Miller, head of the American Civil Liberties Union. I asked if it was possible for them to work with us on an injunction in the Federal court to sue Mayor Daley and other city officials about the fact that they would not grant us a permit and were denying us our right to freedom of speech and assembly. MR. WEINGLASS: Now, can you relate to the Court and jury what happened in court when you appeared at 10:00 A.M.? THE WITNESS: It was heard before Judge Lynch. There was a fantastic amount of guards all over the place. We were searched, made to take off our shirts, empty our pockets— MR. SCHULTZ. That is totally irrelevant. There happened to be threats at that time, your Honor— THE WITNESS: He is right. There were threats. I had twenty that week. THE COURT: The language, “There were a fantastic amount of guards,” may go out and the jury is directed to disregard them. MR. WEINGLASS: After the— THE WITNESS: We came before the judge. It was a room similar to this, similar, kind of wall-to wall bourgeois, rugs and neon lights. Federal courts are all the same, I think. The judge made a couple of references to us in the room, said that our dress was an affront to the Court. It was pointed out by a lawyer that came by that Judge Lynch was Mayor Daley’s ex-law partner. As as result of this conversation we went back into court about twenty, thirty minutes later. MR. WEINGLASS: Did you speak to the Court? THE WITNESS: I spoke to Judge Lynch. I said that we were withdrawing our suit, that we had as little faith in the judicial system in this country as we had in the political system. He said, “Be careful, young man. I will find a place for you to sleep.” And I thanked him for that, said I had one, and left. We withdrew our suit. Then we had a press conference downstairs to explain the reasons for that. We explained to the press that we were

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leaving in our permit application but withdrawing our Federal injunction to sue the city. We said it was a bit futile to end up before a judge, Judge Lynch, who was the ex-law partner of Mayor Daley, that the Federal judges were closely tied in with the Daley and Democratic political machine in Chicago and that we could have little recourse of grievance. Furthermore, that we suspected that the judge would order us not to go into Lincoln Park at all and that if we did, that we would be in violation of contempt of court, and that it was a setup, and Judge Lynch planned to lynch us in the same way that Stahl was stalling us. I pointed out that the names in this thing were getting really absurd, similarities. I also read a list of Yippie demands that I had written that morning—sort of Yippie philosophy. MR. WEINGLASS: Now, will you read for the Court and jury the ­eighteen demands first, then the postscript. THE WITNESS: I will read it in the order that I wrote it. “Revolution toward a free society, Yippie, by A. Yippie. “This is a personal statement. There are no spokesmen for the Yippies. We are all our own leaders. We realize this list of demands is inconsistent. They are not really demands. For people to make demands of the Democratic Party is an exercise in wasted wish fulfillment. If we have a demand, it is simply and emphatically that they, along with their fellow inmates in the Republican Party, cease to exist. We demand a society built along the alternative community in Lincoln Park, a society based on humanitarian cooperation and equality, a society which allows and promotes the creativity present in all people and especially our youth. “Number one. An immediate end to the war in Vietnam and a restructuring of our foreign policy which totally eliminates aspects of military, economic and cultural imperialism; the withdrawal of all foreign based troops and the abolition of military draft. “Two. An immediate freedom for Huey Newton of the Black Panthers and all other black people; adoption of the community control concept in our ghetto areas; an end to the cultural and economic domination of minority groups. “Three. The legalization of marijuana and all other psychedelic drugs; the freeing of all prisoners currently imprisoned on narcotics charges. “Number four. A prison system based on the concept of rehabilitation rather than punishment.

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“Five. A judicial system which works towards the abolition of all laws related to crimes without victims; that is, retention only of laws relating to crimes in which there is an unwilling injured party: i.e. murder, rape, or assault. “Six. The total disarmament of all the people beginning with the police. This includes not only guns but such brutal vices as tear gas, Mace, electric prods, blackjacks, billy clubs, and the like. “Seven. The abolition of money, the abolition of pay housing, pay media, pay transportation, pay food, pay education, pay clothing, pay medical health, and pay toilets. “Eight. A society which works towards and actively promotes the concept of full unemployment, a society in which people are free from the drudgery of work, adoption of the concept ‘Let the machines do it.’ “Number ten. A program of ecological development that would provide incentives for the decentralization of crowded cities and encourage rural living. “Eleven. A program which provides not only free birth control information and devices, but also abortions when desired. “Twelve. A restructured educational system which provides a student power to determine his course of study, student participation in over-all policy planning; an educational system which breaks down its barriers between school and community; a system which uses the surrounding community as a classroom so that students may learn directly the problems of the people. “Number thirteen. The open and free use of the media; a program which actively supports and promotes cable television as a method of increasing the selection of channels available to the viewer. “Fourteen. An end to all censorship. We are sick of a society that has no hesitation about showing people committing violence and refuses to show a couple fucking. “Fifteen. We believe that people should fuck all the time, any time, wherever they wish. This is not a programmed demand but a simple ­recognition of the reality around its. “Sixteen. A political system which is more streamlined and responsive to the needs of all the people regardless of age. sex, or race; perhaps a national referendum system conducted via television or a telephone voting system; perhaps a decentralization of -power and authority with many varied tribal groups, groups in which people exist in a state of basic trust and are free to choose their tribe.

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“Seventeen. A program that encourages and promotes the arts. However, we feel that if the free society we envision were to be sought for and achieved, all of us would actualize the creativity within us; in a very real sense we would have a society in which every man would be an artist.’ And eighteen was left blank for anybody to fill in what they wanted. “It was for these reasons that we had come to Chicago, it was for these reasons that many of us may fight and die here. We recognize this as the vision of the founders of this nation. We recognize that we are America; we recognize that we are free men. The present-day politicians and their armies of automatons have selfishly robbed us of our birthright. The evilness they stand for will go unchallenged no longer. Political pigs, your days are numbered. We are the second American Revolution. We shall win. “YIPPIE.” MR. WEINGLASS: When you used the words “fight and die here,” in what context were you using those words? THE WITNESS: It is a metaphor. That means that we felt strongly about our right to assemble in the park and that people should be willing to take risks for it. It doesn’t spell it out because people were capable of fighting in their own way and making their own decisions and We never would tell anyone specifically that they should fight, fistfight. MR. WEINGLASS: Did you during the week of the Convention and the period of time immediately before the Convention tell any person singly or in groups that they should fight in the park? MR. SCHULTZ: Objection. THE COURT: I sustain the objection. MR. WEINGLASS: Directing your attention to the morning of August 19, 1968, did you attend a meeting on that day? THE WITNESS: Yes. I went to the office of the Mobilization Committee. MR. WEINGLASS: Was there a discussion? THE WITNESS: I never stayed long at these meetings. I just went and made an announcement and maybe stayed ten or fifteen minutes. . . . MR. WEINGLASS: Was there a course given in snake dancing on that day also?

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THE WITNESS: Yes. Yes. People would have a pole and there would be about six people, and then about six people behind them, holding them around the waist, four or five lines of these people with men, women, and kids maybe eight years old in on this whole thing, and people would bounce from one foot to the other and yell “Wash oi, Wash oi,” which is kind of Japanese for “Yippie,” I guess. And they would just march up and down the park like this, mostly laughing and giggling, because the newsmen were taking this quite seriously, and then at a certain point everybody would turn in and sort of just collapse and fall on the ground and laugh. I believe we lost about four or five Yippies during that great training. The exciting part was when the police arrested two army intelligence officers in the trees. MR. WEINGLASS: During the course of that day when you were in the park, did you notice that the police were hanging any signs in the park? THE WITNESS: Late in the day, maybe four or five, I became aware that there were police nailing signs on the trees that said “11:00 p.m. curfew,” maybe a few other words, but that was the gist of the signs. MR. WEINGLASS: From Friday, August 23, on to the end of Convention week, did you ever discuss with any people the question of staying in the park after the curfew hours? THE WITNESS: At a meeting on August 24, that subject came up, and there was lengthy discussion. . . MR. WEINGLASS: Now, did you hear Jerry Rubin speak at that meeting? THE WITNESS: Jerry said that the park wasn’t worth fighting for; that we should leave at the eleven p.m. curfew. He said that we should put out a statement to that effect. MR. WEINGLASS: And did you speak at that meeting? THE WITNESS: I reported on a meeting that morning with Chief Lynskey. I had asked the Chicago cops who were tailing me to take me to Chief Lynskey who was in charge of the area of Lincoln Park. I went up to the chief and said, “Well, are you going to let us have the Festival?” He said “No festival under any circumstances. If anybody breaks one city ordinance in that park, we clear the whole park.” He said, “You do any one thing wrong and I will arrest you on sight.”

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He said, “Why don’t you try to kick me in the shins right now?” And I said NBC wasn’t there. And he said, “Well, at least the kid’s honest,” and stuff like that. Then I gave a speech to the police that were all assembled and I said, “Have a good time.” I said, “The National Guard’s coming in, they’re probably going to whip you guys up, and I hope your walkie-talkies work better than ours,” and stuff like that. And I just walked out. Then we discussed what we were going to do. I said it was my feeling that Chicago was in a total state of anarchy as far as the police mentality worked. I said that we were going to have to fight for every single thing, we were going to have to fight for the electricity, we were going to have to fight to have the stage come in, we were going to have to fight for every rock musician to play, that the whole week was going to be like that. I said that we should proceed with the festival as planned, we should try to do everything that we had come to Chicago to do, even though the police and the city officials were standing in our way. MR. WEINGLASS: During the course of this Saturday and prior to this meeting, did you have occasion to meet Irv Bock in the park? THE WITNESS: Oh, I met Irv Bock Saturday afternoon during some of the marshal training. Marshal training is a difficult phrase to use for Yippies. We always have a reluctance to marshals because they are ­telling people what to do and we were more anarchistic than that, more leaderless. I sort of bumped into Irv Bock. I showed him a—it wasn’t a gas mask but it was a thing with two plastic eyes and a little piece of leather that I got, I purchased in an army-navy store for about nineteen cents, and I said that these would be good protection against Mace. He started running down to me all this complicated military jargon and I looked at him and said, “Irv, you’re a cop, ain’t you?” He sort of smiled and said, “No, I’m not.” “Come on,” I said, “We don’t grow peaceniks that big. We are all quarterbacks. You’ve got to be a cop.’’ I said, “Show me your wallet.” So he said, “No, no. Don’t you trust me?” So I said, “Irv,” I said, “last night there was a guy running around my house with a pistol trying to kill me,” that I had twenty threats that week, and at that point I didn’t trust Jerry Rubin. . . .

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MR. WEINGLASS: Directing your attention to approximately two o’clock in the morning, which would now be Monday morning, do you recall what you were doing? THE WITNESS: I made a telephone call to David Stahl, Deputy Mayor of Chicago at his home. I had his home number. I said, “Hi, Dave. How’s it going? Your police got to be the dumbest and the most brutal in the country,” I said. “The decision to drive people out of the park in order to protect the City was about the dumbest military tactic since the Trojans let the Trojan horse inside the gate and there was nothing to be compared with that stupidity.” I again pleaded with him to let people stay in the park the following night. “There will be more people coming Monday, Tuesday, and subsequently Wednesday night,” I said, “and they should be allowed to sleep.” I said that he ought to intercede with the Police Department. I said to him that the City officials, in particular his boss, Daley, were totally out of their minds. I said, “I read in the paper the day before that they had 2,000 troops surrounding the reservoirs in order to protect against the Yippie plot to dump LSD in the drinking water. There isn’t a kid in the country,” I said, “never mind a Yippie, who thinks that such a thing could be done.” I told him to check with all the scientists at the University of ­Chicago-—he owned them all. He said that he knew it couldn’t be done, but they weren’t taking any chances anyway . . . . MR. WEINGLASS: Can you tell the Court and jury where you were in Lincoln Park at approximately 11:30 Monday night? THE WITNESS: I was walking through the barricade, my wife Anita and I. MR. WEINGLASS: Did you see Allen Ginsberg at the barricade? THE WITNESS: Yes. He was kneeling. There was a crowd of people around. He was playing that instrument that he plays and people were chanting. There was a police car that would come by and I believe it was making announcements and people would yell at the police car, you know, “Beat it. Get out. The parks belong to the people. Oink Oink. Pig Pig. Pigs are coming. Peace Now.”

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People were waving flags. People were running around being scared and people were running around sort of joyous. I mean, it was strange, different emotions. It was very dark in that place. MR. SCHULTZ: The witness is not answering the question any more. He is giving another essay. I object. MR. WEINGLASS: When the police finally came to the barricade, from what direction did they come? THE WITNESS: They came in through the zoo. They proceeded to climb and immediately started to club people. They were throwing parts of the barricade, trashcans, at people. MR. WEINGLASS: Now, at the time the police came to the barricade what did you do? THE WITNESS: Well, I was coughing and spitting because there was tear gas totally flooding the air, cannisters were exploding all around me—I  moved with the people out this way, out of the park trying to duck, picking up people that were being clubbed, getting off the ground myself a few times. The police were just coming through in this wedge, solid wedge, clubbing people right and left, and I tried to get out of the park. MR. WEINGLASS: Directing your attention to approximately six o’clock the following morning, do you recall where you were? THE WITNESS: I got in the car of the police that were following me and asked them to take me to the beach—the beach part of Lincoln Park. MR. WEINGLASS: What was occurring when you got there? THE WITNESS: Allen Ginsberg and about—oh 150-200 people were kneeling, most of the people in lotus position which is a position with their legs crossed like this—chanting and praying and meditating. There were five or six police cars on the boardwalk right in back, and there were police surrounding the group. Dawn was breaking. It was very cold, very chilly. People had a number of blankets wrapped around them, sitting in a circle. I went and sat next to Allen and chanted and prayed for about an hour. Then I talked to the group. People would give talks about their feelings of what was going on in Chicago. I said, “I am very sad about what has happened in Chicago.

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“What is going on here is very beautiful, but it won’t be in the evening news that night. “The American mass media is a glutton for violence, and it would be only shots of what was happening in the streets of Chicago.” I said, “America can’t be changed by people sitting and praying, and this is an unfortunate reality that we have to face.” I said that we were a community that had to learn how to survive, that we had seen what had happened the last few nights in Lincoln Park. We had seen the destruction of the Festival. I said, “I will never again tell people to sit quietly and pray for change.”. . . MR. WEINGLASS: Now, directing your attention to approximately 6:00 A.M. the following morning, Wednesday, August 28, do you recall what you were doing? THE WITNESS: I went to eat. I went with Paul Krassner, Beverly Baskinger, and Anita and four police officers—Paul also had two Chicago police officers following him, as well as the two that were following me. We walked and the four of them would drive along behind us. MR. WEINGLASS: Could you describe for the jury and the Court what you were wearing at that time? THE WITNESS: Well, I had cowboy boots, and brown pants and a shirt, and I had a grey felt ranger cowboy type hat down over my eyes, like this. MR.WEINGLASS: What, if anything occurred while you were sitting there having breakfast? THE WITNESS: Well, two policemen came in and said, “We have orders to arrest you. You have something under your hat.” So I asked them if they had a search warrant and I said ‘Did you check it out with Commander Braasch? Me and him got an agreement”—and they went to check it out with him, while we were eating breakfast. MR. WEINGLASS: After a period of time, did they come back? THE WITNESS: They came back with more police officers—there were about four or five patrol cars surrounding the restaurant. The Red Squad cops who had been following us came in the restaurant, four or five police, and they said, “We checked. Now will you take off your hat?” They were stern, more serious about it.

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MR. WEINGLASS: What did you do? THE WITNESS: Well, I lifted up the hat and I went “Bang! Bang!” They grabbed me by the jacket and pulled me across the bacon and eggs and Anita over the table, threw me on the floor and out the door and threw me against the car, and they handcuffed me. I was just eating the bacon and going “Oink Oink!” MR. WEINGLASS: Did they tell you why you were being arrested? THE WITNESS: They said they arrested me because I had the word “Fuck” on my forehead. I had put it on with this magic marker before we left the house. They called it an “obscenary.” I put it on for a couple of reasons, One was that I was tired of seeing my picture in the paper and having newsmen come around, and I know if you got that word on your forehead they ain’t going to print your picture in the paper. Secondly, it sort of summed up my attitude about the whole thing—what was going on in Chicago. I like that four letter word—I thought it was kind of holy, actually. MR. WEINGLASS: Abbie Hoffman, prior to coming to Chicago, from April 1968 on to the week of the Convention, did you enter into an agreement with David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner or Rennie Davis, to come to the city of Chicago for the purpose of encouraging and promoting violence during the Convention week? THE WITNESS: An agreement? MR. WEINGLASS: Yes. THE WITNESS: We couldn’t agree on lunch. MR. WEINGLASS: I have no further questions. THE COURT: Cross-examine. MR. SCHULTZ: Thank you, your Honor. . . . MR. SCHULTZ: Did you see numerous instances of people attacking the Guardsmen at the Pentagon, Mr. Hoffman? THE WITNESS. I don not believe that I saw any instances of people attacking National Guardsmen. In fact, the attitude was one of comradeship. They would talk to the National Guardsmen continuously and tell them they were not the people that they had come to confront, that they were their brothers and you don’t get people to oppose [their ways] by attacking them.

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MR. SCHULTZ: Mr. Hoffman, the Guards and the troops were trying to  keep the people from entering into the Pentagon for two days, isn’t that right? THE WITNESS: I assume that they were there to guard the Pentagon from rising in the air possibly. I mean, who knows what they are there for? Were you there? You probably watched it on television and got a different impression of what was happening. That is one aspect of myth-making—you can envisualize hoardes and hoardes of people when in reality that was not what happened. MR SCHULTZ: Did you see some people urinate on the Pentagon? THE WITNESS: On the Pentagon itself? MR. SCHULTZ: Or at the Pentagon? THE WITNESS: There were over 100,000 people. People have that ­biological habit, you know. MR. SCHULTZ: Did you symbolically urinate on the Pentagon, Mr. Hoffman? THE WITNESS: I symbolically urinate on the Pentagon? MR. SCHULTZ: Yes. THE WITNESS: I didn’t get that close. Pee on the walls of the Pentagon? You are getting to be out of sight, actually. You think there is a law against it? MR. SCHULTZ: Are you done, Mr. Hoffman? THE WITNESS: I am done when you are. MR. SCHULTZ: Did you ever state that a sense of integration possesses you and comes from pissing on the Pentagon? THE WITNESS: I said from combining political attitudes with biological necessity, there is a sense of integration, yes. MR. SCHULTZ: You had a good time at the Pentagon, didn’t you. Mr. Hoffman? THE WITNESS: Yes I did. I’m having a good time now too. I feel that biological necessity now. Could I be excused for a slight recess?

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THE COURT: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we will take a brief recess. (brief recess) MR. SCHULTZ: On the seventh of August, you told David Stahl that at your liberated area you— THE WITNESS: What meeting was this, August 7? MR. SCHULTZ: That’s when you just flew in from New York. THE WITNESS: Crossing state lines— MR. SCHULTZ: At this meeting on the evening of August 7, you told Mr. Stahl that you were going to have nude-ins in your liberated zone, didn’t you? THE WITNESS: A nude-in? I don’t believe I would use that phrase, no. I don’t think it’s very poetic, frankly. I might have told him that ten thousand people were going to walk naked on the waters of Lake Michigan, something like that. MR. SCHULTZ: You told him, did you not, Mr. Hoffman, that in your liberated zone, you would have— THE WITNESS: I’m not even sure what it is, a nude-in. MR. SCHULTZ: —public fornication. THE WITNESS: If it means ten thousand people, naked people, walking on Lake Michigan, yes. MR.KUNSTLER: I object to this because Mr.Schultz is acting like a dirty old man. MR. SCHULTZ: We are not going into dirty old men. If they are going to have nude-ins and public fornication, the City officials react to that, and I am establishing through this witness that that’s what be did. THE COURT: Do you object? MR. KUNSTLER: I am just remarking, your Honor, that a young man can be a dirty old man. THE WITNESS: I don’t mind talking about it. THE COURT: I could make an observation. I have seen some exhibits here that are not exactly exemplary documents.

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MR. KUNSTLER: But they are, your Honor, only from your point of viewmaking a dirty word of something that can be beautiful and lovely, and— MR. SCHULTZ: We are not litigating here, your Honor, whether sexual intercourse is beautiful or not. We are litigating whether or not the City could permit tens of thousands of people to come in and do in their parks what this man said they were going to do. In getting people to Chicago you created your Yippie myth, isn’t that right? And part of your myth was “We’ll burn Chicago to the ground,” isn’t that right? THE WITNESS: It was part of the myth that there were trainloads of dynamite headed for Chicago, it was part of the myth that they were going to form white vigilante groups and round up demonstrators. All these things were part of the myth. A myth is a process of telling stories, most of which ain’t true. MR. SCHULTZ: Mr. Hoffman— Your Honor, Mr. Davis is having a very fine time here whispering at me. He has been doing it for the last twenty minutes. He moved up here when I started the examination so he could whisper in my ear. I would ask Mr. Davis, if he cannot be quiet, to move to another part of the table so that he will stop distracting me. THE COURT: Try not to speak too loudly, Mr. Davis. MR. DAVIS: Yes, sir. THE COURT: Go ahead. THE WITNESS: Go ahead, Dick. MR. SCHULTZ: Didn’t you state, Mr. Hoffman, that part of the myth that was being created to get people to come to Chicago was that “We will fuck on the beaches”? THE WITNESS: Yes, me and Marshall McLuhan. Half of that quote was from Marshall McLuhan. MR. SCHULTZ: “And there will be acid for all” —that was another one of your Yippie myths, isn’t that right? THE WITNESS: That was well known. MR. SCHULTZ: By the way, was there any acid in Lincoln Park in Chicago?

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THE WITNESS: In the reservoir, in the lake? MR. SCHULTZ: No, among the people. THE WITNESS: Well, there might have been, I don’t know. It is colorless, odorless, tasteless. One can never tell. . . . MR. SCHULTZ: The fact is, Mr. Hoffman, that what you were trying to do was to create a situation where the State and the United States Government would have to bring in the Army and bring in the National Guard during the Convention in order to protect the delegates so that it would appear that the Convention had to be held under military conditions, isn’t that a fact, Mr. Hoffman? THE WITNESS: You can do that with a yo-yo in this country. It’s quite easy. You can see just from this courtroom. Look at all the troops around— MR. SCHULTZ: Your Honor, may the answer be stricken? THE COURT: Yes, it may go out. . . . MR. SCHULTZ: Mr. Hoffman, in the afternoon on that Thursday you participated ;in a march, and then you laid down in front of an armored personnel carrier at the end of that march, at 16th or 19th on Michigan, laid down on the street? THE WITNESS: Was that what it was? I thought it was a tank. It looked like a tank. Do you want me to show you how I did it? Laid down in front of the tank? MR. SCHULTZ: All right, Mr. Hoffman. Did you make any gestures of any sort? THE WITNESS: When I was laying down? See. I went like that, lying down in front of the tank. I had seen Czechoslovakian students do it to Russian tanks. MR. SCHULTZ: And then you saw a Chicago police officer who appeared to be in high command because of all the things he had on his shoulders come over to the group and start leading them back toward Grant Park, didn’t you? THE WITNESS: He came and then people left—and went back to the park, yes.

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MR. SCHULTZ: Did you say to anybody, “Well, you see that cat?”, pointing to Deputy Superintendent Rochford. “When we get to the top of the hill, if the cat doesn’t talk right, we’re going to hold him there, and then we can do whatever we want and the police won’t bother us.” Did you say that to anybody out there, Mr. Hoffman? MR. WEINGLASS: That’s the testimony of the intelligence officer, the intelligence police officer of the Chicago Police Department. THE WITNESS: I asked the Chicago police officers to help me kidnap Deputy Superintendent Rochford? That’s pretty weird. MR. SCHULTZ: Isn’t it a fact that you announced publicly a plan to kidnap the head pig— THE WITNESS: Cheese, wasn’t it? MR. SCHULTZ: —and then snuff him— THE WITNESS: I thought it was “cheese.” MR. SCHULTZ: —and then snuff him if other policemen touched you? Isn’t that a fact, sir? THE WITNESS: I do not believe that I used the reference of “pig” to any policemen in Chicago including some of the top cheeses. I did not use it during that week. . . MR. SCHULTZ: You and Albert, Mr. Hoffman, were united in Chicago in your determination to smash the system by using any means at your disposal, isn’t that right? THE WITNESS: Did I write that? MR. SCHULTZ: No, did you have that thought? THE WITNESS: That thought? Is a thought like a dream? If I dreamed to smash the system, that’s a thought. Yes, I had that thought. THE COURT: Mr. Witness, you may not interrogate the lawyer who is examining you. THE WITNESS: Judge, you have always told people to describe what they see or what they hear. I’m the only one that has to describe what I think. MR. WEINGLASS: I object to any reference to what a person thought or his being tried for what he thought. He may be tried for his intent.

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THE COURT: Overrule the objection. THE WITNESS: Well, I had a lot of dreams at night. One of the dreams might have been that me and Stew were united. MR. SCHULTZ: Mr. Hoffman, isn’t it a fact that one of the reasons why you came to Chicago was simply to wreck American society? THE WITNESS: My feeling at the time, and still is, that society is going to wreck itself. I said that on a number of occasions, that our role is to survive while the society comes tumbling down around us; our role is to survive. We have to learn how to defend ourselves, given this type of society, because of the war in Vietnam, because of racism, because of the attack on the cultural revolution—in fact because of this trial. MR. SCHULTZ: Mr. Hoffman, by Thursday, the twenty-ninth, the last day of the Convention, you knew you had smashed the Democrats’ chances for victory, isn’t that a fact? THE WITNESS: No. My attitude was it was a type of psychic jujitsu where the people smash themselves—or the party wrecks themselves. The same way this trial is. MR. SCHULTZ: By Thursday there was no doubt in your mind when you saw the acceptance speech that you had won, and there would be a pig in the White House in ’69? THE WITNESS: Well, that was our role in coming here, to nominate a pig. That pig did win. He didn’t actually—which one did? MR. SCHULTZ: And you went out for champagne, and you brought it back to Mobilization headquarters and toasted the revolution, you did just that, right? THE WITNESS: We drank some champagne. It was warm, warm champagne. MR. SCHULTZ: And toasted to your success, to your victory, isn’t that right? THE WITNESS: We toasted to the fact that we were still alive. That was the miracle as far as I saw it, is still being alive by that last Thursday.

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MR. SCHULTZ: That’s all, your Honor. THE WITNESS: Right on! THE COURT: Have you finished your cross-examination? MR. SCHULTZ: Yes, I have. THE WITNESS: Right on!

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Yippie Workshop Speech Abbie Hoffman (1968)

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ops are like Yippies-you can never find the ­leaders . . . You just let ’em know that you’re stronger psychically than they are. And you are, because you came here for nothin’ and they’re holdin’ on to their fuckin’ pig jobs ‘cause of that little fuckin’ paycheck and workin’ themselves up, you know. Up to what? To a fuckin’ ulcer. Sergeant. We got them by the balls. The whole thing about guerrilla theatre is gettin’ them to believe it. Right. Theatre, guerrilla theatre, can be used as defense and as an offensive weapon. I mean, I think like people could survive naked, see. I think you could take all your fuckin’ clothes off, a cop won’t hit ya. You jump in Lake Michigan, he won’t go after you, but people are too chickenshit to do that. It can be used as an offensive and defensive weapon, like blood. We had a demonstration in New York. We had seven gallons of blood in little plastic bags. You know, if you convince ‘em you’re crazy enough, they won’t hurt ya. With the blood thing, cop goes to hit you, right, you have a bag of blood in your hand. He lifts his stick up, you take your bag of blood and go whack over your own head. All this blood pours out, see. Fuckin’ cop standin’. Now that says a whole lot more than a picket sign that says end the war in wherever the fuck it is you know. I mean in that demonstration, there was a fuckin’ war there. People came down and looked and said holy shit I don’t know what it is, blood all over the fuckin’ place, smokebombs goin’ off, flares, you know, tape recorders with the sounds of machine guns, cops on horses tramplin’ Christmas shoppers. It was a fuckin’ war. And they say, right, I know what the fuck you’re talkin’ about. You’re talkin’ about war. What the fuck has a picket line got to do with war? But people that are into a very literal bag, like 289

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that heavy word scene, you know, don’t understand the use of communication in this country and the use of media. I mean, if they give a ten-page speech against imperialism, everybody listens and understands and says yeah. But you throw fuckin’ money out on the Stock Exchange, and people get that right away. And they say, right, I understand what that’s about. And if they don’t know what you’re doin’, fuck ‘em. Who cares? Take this, see, you use blank space as information. You carry a sign that says END THE. You don’t need the next word, you just carry a sign that says END, you know. That’s enough. I mean the Yippie symbol is Y. So you say, why, man, why, why? Join the Y, bring your sneakers, bring your helmet, right, bring your thing, whatever you got. Y, you say to the Democrats, baby, Y that’s not a V it’s a Y. You can do a whole lotta shit. Steal it, steal the V, it’s a Y. It’s up the revolution like that. Keeping your cool and having good wits is your strongest defense. If you don’t want it on TV, write the work “FUCK” on your head, see, and that won’t get on TV, right? But that’s where theatre is at, it’s TV. I mean our thing’s for TV. We don’t want to get on Meet the Press. What’s that shit? We want Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson show, we want the shit where people are lookin’ at it and diggin’ it. They’re talking about reachin’ the troops in Viet Nam so they write in The Guardian! [An independent radical newsweekly published in New York.] That’s groovy. I’ve met a lot of soldiers who read The Guardian, you know. But we’ve had articles in Jaguar magazine, Cavalier, you know, National Enquirer interviews the Queen of the Yippies, someone nobody ever heard of and she runs a whole riff about the Yippies and Viet Nam or whatever her thing is and the soldiers get it and dig it and smoke a little grass and say yeah I can see where she’s at. That’s why the long hair. I mean shit, you know, long hair is just another prop. You go on TV and you can say anything you want but the people are lookin’ at you and they’re lookin’ at the cat next to you like David Susskind or some guy like that and they’re sayin’ hey man there’s a choice, I can see it loud and clear. But when they look at a guy from the Mobilization [against the War in Vietnam] and they look at David Susskind, they say well I don’t know, they seem to be doing the same thing, can’t understand what they’re doin’. See, Madison Avenue people think like that. That’s why a lot SDS’s don’t like what we’re doin’. ‘Cause they say we’re like exploiting; we’re usin’ the tools of Madison Ave. But that’s because Madison Ave. is effective in what it does. They know what the fuck they’re doin’. Meet the Press, Face the Nation,

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Issues and Answers-all those bullshit shows, you know, where you get a Democrat and a Republican arguin’ right back and forth, this and that, this and that, yeah yeah. But at the end of the show nobody changes their fuckin’ mind, you see. But they’re tryin’ to push Brillo, you see, that’s good, you ought to use Brillo, see, and ‘bout every ten minutes on will come a three-minute thing of Brillo. Brillo is a revolution, man, Brillo is sex, Brillo is fun, Brillo is bl bl bl bl bl bl bl bl. At the end of the show people ain’t fuckin’ switchin’ from Democrat to Republicans or Commies, you know, the right-wingers or any of that shit. They’re buying Brillo! And the reason they have those boring shows is because they don’t want to get out any information that’ll interfere with Brillo. I mean, can you imagine if they had the Beatles goin’ zing zing zing zing zing zing zing, all that jump and shout, you know, and all of a sudden they put on an ad where the guy comes on very straight: “You ought to buy Brillo because it’s rationally the correct decision and it’s part of the American political process and it’s the right way to do things.” You know, fuck, they’ll buy the Beatles, they won’t buy the Brillo. We taped a thing for the David Susskind Show. As he said the word hippie, a live duck came out with “HIPPIE” painted on it. The duck flew up in the air and shat on the floor and ran all around the room. The only hippie in the room, there he is. And David went crazy. ‘Cause David, see, he’s New York Times head, he’s not Daily News freak. And he said the duck is out and blew it. We said, we’ll see you David, goodnight. He say, oh no no. We’ll leave the duck in. And we watched the show later when it came on, and the fuckin’ duck was all gone. He done never existed. And I called up Susskind and went quack quack quack, you motherfucker, that was the best piece of information: that was a hippie. And everything we did, see, non-verbally, he cut out. Like he said, “How do you eat?” and we fed all the people, you know. But he cut that out. He wants to deal with the words. You know, let’s play word games, let’s analyze it. Soon as you analyze it, it’s dead, it’s over. You read a book and say well now I understand it, and go back to sleep. The media distorts. But it always works to our advantage. They say there’s low numbers, right? 4000, 5000 people here. That’s groovy. Think of it, 4000 people causin’ all this trouble. If you asked me, red say there are four Yippies. I’d say we’re bringin’ another four on Wednesday. That’s good, that freaks ‘em out. They’re lookin’ around. Only four. I mean I saw that trip with the right wing and the Communist conspiracy. You

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know, you’d have 5000 people out there at the HUAC demonstrations eight years ago in San Francisco and they’d say there are five Communists in the crowd, you know. And they did it all. You say, man that’s pretty cool. So you just play on their paranoia like that. Yeah, there’re four guys out around there doin’ a thing. So distortion’s gonna backfire on them, ‘cause all of a sudden Wednesday by magic there are gonna be 200,000 fuckin’ people marchin’ on that amphitheater. That’s how many we’re gonna have. And they’ll say, “Wow. From 4000 up to 200,000. Those extra four Yippies did a hell of a good job.” I dig that, see. I’m not interested in explainin’ my way of life to straight people or people that aren’t interested. They never gonna understand it anyway and I couldn’t explain it anyway. All I know is, in terms of images and how words are used as images to shape your environment, the New York Times is death to us. That’s the worst fuckin’ paper as far as the Yippies are concerned. They say, “Members of the so-called Youth International Party held a demonstration today.” That ain’t nothin’. What fuckin’ people read that? They fall asleep. ‘Cause the New York Times has all the news that’s fit to print, you know, so once they have all the news, what do the people have to do? They just read the New York Times and drink their coffee and go back to work, you know. But the Daily News, that’s a TV set. Look at it, I mean look at the picture right up front and the way they blast those headlines. You know, “Yippies, sex-loving, dope-loving, commie, beatnik, hippie, freako, weirdos.” That’s groovy, man, that’s a whole life style, that’s a whole thing to be, man. I mean you want to get in on that. When we stormed the Pentagon, my wife and I we leaped over this fence, see. We were really stoned, I mean I was on acid flying away, which of course is an antirevolutionary drug you know, you can’t do a thing on it. I’ve been on acid ever since I came to Chicago. It’s in the form of honey. We got a lab guy doin’ his thing. I think he might have got assassinated, I ain’t seen him today. Well, so we jumped this here fence, see, we were sneaking through the woods and people were out to get the Pentagon. We had this flag, it said NOW with a big wing on it, I don’t know. The rightwingers said there was definitely evidence of Communist conspiracy ‘cause of that flag, I don’t know what the fuck it was. So we had Uncle Sam hats on, you know, and we jumped over the fence and we’re surrounded by marshals, you know, just closin’ us in, about 30 marshals around us. And I plant the fuckin’ flag and I said, “I claim this land in the name of free America. We are Mr. and Mrs. America. Mrs. America’s

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pregnant.” And we sit down and they’re goin’ fucking crazy. I mean we got arrested and unarrested like six or seven times. And when we finally got arrested, it was under other names. I’m really a digger, I never was a Yippie. Was always a digger. So I said, you know, A. Digger, Abbie Digger, Mr. and Mrs. A. Digger. They say are you a boy or a girl, I say girl. Right. This is where I wanna go. I don’t have to prove manliness by beatin’ up 14-year-old girls with nightsticks, you know. Fuck ‘em. But ideas, you just get stoned, get the ideas in your head and then do ‘em. And don’t bullshit. I mean that’s the thing about doin’ that guerrilla theatre. You be prepared to die to prove your point. You gotta die. You know, what’s life? Life’s all that fun shit. Life’s doin’ what you want to do. Life’s an American magazine, and if we hook them right, they’re gonna give us 10,000 flowers that are gonna be thrown out of a helicopter tomorrow afternoon. But we’ll only allow them to do it if they bring a newsreel person up in the helicopter with ‘em. You know, to take the pictures. So we’re workin’ out that negotiation with Life magazine. ‘Cause we said, you know, it’s called Festival of Life, man, we named it after your magazine. I know that’s immoral and I know that’s cheatin’ and that’s stealin’. I wish I was a revolutionist. I wouldn’t have these problems. A lot of revolutionists come here, they worry about parking the car. Where we gonna park the car, should we park it in a meter? The meter’ll run out, we’ll get a ticket. It’s a weird revolution. Fuck it. We don’t need cars; we travel in wheelbarrows. You see, just worry about your ass. Forget about your clothes, your money, you know, just worry about your ass and all the rest of us’s asses. Cars don’t mean shit. They grab our walkie-talkies you say yeah, there you go, take it, thank you, it was too heavy to carry. Well, I’ve shot my load. I’m for ending the Yippie thing Thursday, ­killin’ it all, ?cause I don’t think people are Yippies anymore than they’re Mobe or Motherfuckers or whatever they are. They’re just people. And I think we oughta burn all our Yippie buttons and laugh at the fuckin’ press and say nyah nyah, we took you for a fuckin’ ride. That’s what we figured when we started this thing back in December-just a couple of speedfreaks hangin’ around the cellar sayin’ now how are we gonna do this Chicago trip? We ain’t got no fuckin’ money, you know, we ain’t got no organization, we ain’t got no constituency. We went to a New Left meeting, they said where’s your constituency, you can’t talk here, you know, you ain’t against imperialism. I said, man, I don’t want any pay

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toilets in this fuckin’ country, I don’t want to pay a dime to take a shit. SDS doesn’t consider that relevant. That’s the trouble with the Left you know. Did a trip on a Socialist Scholars Conference, a couple of Hell’s Angels guys and I, we went up and had a capgun fight in the Hotel Hilton where the Left has their conferences, it’s very interesting. So the heads of the Hilton and the heads of the socialists were gettin’ together to decide how to throw us speedfreaks out of the fuckin’ place, see. But they didn’t, I mean, we stayed to do our thing. The problem with the Left is that there are 10,000 socialist scholars in this country and not one fuckin’ socialist. I mean I talk to guys on The Guardian and they say yeah, we’re working on a serious analysis of the Yippies. I say, that’s pretty fuckin’ cool, man, that’s great. By that time there won’t be any Yippies. I mean, what the fuck are you analyzin’ for, man, get in and do it. The complete workshop speech from which this is taken is part of the evidence being used to indict Abbie Hoffman along with Rennie Davis, Dave Dellinger, John Froines, Torn Hayden, Bobby Seale, Jerry Rubin, and Lee Weiner for conspiracy to incite riots during the Democratic Convention. Their trial begins in Chicago on September 24, 1969 and each faces ten years in prison and $20,000 fine. We are told that funds and other assistance are badly needed. Persons interested in contributing should make checks payable to the Chicago Defense Fund, c/o The Conspiracy, 28 E. Jackson Blvd., Chicago, Illinois. Taped by Charles Harbutt.

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Address at the Public Memorial Service for Robert F. Kennedy Edward M. Kennedy, 8 June 1968 St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York

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our Eminences, Your Excellencies, Mr. President:

On behalf of Mrs. Kennedy, her children, the parents and sisters of Robert Kennedy, I want to express what we feel to those who mourn with us today in this Cathedral and around the world. We loved him as a brother, and as a father, and as a son. From his parents, and from his older brothers and sisters—Joe and Kathleen and Jack—he received an inspiration which he passed on to all of us. He gave us strength in time of trouble, wisdom in time of uncertainty, and sharing in time of happiness. He will always be by our side. Love is not an easy feeling to put into words. Nor is loyalty, or trust, or joy. But he was all of these. He loved life completely and he lived it intensely. A few years back, Robert Kennedy wrote some words about his own father which expresses [sic] the way we in his family felt about him. He said of what his father meant to him, and I quote: “What it really all adds up to is love—not love as it is described with such facility in popular magazines, but the kind of love that is affection and respect, order and encouragement, and support. Our awareness of this was an incalculable source of strength, and because real love is

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something unselfish and involves sacrifice and giving, we could not help but profit from it.”

And he continued, “Beneath it all, he has tried to engender a social conscience. There were wrongs which needed attention. There were people who were poor and needed help. And we have a responsibility to them and to this country. Through no virtues and accomplishments of our own, we have been fortunate enough to be born in the United States under the most comfortable conditions. We, therefore, have a responsibility to others who are less well off.”

That is what Robert Kennedy was given. What he leaves to us is what he said, what he did, and what he stood for. A speech he made to the young people of South Africa on their Day of Affirmation in 1966 sums it up the best, and I would like to read it now: “There is discrimination in this world and slavery and slaughter and starvation. Governments repress their people; millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere. These are differing evils, but they are the common works of man. They reflect the imperfection of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, our lack of sensibility towards the suffering of our fellows. But we can perhaps remember—even if only for a time—that those who live with us are our brothers; that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek—as we do—nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can. Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men. And surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again. The answer is to rely on youth—not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. The cruelties and obstacles

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of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to the obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. They cannot be moved by those who cling to a present that is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger that come with even the most peaceful progress. It is a revolutionary world we live in, and this generation at home and around the world has had thrust upon it a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived. Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills. Yet many of the world’s great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation; a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth; a young woman reclaimed the territory of France; and it was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and the 32 year-old Thomas Jefferson who [pro] claimed that “all men are created equal.” These men moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. *It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.* Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. And I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the moral conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the globe. For the fortunate among us, there is the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who enjoy the privilege of education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. Like it or not, we live

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in times of danger and uncertainty. But they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. All of us will ultimately be judged, and as the years pass we will surely judge ­ourselves on the effort we have contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which our ideals and goals have shaped that event. *The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society.* Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live.”

That is the way he lived. That is what he leaves us. My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: “Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not”.

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FBI files on Black Panthers in North Carolina

These records report the investigation of the Winston Salem, North Carolina, chapter of the Black Panther Party. All docments appear in their original format with government redactions intact.

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Bob Dylan’s Letter to the INS Defending John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Justice for John & Yoko! John and Yoko add a great voice and drive to the country’s so called ART INSTITUTION / They inspire and transcend and stimulate and by doing so, only help others to see pure light and in doing that, put an end to this mild dull taste of petty commercialism which is being passed off as ARTIST ART by the overpowering mass media. Hurray for John & Yoko. Let them stay and live here and breathe. The country’s got plenty of room and space. Let John and Yoko stay! Bob Dylan

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chapter seven

sex, women, and  family

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Speech Before Congress Carrie Chapman Catt, Washington, D.C., 1917

W

oman suffrage is inevitable. Suffragists knew it before November 4, 1917; opponents afterward. Three distinct causes made it inevitable. First, the history of our country. Ours is a nation born of revolution, of rebellion against a system of government so securely entrenched in the customs and traditions of human society that in 1776 it seemed impregnable. From the beginning of things, nations had been ruled by kings and for kings, while the people served and paid the cost. The American Revolutionists boldly proclaimed the heresies: “Taxation without representation is tyranny.” “Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The colonists won, and the nation which was established as a result of their victory has held unfailingly that these two fundamental principles of democratic government are not only the spiritual source of our national existence but have been our chief historic pride and at all times the sheet anchor of our liberties. Eighty years after the Revolution, Abraham Lincoln welded those two maxims into a new one: “Ours is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Fifty years more passed and the president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, in a mighty crisis of the nation, proclaimed to the world: “We are fighting for the things which we have always carried nearest to our hearts: for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government.” All the way between these immortal aphorisms political leaders have declared unabated faith in their truth. Not one American has arisen to question their logic in the 141 years of our national existence. However stupidly our country may have evaded the logical application at times, it 315

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has never swerved from its devotion to the theory of democracy as expressed by those two axioms . . . With such a history behind it, how can our nation escape the logic it has never failed to follow, when its last unenfranchised class calls for the vote? Behold our Uncle Sam floating the banner with one hand, “Taxation without representation is tyranny,” and with the other seizing the billions of dollars paid in taxes by women to whom he refuses “representation.” Behold him again, welcoming the boys of twenty-one and the newly made immigrant citizen to “a voice in their own government” while he denies that fundamental right of democracy to thousands of women public school teachers from whom many of these men learn all they know of citizenship and patriotism, to women college presidents, to women who preach in our pulpits, interpret law in our courts, preside over our hospitals, write books and magazines, and serve in every uplifting moral and social enterprise. Is there a single man who can justify such inequality of treatment, such outrageous discrimination? Not one . . . Second, the suffrage for women already established in the United States makes women suffrage for the nation inevitable. When Elihu Root, as president of the American Society of International Law, at the eleventh annual meeting in Washington, April 26, 1917, said, “The world cannot be half democratic and half autocratic. It must be all democratic or all Prussian. There can be no compromise,” he voiced a general truth. Precisely the same intuition has already taught the blindest and most hostile foe of woman suffrage that our nation cannot long continue a condition under which government in half its territory rests upon the consent of half of the people and in the other half upon the consent of all the people; a condition which grants representation to the taxed in half of its territory and denies it in the other half a condition which permits women in some states to share in the election of the president, senators, and representatives and denies them that privilege in others. It is too obvious to require demonstration that woman suffrage, now covering half our territory, will eventually be ordained in all the nation. No one will deny it. The only question left is when and how will it be completely established. Third, the leadership of the United States in world democracy compels the enfranchisement of its own women. The maxims of the Declaration were once called “fundamental principles of government.” They are now called “American principles” or even “Americanisms.” They have become

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the slogans of every movement toward political liberty the world around, of every effort to widen the suffrage for men or women in any land. Not a people, race, or class striving for freedom is there anywhere in the world that has not made our axioms the chief weapon of the struggle. More, all men and women the world around, with farsighted vision into the verities of things, know that the world tragedy of our day is not now being waged over the assassination of an archduke, nor commercial competition, nor national ambitions, nor the freedom of the seas. It is a death grapple between the forces which deny and those which uphold the truths of the Declaration of Independence . . . Do you realize that in no other country in the world with democratic tendencies is suffrage so completely denied as in a considerable number of our own states? There are thirteen black states where no suffrage for women exists, and fourteen others where suffrage for women is more limited than in many foreign countries. Do you realize that when you ask women to take their cause to state referendum you compel them to do this: that you drive women of education, refinement, achievement, to beg men who cannot read for their political freedom? Do you realize that such anomalies as a college president asking her janitor to give her a vote are overstraining the patience and driving women to desperation? Do you realize that women in increasing numbers indignantly resent the long delay in their enfranchisement? Your party platforms have pledged women suffrage. Then why not be honest, frank friends of our cause, adopt it in reality as your own, make it a party program, and “fight with us”? As a party measure—a measure of all parties—why not put the amendment through Congress and the legislatures? We shall all be better friends, we shall have a happier nation, we women will be free to support loyally the party of our choice, and we shall be far prouder of our history. “There is one thing mightier than kings and armies”—aye, than Congresses and political parties—“the power of an idea when its time has come to move.” The time for woman suffrage has come. The woman’s hour has struck. If parties prefer to postpone action longer and thus do battle with this idea, they challenge the inevitable. The idea will not perish; the party which opposes it may. Every delay, every trick, every political dishonesty from now on will antagonize the women of the land

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more and more, and when the party or parties which have so delayed woman suffrage finally let it come, their sincerity will be doubted and their appeal to the new voters will be met with suspicion. This is the psychology of the situation. Can you afford the risk? Think it over. We know you will meet opposition. There are a few “women haters” left, a few “old males of the tribe,” as Vance Thompson calls them, whose duty they believe it to be to keep women in the places they have carefully picked out for them. Treitschke, made world famous by war literature, said some years ago, “Germany, which knows all about Germany and France, knows far better what is good for Alsace-Lorraine than that miserable people can possibly know.” A few American Treitschkes we have who know better than women what is good for them. There are women, too, with “slave souls” and “clinging vines” for backbones. There are female dolls and male dandies. But the world does not wait for such as these, nor does liberty pause to heed the plaint of men and women with a grouch. She does not wait for those who have a special interest to serve, nor a selfish reason for depriving other people of freedom. Holding her torch aloft, liberty is pointing the way onward and upward and saying to America, “Come.” To you and the supporters of our cause in Senate and House, and the number is large, the suffragists of the nation express their grateful thanks. This address is not meant for you. We are more truly appreciative of all you have done than any words can express. We ask you to make a last, hard fight for the amendment during the present session. Since last we asked a vote on this amendment, your position has been fortified by the addition to suffrage territory of Great Britain, Canada, and New York. Some of you have been too indifferent to give more than casual attention to this question. It is worthy of your immediate consideration. A question big enough to engage the attention of our allies in wartime is too big a question for you to neglect. Some of you have grown old in party service. Are you willing that those who take your places by and by shall blame you for having failed to keep pace with the world and thus having lost for them a party advantage? Is there any real gain for you, for your party, for your nation by delay? Do you want to drive the progressive men and women out of your party? Some of you hold to the doctrine of states’ rights as applying to woman suffrage. Adherence to that theory will keep the United States far

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behind all other democratic nations upon this question. A theory which prevents a nation from keeping up with the trend of world progress cannot be justified. Gentlemen, we hereby petition you, our only designated representatives, to redress our grievances by the immediate passage of the Federal Suffrage Amendment and to use your influence to secure its ratification in your own state, in order that the women of our nation may be endowed with political freedom before the next presidential election, and that our nation may resume its world leadership in democracy. Woman suffrage is coming—you know it. Will you, Honorable Senators and Members of the House of Representatives, help or hinder it?

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Testimony of Professor Anita Hill regarding Clarence Thomas

Professor Anita F. Hill Senate Judiciary Committee October 11, 1991 Mr. Chairman, Senator Thurmond, Members of the Committee, my name is Anita P. Hill, and I am a Professor of Law at the University of Oklahoma. I was born on a farm in Okmulge, Oklahoma in 1956, the 13th child, and had my early education there. My father is Albert Hill, a farmer of that area. My mother’s name is Erma Hill, she is also a farmer and housewife. My childhood was the childhood of both work and poverty; but it was one of solid family affection as represented by my parents religious atmosphere in the Baptist faith and I have been a member of the Antioch Baptist Church in Tulsa since 1983. It remains a warm part of my life at the present time. For my undergraduate work I went to Oklahoma State University and graduated in 1977. 1 am attaching to this statement my resume with further details of my education. I graduated from the university with academic honors and proceeded to the Yale Law School where I received my J.D. degree in 1980. Upon graduation from law school I became a practicing lawyer with the Washington, D.C. firm of Wald, Harkrader & Ross. In 1981, I was introduced to now Judge Thomas by a mutual friend. Judge Thomas told me that he anticipated a political appointment shortly and asked if I might be interested in working in that office. He was in fact appointed as Assistant Secretary of Education, in which capacity he was the Director of the Office for Civil Rights. After he was in that post, he asked if I would become his 321

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assistant and I did then accept that position. In my early period, there I  had two major projects. The first was an article I wrote for Judge Thomas’ signature on Education of Minority Students. The second was the organization of a seminar on high risk students, which was abandoned because Judge Thomas transferred to the EEOC before that project was completed. During this period at the Department of Education, my working relationship with Judge Thomas was positive. I had a good deal of responsibility as well as independence. I thought that he respected my work and that he trusted my judgment. After approximately three months of working together, he asked me to go out with him socially. I declined and explained to him that I thought that it would only jeopardize what, at the time, I considered to be a very good working relationship. I had a normal social life with other men outside of the office and, I believed then, as now, that having a social relationship with a person who was supervising my work would be ill-advised. I was very uncomfortable with the idea and told him so. I thought that by saying “no” and explaining my reasons, my employer would abandon his social suggestions. However, to my regret, in the following few weeks he continued to ask me out on several occasions. He pressed me to justify my reasons for saying “no” to him. These incidents took place in his office or mine. They were in the form of private conversations which would not have been overheard by anyone else. My working relationship became even more strained when Judge Thomas began to use work situations to discuss sex. On these occasions he would call me into his office for reports on education issues and projects or he might suggest that because of time pressures we go to lunch at a government cafeteria. After a brief discussion of work he would turn the conversation to discussion of sexual matters. His conversations were very vivid. He spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes. He talked about pornographic materials depicting individuals with large penises or large breasts involved in various sex acts. On several occasions Thomas told me graphically of his own sexual prowess. Because I was extremely uncomfortable talking about sex with him at all and particularly in such a graphic way, I told him that I did not want to talk about those subjects. I would also try to change the subject to education matters or to nonsexual personal matters such as his background or beliefs. My efforts to change the subject were rarely successful. Throughout the period of these

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conversations, he also from time-to-time asked me for social engagements. My reactions to these conversations was to avoid having them by eliminating opportunities for us to engage in extended conversations. This was difficult because I was his only assistant at the Office for Civil Rights. During the latter part of my time at the Department of Education, the social pressures and any conversations of this offensive kind ended. I began both to believe and hope that our working relationship could be on a proper, cordial and professional base. When Judge Thomas was made Chairman of the EEOC, I needed to face the question of whether to go with him. I was asked to do so. I did. The work itself was interesting and at that time it appeared that the sexual overtures which had so troubled me had ended. I also faced the realistic fact that I had no alternative job. While I might have gone back to private practice, perhaps in my old firm or at another, I was dedicated he in that field. Moreover, the Department of Education itself was a dubious venture; President Reagan was seeking to abolish the entire Department at that time. For my first months at the EEOC, where I continued as an assistant to Judge Thomas, there were no sexual conversations or overtures. However, during the Fall and Winter of 1982, these began again. The comments were random and ranged from pressing me about why I didn’t go out with him to remarks about my personal appearance. I remember his saying that someday I would have to give him the real reason that I wouldn’t go out with him. He began to show real displeasure in his tone of voice, his demeanor and his continued pressure for an explanation. He commented on what I was wearing in terms of whether it made me more or less sexually attractive. The incidents occurred in his inner office at the EEOC. One of the oddest episodes I remember was an occasion in which Thomas was drinking a Coke in his office. He got up from the table at which we were working, went over to his desk to get the Coke, looked at the can, and said, “Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?” On other occasions he referred to the size of his own penis as being larger than normal and he also spoke on some occasions of the pleasures he had given to women with oral sex. At this point, late 1982, 1 began to feel severe stress on the job. I began to be concerned that Clarence Thomas might take it out on me by downgrading me or not giving me important assignments. I also thought that he might find an excuse for dismissing me. In January of 1983, I began looking for another job. I was handicapped because I feared that if he found out, he might make it difficult

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for me to find to her employment and I might be dismissed from the job I had. Another factor that made my search more difficult was that this was a period of a government hiring freeze. In February, 1983, 1 was hospitalized for five days on an emergency basis for an acute stomach pain which I attributed to stress on the job. Once out of the hospital, I became more committed to find other employment and sought further to minimize my contact with Thomas. This became easier when Allyson Duncan became office director because most of my work was handled with her and I had contact with Clarence Thomas mostly in staff meetings. In the Spring of 1983, an opportunity to teach law at Oral Roberts University opened up. I agreed to take the job In large part because of my desire to escape the pressures I felt at the EEOC due to Thomas. When I informed him that I was leaving in July, I recall that his response was that now I “would no longer have an excuse for not going out with” him. I told him that I still preferred not to do so. At some time after that meeting, he asked if he could take me to dinner at the end of my term. When I declined, he assured me that the dinner was a professional courtesy only and not a social invitation. I reluctantly agreed to accept that invitation but only if it was at the very end of a workday. On, as I recall, the last day of my employment at the EEOC in the summer of 1983, I did have dinner with Clarence Thomas. We went directly from work to a restaurant near the office. We talked about the work I had done both at Education and at EEOC. He told me that he was pleased with all of it except for an article and speech that I done for him when we were at the Office for Civil Rights. Finally, he made a comment which I vividly remember. He said that if I ever told anyone about his behavior toward me it could ruin his career. This was not an apology nor was there any explanation. That was his last remark about the possibility of our going out or reference to his behavior. In July 1983, I left the Washington, D.C. area and have had minimal contact with Judge Clarence Thomas since.

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The Hope Speech Harvey Milk

Harvey Milk delivered a message in 1978 that is just as relevant today. His message not only challenges our willingness to embrace and celebrate our differences, but it offers a message of hope. His untimely and tragic death serves as a reminder that we still have a very long way to go. John Bogle

M

y name is Harvey Milk and I’m here to recruit you.

I’ve been saying this one for years. It’s a political joke. I can’t help it—I’ve got to tell it. I’ve never been able to talk to this many political people before, so if I tell you nothing else you may be able to go home laughing a bit. This ocean liner was going across the ocean and it sank. And there was one little piece of wood floating and three people swam to it and they realized only one person could hold on to it. So they had a little debate about which was the person. It so happened that the three people were the Pope, the President, and Mayor Daley. The Pope said he was titular head of one of the greatest religions of the world and he was spiritual adviser to many, many millions and he went on and pontificated and they thought it was a good argument. Then the President said he was leader of the largest and most powerful nation of the world. What takes place in this country affects the whole world and they thought that was a good argument. And Mayor Daley said he was mayor of the backbone of the Untied States and what took place in Chicago affected the world, and what took place in the archdiocese of Chicago affected 325

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Catholicism. And they thought that was a good argument. So they did it the democratic way and voted. And Daley won, seven to two. About six months ago, Anita Bryant in her speaking to God said that the drought in California was because of the gay people. On November 9, the day after I got elected, it started to rain. On the day I got sworn in, we walked to City Hall and it was kinda nice, and as soon as I said the word “I do,” it started to rain again. It’s been raining since then and the people of San Francisco figure the only way to stop it is to do a recall petition. That’s the local joke. So much for that. Why are we here? Why are gay people here? And what’s happening? What’s happening to me is the antithesis of what you read about in the papers and what you hear about on the radio. You hear about and read about this movement to the right. That we must band together and fight back this movement to the right. And I’m here to go ahead and say that what you hear and read is what they want you to think because it’s not happening. The major media in this country has talked about the movement to the right so the legislators think that there is indeed a movement to the right and that the Congress and the legislators and the city councils will start to move to the right the way the major media want them. So they keep on talking about this move to the right. So let’s look at 1977 and see if there was indeed a move to the right. In 1977, gay people had their rights taken away from them in Miami. But you must remember that in the week before Miami and the week after that, the word homosexual or gay appeared in every single newspaper in this nation in articles both pro and con. In every radio station, in every TV station and every household. For the first time in the history of the world, everybody was talking about it, good or bad. Unless you have dialogue, unless you open the walls of dialogue, you can never reach to change people’s opinion. In those two weeks, more good and bad, but more about the word homosexual and gay was written than probably in the history of mankind. Once you have dialogue starting, you know you can break down prejudice. In 1977 we saw a dialogue start. In 1977, we saw a gay person elected in San Francisco. In 1977 we saw the state of Mississippi decriminalize marijuana. In 1977, we saw the convention of conventions in Houston. And I want to know where the movement to the right is happening. What that is is a record of what happened last year. What we must do is make sure that 1978 continues the movement that is really happening that the media don’t want you to know about. That is the movement to

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the left. It’s up to CDC to put the pressures on Sacramento—but to break down the walls and the barriers so the movement to the left continues and progress continues in the nation. We have before us coming up several issues we must speak out on. Probably the most important issue outside the Briggs—which we will come to—but we do know what will take place this June. We know there’s an issue on the ballot called JarvisGann. We hear the taxpayers talk about it on both sides. But what you don’t hear is that it’s probably the most racist issue on the ballot in a long time. In the city and county of San Francisco, if it passes and we indeed have to lay off people, who will they be? The last in, and the first in, and who are the last in but the minorities? Jarvis-Gann is a racist issue. We must address that issue. We must not talk away from it. We must not allow them to talk about the money it’s going to save, because look at who’s going to save the money and who’s going to get hurt. We also have another issue that we’ve started in some of the north counties and I hope in some of the south counties it continues. In San Francisco elections we’re asking—at least we hope to ask—that the U.S. government put pressure on the closing of the South African consulate. That must happen. There is a major difference between an embassy in Washington which is a diplomatic bureau. and a consulate in major cities. A consulate is there for one reason only—to promote business, economic gains, tourism, investment. And every time you have business going to South Africa, you’re promoting a regime that’s offensive. In the city of San Francisco, if everyone of 51 percent of that city were to go to South Africa, they would be treated as second-class citizens. That is an offense to the people of San Francisco and I hope all my colleagues up there will take every step we can to close down that consulate and hope that people in other parts of the state follow us in that lead. The battles must be started some place and CDC is the greatest place to start the battles. I know we are pressed for time so I’m going to cover just one more little point. That is to understand why it is important that gay people run for office and that gay people get elected. I know there are many people in this room who are running for central committee who are gay. I encourage you. There’s a major reason why. If my non-gay friends and supporters in this room understand it, they’ll probably understand why I’ve run so often before I finally made it. Y’see right now, there’s a controversy going on in this convention about the gay governor. Is he speaking out enough? Is he strong enough for gay rights? And there

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is controversy and for us to say it is not would be foolish. Some people are satisfied and some people are not. You see there is am major difference—and it remains a vital difference— between a friend and a gay person, a friend in office and a gay person in office. Gay people have been slandered nationwide. We’ve been tarred and we’ve been brushed with the picture of pornography. In Dade County, we were accused of child molestation. It’s not enough anymore just to have friends represent us. No matter how good that friend may be. The black community made up its mind to that a long time ago. That the myths against blacks can only be dispelled by electing black leaders, so the black community could be judged by the leaders and not by the myths or black criminals. The Spanish community must not be judged by Latin criminals or myths. The Asian community must not be judged by Asian criminals or myths. The Italian community must not be judged by the mafia, myths. And the time has come when the gay community must not be judged by our criminals and myths. Like every other group, we must be judged by our leaders and by those who are themselves gay, those who are visible. For invisible, we remain in limbo—a myth, a person with no parents, no brothers, no sisters, no friends who are straight, no important positions in employment. A tenth of the nation supposedly composed of stereotypes and would-be seducers of children—and no offense meant to the stereotypes. But today, the black community is not judged by its friends, but by its black legislators and leaders. And we must give people the chance to judge us by our leaders and legislators. A gay person in office can set a tone, con command respect not only from the larger community, but from the young people in our own community who need both examples and hope. The first gay people we elect must be strong. They must not be content to sit in the back of the bus. They must not be content to accept pablum. They must be above wheeling and dealing. They must be—for the good of all of us—independent, unbought. The anger and the frustrations that some of us feel is because we are misunderstood, and friends can’t feel the anger and frustration. They can sense it in us, but they can’t feel it. Because a friend has never gone through what is known as coming out. I will never forget what it was like coming out and having nobody to look up toward. I remember the lack of hope—and our friends can’t fulfill it.

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I can’t forget the looks on faces of people who’ve lost hope. Be they gay, be they seniors, be they blacks looking for an almost-impossilbe job, be they Latins trying to explain their problems and aspirations in a tongue that’s foreign to them. I personally will never forget that people are more important than buildings. I use the word “I” because I’m proud. I stand here tonight in front of my gay sisters, brothers and friends because I’m proud of you. I think it’s time that we have many legislators who are gay and proud of that fact and do not have to remain in the closet. I think that a gay person, up-front, will not walk away from a responsibility and be afraid of being tossed out of office. After Dade County, I walked among the angry and the frustrated night after night and I looked at their faces. And in San Francisco, three days before Gay Pride Day, a person was killed just because he was gay. And that night, I walked among the sad and the frustrated at City Hall in San Francisco and later that night as they lit candles on Castro Street and stood in silence, reaching out for some symbolic thing that would give them hope. These were strong people, whose faces I knew from the shop, the streets, meetings and people who I never saw before but I knew. They were strong, but even they needed hope. And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias and the Richmond, Minnesotas who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant on television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us’es, the us’es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone. So if there is a message I have to give, it is that I’ve found one overriding thing about my personal election, it’s the fact that if a gay person can be elected, it’s a green light. And you and you and you, you have to give people hope. Thank you very much.

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In 1977, when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Harvey Milk became the first openly gay elected official in the United States. Less than one year later, on November 27, 1978, Milk was gunned down along with San Francisco Mayor George Moscone. The shooter was Supervisor Dan White, a conservative board member who had campaigned on a platform of law and order, civic pride, and family values. White, packing a gun and extra bullets, climbed through a window in City Hall in order to confront Milk and Moscone about his troubled tenure on the Board of Supervisors. After shooting Moscone four times at close range, White reloaded his gun, walked to the other side of the building, and invited Milk into his former office. White shot Milk in the arm, the chest, and twice in the head. He then fled the building the same way that he had entered. A few hours after Diane Feinstein, who became Acting Mayor, named him as a suspect, White turned himself in. On May 21, 1979. after White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to five to seven years in prison for killing both men, protestors gathered at City Hall to vent their outrage over the verdict. In what has come to be known as “White Night,” demonstrators broke windows at City Hall, burned police cars, and clashed with police at various flashpoints throughout the city. In 1985, after serving just over five years in Soledad prison and one year of parole in Los Angeles, White returned to San Francisco despite Mayor Feinstein’s public objections. On October 21, 1985, seven years after the assassinations, White killed himself in the garage of his wife’s home. White’s suicide did not provoke any significant public reaction.

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Paul Farmer on Structural Violence, AIDS and Health Care

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ecause of contact with patients, physicians readily appreciate that largescale social forces—racism, gender inequality, poverty, political violence and war, and sometimes the very policies that address them—often determine who falls ill and who has access to care. For practitioners of public health, the social determinants of disease are even harder to disregard. Unfortunately, this awareness is seldom translated into formal frameworks that link social analysis to everyday clinical practice. One reason for this gap is that the holy grail of modern medicine remains the search for the molecular basis of disease. While the practical yield of such circumscribed inquiry has been enormous, exclusive focus on molecularlevel phenomena has contributed to the increasing “desocialization” of scientific inquiry: a tendency to ask only biological questions about what are in fact biosocial phenomena [1]. Biosocial understandings of medical phenomena are urgently needed. All those involved in public health sense this, especially when they serve populations living in poverty. Social analysis, however rudimentary, occurs at the bedside, in the clinic, in field sites, and in the margins of the biomedical literature. It is to be found, for example, in any significant survey of adherence to therapy for chronic diseases [2,3] and in studies of what were once termed “social diseases” such as venereal disease and tuberculosis (TB) [4–8]. The emerging phenomenon of acquired resistance to antibiotics—including antibacterial, antiviral, and antiparasitic agents— is perforce a biosocial process, one which began less than a century ago as novel treatments were introduced [9]. Social analysis is heard in discus331

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sions about illnesses for which significant environmental components are believed to exist, such as asthma and lead poisoning [10–15]. Can we speak of the “natural history” of any of these diseases without addressing social forces, including racism, pollution, poor housing, and poverty, that shape their course in both individuals and populations? Does our clinical practice acknowledge what we already know—namely, that social and environmental forces will limit the effectiveness of our treatments? Asking these questions needs to be the beginning of a conversation within medicine and public health, rather than the end of one. Box 1. What Is Structural Violence?

Structural violence, a term coined by Johan Galtung and by liberation theologians during the 1960s, describes social structures—economic, political, legal, religious, and cultural—that stop individuals, groups, and societies from reaching their full potential [57]. In its general usage, the word violence often conveys a physical image; however, according to Galtung, it is the “avoidable impairment of fundamental human needs or . . . the impairment of human life, which lowers the actual degree to which someone is able to meet their needs below that which would otherwise be possible” [58]. Structural violence is often embedded in longstanding “ubiquitous social structures, normalized by stable institutions and regular experience” [59]. Because they seem so ordinary in our ways of understanding the world, they appear almost invisible. Disparate access to resources, political power, education, health care, and legal standing are just a few examples. The idea of structural violence is linked very closely to social injustice and the social machinery of oppression [16]. DEFINING STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE

The term “structural violence” is one way of describing social arrangements that put individuals and populations in harm’s way (see Box 1) [16]. The arrangements are structural because they are embedded in the political and economic organization of our social world; they are violent because they cause injury to people (typically, not those responsible for perpetuating such inequalities). With few exceptions, clinicians are not trained to understand such social forces, nor are we trained to alter them. Yet it has long been clear that many medical and public health interventions will fail if we are unable to understand the social determinants of disease [17,18].

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The good news is that such biosocial understandings are far more “actionable” than is widely recognized. There is already a vast and growing array of diagnostic and therapeutic tools born of scientific research; it is possible to use these tools in a manner informed by an understanding of structural violence and its impact on disease distribution and on every step of the process leading from diagnosis to effective care. This means working at multiple levels, from “distal” interventions—performed late in the process, when patients are already sick—to “proximal” interventions— trying to prevent illness through efforts such as vaccination or improved water and housing quality. As with many other concepts, structural violence has its limitations [19]. Nevertheless, we seek to apply the concept to what remain the ­primary tasks of clinical medicine: preventing premature death and disability and improving the lives of those we care for. Using the concept of structural violence, we intend to begin, or revive, discussions about social forces beyond the control of our patients. These forces are not beyond the reach, however, of practitioners of medicine and public health. In this article, we describe examples of the impact of structural violence upon people living with HIV in the United States and in Rwanda. In both cases, we show that it is possible to address structural violence through structural interventions. We then draw general lessons from these examples for health professionals and policy makers worldwide. DELIVERING AIDS CARE EQUITABLY IN THE UNITED STATES

The distribution and outcome of chronic infectious diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, are so tightly linked to social arrangements that it is difficult for clinicians treating these diseases to ignore social factors. Although AIDS is often considered a “social disease,” clinicians may have radically different understandings of what makes AIDS “social.” Many doctors have focused on the “behaviors” or “lifestyles” that place some at risk for HIV infection [20–23]. Yet risk has never been determined solely by individual behavior: susceptibility to infection and poor outcomes is aggravated by social factors such as poverty, gender inequality, and ­racism [24–26]. Unsurprisingly, in less than a decade AIDS became a disease that disproportionately affected America’s poor, many of whom engaged in

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“risk behaviors” at a far lower rate than others who were not at heightened risk of infection with sexually transmitted diseases [27–29]. Factors affecting disease course

HIV attacks the immune system in only one way, but its course and outcome are shaped by social forces having little to do with the universal pathophysiology of the disease. From the outset of acute HIV infection to the endgame of recurrent opportunistic infections, disease course is determined by, to cite but a few obvious factors: (1) whether or not postexposure prophylaxis is available; (2) whether or not the steady decline in immune function is hastened by concurrent illness or malnutrition; (3) whether or not multiple HIV infections occur; (4) whether or not TB is prevalent in the surrounding environment; (5) whether or not prophylaxis for opportunistic infections is reliably available [30]; and (6) whether or not antiretroviral therapy (ART) is offered to all those needing it. Throughout the usually decade-long process of HIV progression, detrimental social structures and constructs—structural violence—have a profound influence on effective diagnosis, staging, and treatment of the disease and its associated pathologies. Each of these determinants of disease course and outcome is itself shaped by the very social forces that determine variable risk of infection. Although the variability of outcomes has been especially obvious in the era of effective therapy, it was so even before ART became widely available. In Baltimore in the early 1990s, Moore et al. showed that race was associated with the timely receipt of therapeutics: among patients infected with HIV, blacks were significantly less likely than whites to have received ART or Pneumocystis pneumonia prophylaxis when they were first referred to an HIV clinic, regardless of disease stage at the time of presentation [31]. The timeline from HIV infection to death was further shortened in situations where TB was the leading opportunistic infection, as it is in much of the poor world [32]. These fundamentally biosocial events call into question a “natural history” of HIV infection and AIDS. Addressing disparities in HIV care

In an attempt to address these ethnic disparities in care, researchers and clinicians in Baltimore reported how racism and poverty—forms of

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structural violence, though they did not use these specific terms—were embodied [33,34] as excess mortality among African Americans without insurance. After documenting these disparities, these clinicians and researchers asked: what would happen if race and insurance status no longer determined who had access to the standard of care? Their subsequent interventions were decidedly proximal: in addition to removing some of the obvious economic barriers at the point of care, the clinicians and researchers considered paying for transportation costs and other incentives as well as addressing comorbid conditions ranging from drug addiction to mental illness. They also implemented improvements in community-based care, conceived to make AIDS care more convenient and socially acceptable for patients. The goal was to make sure that nothing within the medical system or the surrounding community prevented poor and otherwise marginalized patients from receiving the standard of care. The results registered just a few years later were dramatic: racial, gender, injection-drug use, and socioeconomic disparities in outcomes largely disappeared within the study population [35]. In other words, these program improvements may not have dealt with the lack of national health insurance, and still less with the persistent problems of racism and urban ­poverty, but they did lessen the embodiment of social inequalities as premature death from AIDS. Similar work elsewhere has shown the ability of providers to lessen the impact of social inequalities on AIDS outcomes among the homeless, the addicted, the mentally ill, and prisoners [36–38]. The program in Baltimore was improved in part by linking an understanding of social context to clinical services. The importance of such programs is underscored by the emergence of multidrug-resistant HIV in the United States [39]. Microbial acquisition of resistance to antibiotics, including antiretrovirals, is necessarily a biosocial phenomenon. Most microbes mutate when challenged with antibiotics; the rate of mutation may be hastened by imprudent use of antibiotics or by inadequate or interrupted therapy [40,41]. Although structural violence lessens both access and adherence to effective therapy, it is a rarely discussed ­contributor to epidemics of multidrug-resistant HIV. In reality, it is impossible to understand the dynamics of drug-resistant disease without understanding how structural violence is embodied at the community, individual, and microbial levels [9,42]. The lessons from Baltimore show us that by viewing access to care and adherence to treatment as ­structural

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issues requiring programmatic solutions, we can alter the very biology of HIV and the “natural history” of AIDS. PREVENTING PEDIATRIC AIDS IN RWANDA: LESSONS FROM RURAL HAITI

The impact of structural violence is even more obvious in the world’s poorest countries and has profound implications for those seeking to provide clinical services there. Over the past year, working with the nonprofit organization Partners In Health (PIH), we have sought to address AIDS and TB in Africa, the world’s poorest and most heavily burdened continent. Specifically, we have transplanted and adapted the “PIH model” of care, which was designed in rural Haiti to prevent the embodiment of poverty and social inequalities as excess mortality due to AIDS, TB, malaria, and other diseases of poverty [43,44]. The PIH model

In some senses, the model is simple: clinical and community barriers to care are removed as diagnosis and treatment are declared a public good and made available free of charge to patients living in poverty. Furthermore, AIDS care is delivered not only in the conventional way at the clinic, but also within the villages in which our patients work and live. Each patient chooses an accompagnateur, usually a neighbor, trained to deliver drugs and other supportive care in the patient’s home. Using this model, we currently provide daily supervised ART to more than 2,200 patients in rural Haiti. This model, with conventional clinic-based (distal) services complemented by home-based (more proximal) care, is deemed by some to be the world’s most effective way of removing structural barriers to quality care for AIDS and other chronic diseases. It is also a way of creating jobs in rural regions in great need of them. We have used a similar model in urban Peru [45,46], and in Boston, Massachusetts [37]. The challenge of HIV in Rwanda

Rwanda presents unique challenges, but many barriers to care are quite similar to those seen in Haiti and other settings where social upheaval, poverty, and gender inequality decrease the effectiveness of distal services

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and of prevention efforts. Like Haiti, Rwanda is a densely populated, predominantly agrarian society. Although both countries have endured large-scale political violence, that which registered a decade ago in Rwanda due to war and genocide was unprecedented in scale. In the two rural districts of Rwanda in which the PIH model was introduced in May 2005, an estimated 60 percent of inhabitants are refugees, returning exiles, or recent settlers; not a single physician was present to serve 350,000 people. AIDS has recently worsened this situation and is a leading cause of young adult death. In spite of the availability of significant resources to treat complications of HIV infection in Africa, almost all patients enrolled on ART live in cities or towns. Indeed, some have noted that rapid treatment scale-up is likely to occur largely in urban settings, where infrastructure, though poor, is better than in rural regions [47]. The challenge, however, is to reach rural Africa, where fewer than five percent of those who need ART receive it. Rural treatment scale-up is far from impossible: less than a year after our program began in 2005, more than 1,500 rural Rwandans with AIDS were already enrolled in care using the PIH model. To deepen our discussion of interventions designed to counter structural violence, consider the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV in rural Rwanda. Where clean water is unavailable and HIV prevalence is high, the policy of universal breast-feeding—driven by the desire to reduce diarrhea-related mortality—leads to increased transmission of the virus to infants, even when ART is offered. We knew from our experience in Haiti that we could reduce rates of MTCT from as high as 25 to 40 percent to as low as two percent. We knew that such a dramatic reduction could be made possible by: (1) providing combination ART to the mother during pregnancy; (2) enabling formula-feeding and close follow-up of infants; and (3) launching potable water projects within the catchment area—in even the most difficult regions, where electricity is scarce, food insecurity widespread, and health and sanitation infrastructure rudimentary at best [48]. Although our pilot project in Rwanda is only a year old, its feasibility is almost certain. In the first six months of operation, we screened for HIV infection more than 31,000 persons in the two districts in which we work. Without exception, pregnant women found to be infected with HIV expressed interest in ART to prevent MTCT, and all requested

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a­ ssistance not only with procuring infant formula, but also with the means to boil water and to store the formula safely. Medical professionals are not trained to make structural interventions

Our distal intervention is to provide ART to all women in the catchment area with the help of accompagnateurs. More proximal interventions include the distribution of kerosene stoves, kerosene, bottles, and infant formula; we also provide food aid and housing assistance when possible. Already, we are seeing a lowering of HIV infection rates amongst newborns, and we believe that, as the program becomes well established and services become available earlier during the course of pregnancy, rates of MTCT will continue to decline. Unsurprisingly, opposition to the PIH model did not come from rural Rwandan women living with HIV. Rather, we faced the most resistance to this approach from local and global health policy makers who continued to promote universal breast-feeding, a policy which made eminent sense prior to the advent of HIV. Instead of trying to overcome programmatic barriers, the experts argued that formula-feeding was simply not feasible in rural Rwanda and that HIV-related stigma would prevent women from enrolling in such projects. The examples of Rwanda and Haiti have shown us that, to date, there is little reason to believe that thoughtful structural interventions will fail to improve HIV prevention and treatment outcomes. Any failure is more likely to be due to programmatic shortfalls than to stigma or to non-compliance on the part of the patients enrolled in the program. Structural interventions of the sort described here remove the onus of adherence from vulnerable patients and place it squarely on the health system and on providers. INCORPORATING STRUCTURAL INTERVENTIONS IN MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH

If structural violence is often a major determinant of the distribution and outcome of disease, why is it or a similar concept not in wider circulation in medicine and public health, especially now that our interventions can radically alter clinical outcomes? One reason is that medical professionals are not trained to make structural interventions. Physicians can rightly

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note that structural interventions are “not our job.” Yet, since structural interventions might arguably have a greater impact on disease control than do conventional clinical interventions, we would do well to pay heed to them. Acknowledging and addressing structural impediments, however, should never be the sole focus of our work. For decades, those who study the determinants of disease have known that social or structural forces account for most epidemic disease. But truisms such as “poverty is the root cause of tuberculosis” have not led us very far. While we do not yet have a curative prescription for poverty, we do know how to cure TB. Those who argue that focusing solely on economic development will in time wipe out tuberculosis may be correct, but en route toward this utopia the body count will remain high if care is not taken to diagnose and treat the sick. The same holds true for other diseases of poverty. Clean water and sanitation will prevent cases of typhoid fever, but those who fall ill need antibiotics; clean water comes too late for them. The debate about whether to focus on proximal versus distal interventions, or similar debates about how best to use scarce resources, is as old as medicine itself. But there is little compelling evidence that we must make such either/or choices: distal and proximal interventions are complementary, not competing. International public health is rife with false debates along precisely these lines, and the list of impossible choices ­facing those who work among the destitute sick seems endless. In reality, there is no good way to tackle the health crisis in Africa when the scant resources previously available are so bitterly contested; thus is structural violence perpetuated at a time in which science and medicine continue to yield truly miraculous tools. Without an equity plan to bring these tools to bear on the health problems of the destitute, these debates will continue to waste precious time [49]. The lessons of Baltimore, Haiti, and Rwanda

What are the lessons that can be drawn from the examples of successful structural interventions in the diverse settings of Baltimore, rural Haiti, and rural Rwanda? First, we have seen that it is possible to decrease the extent to which social inequalities become embodied as health disparities. While some interventions are straightforward, we also have to ­recognize that there is an enormous flaw in the dominant model of

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medical care: as long as medical services are sold as commodities, they will remain available only to those who can purchase them. National health insurance and other social safety nets, including those that guarantee primary education, food security, and clean water, are important because they promise rights, rather than commodities, to citizens. The lack of these social and economic rights is fundamental to the perpetuation of structural violence [50]. Second, we have learned that proximal interventions, seemingly quite remote from the practice of clinical medicine, can also lessen premature morbidity and mortality. To put this in sociological terms, interventions that increase the agency of the poor will lessen their risk of HIV. Similarly, it is not possible to have an honest discussion of alcoholism among Native Americans [51], or crack cocaine addiction among African Americans [52], without discussing the history of genocide and slavery in North America. Again, such commentary is often seen as extraneous in medical and public health circles, where discussions of substance abuse are curiously desocialized, viewed as personal and psychological problems rather than societal ones. Here, too, structural violence is perpetuated through analytic omission. Third, we have seen that structural interventions can have an enormous impact on outcomes, even in the face of cost-effectiveness analyses and the flawed policies of international bodies. Taking the components of the distal interventions already underway in Rwanda—infant formula, clean water, fuel, and so forth—it is possible to go further and describe more proximal interventions to improve access to each component of the project. These would include, of course, legislation to promote generic medications, improved distribution networks for ART and infant formula, clean-water campaigns, and the development of alternative fuels. More proximally still, they would include enhancing agricultural production; creating new jobs outside of the agricultural sector; addressing gender inequality through legislation about land tenure and political representation [53]; and promoting adult literacy. These are not the tasks for which clinicians were trained, but they are central to the struggle to reduce premature suffering and death. The importance of structural interventions for the future of health care means that practitioners of medicine and public health must make common cause with others who are trained to intervene more proximally. Sometimes public health crises, such as the AIDS pandemic in Africa, can

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lead to bold and specific interventions, such as the campaign to provide AIDS prevention and care as a public good [54]. When linked to more structural interventions, such ostensibly specific campaigns can help to trigger a “virtuous social cycle” that promises to shift the burden of pathology away from children and young adults—a major victory in the struggle to lessen structural violence. CONCLUSIONS

Pioneers of modern public health during the nineteenth century, such as Rudolph Virchow, understood that epidemic disease and dismal life  expectancies were tightly linked to social conditions [55,56]. Such leaders might not have employed the term “structural violence,” but they were well aware of its toll and argued compellingly for proximal interventions: education, basic sanitation, land reform, sovereignty, and an end to political oppression. These interventions are no less needed now that we have better distal tools, including vaccines, diagnostics, and a large armamentarium of effective therapeutics. It does not matter what we call it: structural violence remains a highranking cause of premature death and disability. We can begin to address this by “resocializing” our understanding of disease distribution and outcome. Even new diseases such as AIDS have quickly become diseases of the poor, and the development of effective therapies may have a perverse effect if we are unable to use them where they are needed most. By insisting that our services be delivered equitably, even physicians who work on the distal interventions characteristic of clinical medicine have much to contribute to reducing the toll of structural violence. The poor are the natural constituents of public health, and physicians, as Virchow argued, are the natural attorneys of the poor. In this struggle, equity in healthcare is our responsibility. Only when we link our efforts to those of others committed to initiating virtuous social cycles can we expect a future in which medicine attains its noblest goals. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors work with large teams of providers—accompagnateurs, social workers, nurses, physicians—in both Haiti and Rwanda. We are deeply grateful to our colleagues.

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45. Mitnick C, Bayona J, Palacios E, Shin S, Furin J, et al. (2003) Community-based therapy for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Lima, Peru. N Engl J Med 348: 119–128. FIND THIS ARTICLE ONLINE 46. Shin S, Furin J, Bayona J, Mate K, Kim JY, et al. (2004) Community-based treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Lima, Peru: Seven years of experience. Soc Sci Med 59: 1529–1539. FIND THIS ARTICLE ONLINE 47. Wilson DP, Kahn J, Blower SM (2006) Predicting the epidemiological impact of antiretroviral allocation strategies in KwaZulu-Natal: The effect of the urban-rural divide. Proc Nat Acad Sci 103: 14228–14233. FIND THIS ARTICLE ONLINE 48. Raymonville M, Léandre F, Saintard R, Colas M, Louissaint M (2004) Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in rural Haiti: The Partners In Health experience [poster]. A Multicultural Caribbean United Against HIV/AIDS; 2004 5–7 March; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. 49. Farmer P (2001) The major infectious diseases in the world—to treat or not to treat? N Engl J Med 345: 208–210. FIND THIS ARTICLE ONLINE 50. Farmer PE (2005) Pathologies of power: Health, human rights, and the new war on the poor. 2nd edition. Berkeley: University of California Press. 51. Shkilnyk A (1985) A poison stronger than love: The destruction of an Ojibwa community. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press. 52. (2000) The drug war in perspective. In: Kim JY, Millen JV, Gershman J, Irwin A, editors. Monroe (ME): Common Courage Press. pp. 293–327. 53. Lacey M (2005 February 26) Women’s voices rise as Rwanda reinvents itself. The New York Times; Sect A: 1 (col 3). Available: http://www.peacewomen.org/news/ Rwanda/Feb05/voicesrise.html. Accessed 20 September 2006. 54. Kim JY, Gilks C (2005) Scaling up treatment—why we can’t wait. N Engl J Med 353: 2392–2394. FIND THIS ARTICLE ONLINE 55. McKeown T (1980) The role of medicine: Dream, mirage, or nemesis?. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press. 56. Porter D (2006) How did social medicine evolve, and where is it heading? PLoS Med 3: e399. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0030399. 57. Galtung J (1969) Violence, peace and peace research. J Peace Res 6: 167–191. FIND THIS ARTICLE ONLINE 58. Galtung J (1993) Kultuerlle Gewalt. Der Burger im Staat 43: 106. FIND THIS ARTICLE ONLINE 59. Gilligan J (1997) Violence: Reflections on a national epidemic. New York: Vintage Books.

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FBI File on Alfred Kinsey Alfred C. Kinsey was born on August 23, 1894, in Hoboken, New Jersey. He taught Zoology and Biology at Indiana University. He went to college at Harvard University and wrote a textbook on biology. His specialty was the naming, describing and classification of insects. He later did a study on sexual behavior of males and females and worked at the Sex Research Institute, Incorporated at Indiana University. He died on August 25, 1956, at Bloomington, Indiana.

All docments appear in their original government file format with redactions intact.

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Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010

S 4023 PCS Calendar No. 688 111th CONGRESS 2d Session S. 4023 To provide for the repeal of the Department of Defense policy concerning homosexuality in the Armed Forces known as `Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

December 10, 2010 Mr. LIEBERMAN (for himself, Mr. UDALL of Colorado, Mrs. GILLIBRAND, Ms. COLLINS, Mrs. LINCOLN, Mrs. FEINSTEIN, Mr. LEAHY, Mr. REID, Mr. FRANKEN, Mr. BINGAMAN, Mrs. MURRAY, Mr. LAUTENBERG, Mr. COONS, Mr. KERRY, Mr. DODD, Mr. AKAKA, Mr. CARDIN, Mr. WHITEHOUSE, Mrs. BOXER, Mr. UDALL of New Mexico, Mr. BENNET, Mr. HARKIN, Mr. MENENDEZ, Mr. LEVIN, Mr. MERKLEY, Mr. DURBIN, Mr. WYDEN, Mr. BROWN of Ohio, Mrs. HAGAN, Mr. SCHUMER, Ms. MIKULSKI, Ms. CANTWELL, Mr. CASEY, Mr. SANDERS, Mr. FEINGOLD, Ms. LANDRIEU, Ms. STABENOW, Ms. KLOBUCHAR, Mrs. SHAHEEN, Mr. SPECTER, Mr. KOHL, and Mr. DORGAN) introduced the following bill; which was read the first time

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December 13, 2010 Read the second time and placed on the calendar A BILL

To provide for the repeal of the Department of Defense policy concerning homosexuality in the Armed Forces known as `Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010’. SEC. 2. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE POLICY CONCERNING HOMOSEXUALITY IN THE ARMED FORCES.

(a) Comprehensive Review on the Implementation of a Repeal of 10 U.S.C. 654 (1) IN GENERAL- On March 2, 2010, the Secretary of Defense issued a memorandum directing the Comprehensive Review on the Implementation of a Repeal of 10 U.S.C. 654 (section 654 of title 10, United States Code). (2) OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE OF REVIEW- The Terms of Reference accompanying the Secretary’s memorandum established the following objectives and scope of the ordered review:



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(A) Determine any impacts to military readiness, military effectiveness and unit cohesion, recruiting/retention, and family readiness that may result from repeal of the law and recommend any actions that should be taken in light of such impacts. (B) Determine leadership, guidance, and training on standards of conduct and new policies. (C) Determine appropriate changes to existing policies and

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regulations, including but not limited to issues regarding personnel management, leadership and training, facilities, investigations, and benefits. (D) Recommend appropriate changes (if any) to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (E) Monitor and evaluate existing legislative proposals to repeal 10 U.S.C. 654 and proposals that may be introduced in the Congress during the period of the review. (F) Assure appropriate ways to monitor the workforce climate and military effectiveness that support successful followthrough on implementation. (G) Evaluate the issues raised in ongoing litigation involving 10 U.S.C. 654.

(b) Effective Date- The amendments made by subsection (f) shall take effect 60 days after the date on which the last of the following occurs: (1) The Secretary of Defense has received the report required by the memorandum of the Secretary referred to in subsection (a). (2) The President transmits to the congressional defense committees a written certification, signed by the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stating each of the following:





(A) That the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have considered the recommendations contained in the report and the report’s proposed plan of action. (B) That the Department of Defense has prepared the necessary policies and regulations to exercise the discretion provided by the amendments made by subsection (f). (C) That the implementation of necessary policies and regulations pursuant to the discretion provided by the amendments made by subsection (f) is consistent with the standards of military readiness, military effectiveness, unit cohesion, and recruiting and retention of the Armed Forces.

(c) No Immediate Effect on Current Policy- Section 654 of title 10,

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United States Code, shall remain in effect until such time that all of the requirements and certifications required by subsection (b) are met. If these requirements and certifications are not met, section 654 of title 10, United States Code, shall remain in effect. (d) Benefits- Nothing in this section, or the amendments made by this section, shall be construed to require the furnishing of benefits in violation of section 7 of title 1, United States Code (relating to the definitions of `marriage’ and `spouse’ and referred to as the `Defense of Marriage Act’). (e) No Private Cause of Action- Nothing in this section, or the amendments made by this section, shall be construed to create a private cause of action. (f) Treatment of 1993 Policy (1) TITLE 10- Upon the effective date established by subsection (b), chapter 37 of title 10, United States Code, is amended-

(A) by striking section 654; and (B) in the table of sections at the beginning of such chapter, by striking the item relating to section 654.

(2) CONFORMING AMENDMENT- Upon the effective date established by subsection (b), section 571 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994 (10 U.S.C. 654 note) is amended by striking subsections (b), (c), and (d).

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chapter eight

the rise of the right: 80s–00

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The Meaning Of Communism To Americans Vice-President Richard Nixon August 21, 1960

T

he major problem confronting the people of the United States and free peoples everywhere in the last half of the 20th century is the threat to peace and freedom presented by the militant aggressiveness of international communism. A major weakness in this struggle is lack of adequate imderstanding of the character of the challenge which communism presents. I am convinced that we are on the right side in this struggle and that we are well ahead now in its major aspects. But if we are to maintain our advantage and assure victory in the struggle, we must develop, not only among the leaders, but among the people of the free world a better understanding of the threat which confronts us. The question is not one of being for or against communism. The time is long past when any significant number of Americans contend that communism is no particular concern of theirs. Few can still believe that communism is simply a curious and twisted philosophy which happens to appeal to a certain number of zealots but which constitutes no serious threat to the interests or ideals of free society. The days of indifference are gone. The danger today in our attitude toward communism is of a very different kind. It lies in the fact that we have come to abhor communism so much that we no longer recognize the necessity of understanding it. We see the obvious dangers. We recognize that we must retain our present military and economic advantage over the Communist bloc, an ­advantage which deters a hot war and which counters the Communist threat in the 361

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cold war. In the fields of rocket technology and space ­exploration, we have risen to the challenge and we will keep the lead that we have gained. There is no question that the American people generally will support whatever programs our leaders initiate in these fields. What we must realize is that this struggle probably will not be ­decided in the military, economic, or scientific areas, important as these are. The battle in which we are engaged is primarily one of ideas. The test is one not so much of arms but of faith. If we are to win a contest of ideas we must know their ideas as well as our own. Our knowledge must not be superficial. We cannot be content with simply an intuition that communism is wrong. It is not enough to rest our case alone on the assertions, true as they are, that communism denies God, enslaves men, and destroys justice. We must recognize that the appeal of the Communist idea is not to the masses, as the Communists would have us believe, but more often to an intelligent minority in newly developing countries who are trying to decide which system offers the best and surest road to progress. We must cut through the exterior to the very heart of the Communist idea. We must come to understand the weaknesses of communism as a system—why after more than 40 years on trial it continues to disappoint so many aspirations, why it has failed in its promise of equality in abundance, why it has produced a whole library of disillusionment and a steady stream of men, women, and children seeking to escape its blight. But we must also come to understand its strength—why it has so securely entrenched itself in the U.S.S.R., why it has been able to accomplish what it has in the field of education and science, why in some of the problem areas of the world it continues to appeal to leaders aspiring to a better life for their people. It is to find the answers to these questions that in this statement I want to discuss communism as an idea—its economic philosophy, its ­philosophy of law and politics, its philosophy of history. This statement will admittedly not be simple because the subject is complex. It will not be brief because nothing less than a knowledge in depth of the Communist idea is necessary if we are to deal with it effectively. In discussing the idea I will not offer programs to meet it. I intend in a later statement to discuss the tactics and vulnerabilities of the Communist conspiracy and how we can best fashion a strategy for victory.

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I anticipate that some might understandably ask the question—why such a lengthy discussion of communism when everybody is against it already? If the free world is to win this struggle, we must have men and women who not only are against communism but who know why they are against it and who know what they are going to do about it. Communism is a false idea, and the answer to a false idea is truth, not ignorance. One of the fundamentals of the Communist philosophy is a belief that societies pass inevitably through certain stages. Each of these stages is supposed to generate the necessity for its successor. Feudalism contained within its loins the seed of capitalism; capitalism was, in other words, to supplant feudalism. Capitalism, in turn, moves inevitably toward a climax in which it will be supplanted by its appointed successor, communism. All of these things are matters of necessity and there is nothing men can do to change the inflexible sequence which history imposes. It is a part of this philosophy that, as society moves along its predestined way, each stage of development is dominated by a particular class. Feudalism was dominated by the aristocracy; capitalism by something called the bourgeoisie; communism by the proletariat. During any particular stage of society’s development the whole of human life within that society is run and rigged for the benefit of the dominant class; no one else counts for anything and the most he can expect is the leftover scraps. In the end, of course, with the final triumph of communism, classes will disappear—what was formerly the proletariat will expand so that it is the only class, and, since there are no longer any outsiders that it can dominate, there will in effect be no classes at all. Now this theory of successive stages of development makes it clear that, if we are to understand communism, we must understand the Communist view of capitalism, for, according to Communist theory, capitalism contains within itself the germs of communism. The Communist notion of capitalism is that it is a market economy, an economy of “free trade, free selling and buying,” to quote the manifesto again. It follows from this that, since communism inevitably supplants and destroys capitalism, it cannot itself be anything like market economy. The fundamental belief of the Communist economic philosophy therefore is a negative one; namely, a belief that, whatever the economic system of mature communism may turn out to be, it cannot be a market economy; it cannot—in the words of the Communist Manifesto—be an economy based on “free trade, free selling and buying.”

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It may be well at this point to digress for the purpose of recalling the curious fact that the literature of communism contains so many praises for the achievements of capitalism. The manifesto contains these words about the market economy of capitalism and its alleged overlords, the bourgeoisie: It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former migrations of nations and crusades. * * * The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce 100 years (the manifesto speaks from the year 1848), has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalization of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground—what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor?

Marx and Engels could afford this praise for capitalism because they supposed it would everywhere be succeeded by communism, a stage of society whose glories would in turn dwarf all the achievements of capitalism. Communism would build on capitalism and bring a new economy that would make the capitalist world look like a poorhouse. Those who constituted the dominant class of capitalism, the bourgeoisie, would have performed their historic mission and would be dismissed from the scene—dismissed without thanks, of course, for after all they only accomplished what was foreordained by the forces of history, forces that were now to throw them into the discard like the husk of a sprouting seed. One of the most startling gaps in the Communist theory is the lack of any clear notion of how a Communist economy would be organized. In the writings of the great founders of communism there is virtually nothing on this subject. This gap was not an oversight, but was in fact a necessary consequence of the general theory of communism. That theory taught, in effect, that as a society moves inevitably from one level of development to another, there is no way of knowing what the next stage will demand until in fact it has arrived. Communism will supplant and destroy the market

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economy of capitalism. What will its own economy be like? That we cannot know until we are there and have a chance to see what the world looks like without any institution resembling an economic market. The manifesto, in fact, expresses a deep contempt for “utopian socialists” who propose “an organization of society specially contrived” by them, instead of waiting out the verdict of history and depending on the “spontaneous class organization of the proletariat.” The Communist economy would organize itself according to principles that would become apparent only when the arena had been cleared of the market principle. Operating then, in this vacuum of guidance left behind by their ­prophets, how did the founders of the Soviet Union proceed to organize their new economy? The answer is that they applied as faithfully as they could the teachings of their masters. Since those teachings were essentially negative, their actions had to have the same quality. They started by attempting to root out from the Russian scene every vestige of the market principle, even discouraging the use of money, which they hoped soon to abolish altogether. The production and distribution of goods were put under central direction, the theory being that the flow of goods would be directed by social need without reference to principles of profit and loss. This experiment began in 1919 and came to an abrupt end in March of 1921. It was a catastrophic failure. It brought with it administrative chaos and an almost inconceivable disorder in economic affairs, culminating in appalling shortages of the most elementary necessities. Competent scholars estimate its cost in Russian lives at 5 million. The official Russian version of this experiment does not deny that it was an enormous failure. It attributes that failure to inexperience and to a mythical continuation of military operations, which had in fact almost wholly ceased. Meanwhile the Russian economy has been moving ­steadily toward the market principle. The flow of labor is controlled by wages, so that the price of labor is itself largely set by market forces. The spread from top to bottom of industrial wages is in many cases wider than it is in this country. Managerial efficiency is promoted by substantial economic incentives in the form of bonuses and even more substantial perquisites of various kinds. Enterprises are run on a profit and loss basis. Indeed, there are all the paraphernalia of an advanced commercial society, with lawyers, accountants, balance sheets, taxes of many kinds, direct and indirect, and finally even the pressures of a creeping inflation.

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The allocation of resources in Russia probably now comes about as close to being controlled by the market principle as is possible where the government owns all the instruments of production. Russian economists speak learnedly of following the “Method of Balances.” This impressive phrase stands for a very simple idea. It means that in directing production and establishing prices an effort is made to come out even, so that goods for which there is an insufficient demand will not pile up, while shortages will not develop in other fields where demand exceeds supply. The “Method of Balances” turns out to be something a lot of us learned about in school as the law of supply and demand. All of this is not to say that the Russian economy has fully realized the market principle. There are two obstacles that block such a development. The first lies in the fact that there is a painful tension between what has to be done to run the economy efficiently and what ought to be happening according to orthodox theory. The result is that the Russian economist has to be able to speak out of both sides of his mouth at the same time. He has to be prepared at all times for sudden shifts of the party line. If today he is condemned as an “unprincipled revisionist” who apes capitalist methods, tomorrow he may be jerked from the scene for having fallen into a “sterile orthodoxy”, not realizing that Marxism is a developing and creative science. The other obstacle to the realization of a free market lies in the simple fact that the government owns the whole of industry. This means, for one thing, that the industrial units are huge, so that all of steel, or all of cosmetics, for example, is under a single direction. This naturally creates the economic condition known as oligopoly and the imperfectly functioning market which attends that condition. Furthermore, a realization of the market principle would require the managers of the various units of industry to act as if they were doing something they are not, that is, as if they were directing independent enterprises. Understandably there is a considerable reluctance to assume this fictitious role, since the manager’s reward for an inconvenient independence may well be a trip to Siberia where he is likely nowadays, they say, to be made chief bookkeeper in a tiny power plant 300 miles from the nearest town. Meanwhile, a constant theme of complaint by Moscow against the managers is that they are too “cousinly” with one another and that they are too addicted to “back scratching.” They ought to be

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acting like capitalist entrepreneurs, but they find this a little difficult when they are all working for the same boss. One of the most familiar refrains of Communist propaganda is that “capitalism is dying of its internal contradictions.” In fact, it would be hard to imagine a system more tortured by internal contradictions than present-day Russia. It constantly has to preach one way and act another. When Russian economists and managers discover that they have to do something that seems to contradict the prophets, they usually don’t know which of three justifications—all hazardous—they ought to attempt: (1) to explain their action as a temporary departure from Marxist propriety to be corrected in a more propitious future; (2) to show that what they are doing can be justified by the inherited text if it is read carefully and between the lines; or (3) to invoke the cliché that Marxism is a progressive science that learns by experience—we can’t after all, expect Marx, Engels, and Lenin to have foreseen everything. These inner tensions and perplexities help to explain the startling “shifts in the party line” that characterize all of the Communist countries. It is true that these shifts sometimes reflect the outcome of a subterranean personal power struggle within the party. But we must remember that they also at times result from the struggles of conscientious men trying to fit an inconvenient text to the facts of reality. The yawning gap in Communist theory, by which it says nothing about how the economy shall be run except that it shall not be by the market principle, will continue to create tensions, probably of mounting intensity, within and among the Communist nations. The most painful compromise that it has so far necessitated occurred when it was decided that trade among the satellite countries should be governed by the prices set on the world market. This embarrassing concession to necessity recognized, on the one hand, that a price cannot be meaningful unless it is set by something like a market, and, on the other, the inability of the Communist system to develop a reliable pricing system within its own government-managed economy. The Communist theory has now had a chance to prove itself by an experience extending over two generations in a great nation of huge human and material resources. What can we learn from this experience? We can learn, first of all, that it is impossible to run an advanced economy

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successfully without resort to some variant of the market principle. In time of war, when costs are largely immaterial and all human efforts converge on a single goal, the market principle can be subordinated. In a primitive society, where men live on the verge of extinction and all must be content with the same meager ration, the market principle largely loses its relevance. But when society’s aim is to satisfy divers human wants and to deploy its productive facilities in such a way as to satisfy those wants in accordance with their intensity—their intensity as felt by those who have the wants—there is and can be no substitute for the market principle. This the Russian experience proves abundantly. That experience also raises serious doubt whether the market principle can be realized within an economy wholly owned by the government. The second great lesson of the Russian experience is of deeper import. It is that communism is utterly wrong about its most basic premise, the premise that underlies everything it has to say about economics, law, philosophy, morality, and religion. Communism starts with the proposition that there are no universal truths or general truths of human nature. According to its teachings there is nothing one human age can say to another about the proper ordering of society or about such subjects as justice, freedom, and equality. Everything depends on the stage of society and the economic class that is in power at a particular time. In the light of this fundamental belief—or rather, this unbending and all-pervasive disbelief—it is clear why communism had to insist that what was true for capitalism could not be true for communism. Among the truths scheduled to die with capitalism was the notion that economic life could be usefully ordered by a market. If this truth seems still to be alive, orthodox Communist doctrine has to label it as an illusion, a ghost left behind by an age now being surpassed. At the present time this particular capitalist ghost seems to have moved in on the Russian economy and threatens to become a permanent guest at the Communist banquet. Let us hope it will soon be joined by some other ghosts, such as freedom, political equality, religion, and constitutionalism. This brings me to the Communist view of law and politics. Of the Communist legal and political philosophy, we can almost say that there is none. This lack is, again, not an accident, but is an integral part of the systematic negations which make up the Communist philosophy. According to Marx and Engels, the whole life of any society is fundamentally determined by the organization of its economy. What men will

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believe; what gods, if any, they will worship; how they will choose their leaders or let their leaders choose themselves; how they will interpret the world about them—all of these are basically determined by economic interests and relations. In the jargon of communism: religion, morality, philosophy, political science, and law constitute a superstructure which reflects the underlying economic organization of a particular society. It follows that subjects which fall within the superstructure permit of no general truths; for example, what is true for law and political science under capitalism cannot be true under communism. I have said we can almost assert that there is no Communist philosophy of law and political science. The little there is can be briefly stated. It consists in the assumption that after the revolution there will be a dictatorship (called the dictatorship of the proletariat) and that this dictatorship will for a while find it necessary to utilize some of the familiar political and legal institutions, such as courts. (There is an incredibly tortured literature about just how these institutions are to be utilized and  with what modifications.) When, however, mature communism is achieved, law and the state, in the consecrated phrase, “will wither away.” There will be no voting, no parliaments, no judges, no policemen, no prisons—no problems. There will simply be factories and fields and a happy populace peacefully reveling in the abundance of their output. As with economic theory, there was a time in the history of the Soviet regime when an attempt was made to take seriously the absurdities of this Communist theory of law and state. For about a decade during the thirties an influential doctrine was called the commodity exchange theory of law. According to this theory, the fundamental fact about capitalism is that it is built on the economic institution of exchange. In accordance with the doctrine of the superstructure, all political and legal institutions under capitalism must therefore be permeated and shaped by the concept of exchange. Indeed, the theory went further. Even the rules of morality are based on exchange, for is there not a kind of tacit deal implied even in the Golden Rule, “Do unto others, as you would be done by”? Now the realization of communism, which is the negation of capitalism, requires the utter rooting out of any notion of exchange in the Communist economy. But when exchange has disappeared, the political, legal, and moral superstructure that was built on it will also disappear. Therefore, under mature communism there will not only be no capitalistic legal and political institutions, there will be no law whatever, no state, no morality—for all of

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these in some measure reflect the underlying notion of an exchange or deal among men. The high priest of this doctrine was Eugene Pashukanis. His reign came to an abrupt end in 1937 as the inconvenience of his teachings began to become apparent. With an irony befitting the career of one who predicted that communism would bring an end to law and legal processes, Pashukanis was quietly taken off and shot without even the semblance of a trial. As in the case of economics, since Pashukanis’ liquidation there has developed in Russian intellectual life a substantial gray market for capitalistic legal and political theories. But where Russian economists seem ashamed of their concessions to the market principle, Russian lawyers openly boast of their legal and political system, claiming for it that it does everything that equivalent bourgeois institutions do, only better. This boast has to be muted somewhat, because it still remains a matter of dogma that under mature communism, law and the state will disappear. This embarrassing aspect of their inherited doctrine the Soviet theorists try to keep as much as possible under the table. They cannot, however, openly renounce it without heresy, and heresy in the Soviet Union, be it remembered, still requires a very active taste for extinction. One of the leading books on Soviet legal and political theory is edited by a lawyer who is well known in this country, the late Andrei Vyshinsky. In the table-pounding manner he made famous in the U.N., Vyshinsky praises Soviet legal and political institutions to the skies and contrasts their wholesome purity with the putrid vapors emanating from the capitalist countries. He points out, for example, that in Russia the voting age is 18, while in many capitalist countries it is 21. The capitalists thus disenfranchise millions of young men and women because, says Vyshinsky, it is feared they may not yet have acquired a properly safe bourgeois mentality. As one reads arguments like this spelled out with the greatest solemnity, and learns all about the “safeguards” of the Soviet Constitution, it comes as a curious shock to find it openly declared that in the Soviet Union only one political party can legally exist and that the Soviet Constitution is “the only constitution in the world which frankly declares the directing role of the party in the state.” One wonders what all the fuss about voting qualifications is about if  the voters are in the end permitted only to vote for the candidates chosen by the only political party permitted to exist. The plain fact is,

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of course, that everything in the Soviet Constitution relating to public participation in political decisions is a facade concealing the real instrument of power that lies in the Communist Party. It has been said that hypocrisy is vice’s tribute to virtue. The holding of elections in which the electorate is given no choice may similarly be described as an attempt by communism to salve its uneasy conscience. Knowing that it cannot achieve representative democracy, it seems to feel better if it adopts its empty forms. When one reflects on it, it is an astounding thing that a great and powerful nation in the second half of the 20th century should still leave its destinies to be determined by intraparty intrigue, that it should have developed no political institutions capable of giving to its people a really effective voice in their Government, that it should lack any openly declared and lawful procedure by which the succession of one ruler to another could be determined. Some are inclined to seek an explanation for this condition in Russian history with its bloody and irregular successions of czars. But this is to forget that even in England, the mother of parliaments, there were once in times long gone by some pretty raw doings behind palace walls and some unseemly and even bloody struggles for the throne. But where other nations have worked gradually toward stable political institutions guaranteeing the integrity of their governments, Russia has remained in a state of arrested development. That state will continue until the Russian leaders have the courage to declare openly that the legal and political philosophy of Marx, Engles, and Lenin is fundamentally mistaken and must be abandoned. How heavy the burden of the inherited Communist philosophy is becomes clear when the concept of law itself is under discussion. Through­ out the ages, among men of all nations and creeds, law has ­generally been thought of as a curb on arbitrary power. It has been conceived as a way of substituting reason for force in the decision of disputes, thus liberating human energies for the pursuit of aims more worthy of man’s destiny than brute survival or the domination of one’s fellows. No one has supposed that these ideals have ever been fully realized in any society. Like every human institution, law is capable of being exploited for selfish purposes and of losing its course through a confusion of purposes. But during most of the world’s history, men have thought that the questions worthy of ­discussion were how the institutions of law could be shaped so that they

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might not be perverted into instruments of power or lose the sense of their high mission through sloth or ignorance. What is the Communist attitude toward this intellectual enterprise in which so many great thinkers of so many past ages have joined? Communism consigns all of it to the ashcan of history as a fraud and delusion, beneath the contempt of Communist science. How, then, is law defined today in Russia? We have an authoritative answer. It is declared to be “the totality of the rules of conduct expressing the will of the dominant class, designed to promote those relationships that are advantageous and agreeable to the dominant class.” Law in the Soviet Union is not conceived as a check on power, it is openly and proudly an expression of power. In this conception surely, if anywhere, the bankruptcy of communism as a moral philosophy openly declares itself. It is vitally important to emphasize again that all of the truly imposing absurdities achieved by Communist thought—in whatever field: in economics, in politics, in law, in morality—that all of these trace back to a single common source. That origin lies in a belief that nothing of universal validity can be said of human nature, that there are no principles, values, or moral truths that stand above a particular age or a particular phase in the evolution of society. This profound negation lies at the very heart of the Communist philosophy and gives to it both its motive force and its awesome capacity for destruction. It is this central negation that makes communism radically inconsistent with the ideal of human freedom. As with other bourgeois virtues, once dismissed contemptuously, Soviet writers have now taken up the line that only under communism can men realize “true freedom.” This line may even have a certain persuasiveness for Russians in that individuals tend to prize those freedoms they are familiar with and not to miss those they have never enjoyed. A Russian transplanted suddenly to American soil might well feel for a time “unfree” in the sense that he would be confronted with the burden of making choices that he was unaccustomed to making and that he would regard as onerous. But the problem of freedom goes deeper than the psychological conditioning of any particular individual. It touches the very roots of man’s fundamental conception of himself. The Communist philosophy is basically inconsistent with the ideal of freedom because it denies that there can be any standard of moral truth by  which the actions of any given social order may be judged. If the

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i­ndividual says to government, “Thus far may you go, but no farther,” he necessarily appeals to some principle of rightness that stands above his particular form of government. It is precisely the possibility of any such standard that communism radically and uncomprisingly denies. Marx and Engels had nothing but sneers for the idea that there are “eternal truths, such as freedom, justice, etc., that are common to all states of society.” They contend that there are no eternal truths. All ideas of right and wrong come from the social system under which one lives. If that system requires tyranny and oppression, then tyranny and oppression must within that system be accepted; there can be no higher court of appeal. Not only do the premises of Communist philosophy make any coherent theory of freedom impossible, but the actual structure of the Soviet regime is such that no true sense of freedom can ever develop under it. To see why this is so, it is useful to accept the Communist ideology provisionally and reason the matter out purely in terms of what may be called human engineering. Let us concede that a struggle for political power goes on in all countries and let us assume in keeping with Marxist views that this struggle has absolutely nothing to do with right and wrong. Even from this perversely brutal point of view, it is clear why a sense of freedom can never develop under the Soviet regime. In a constitutional democracy the struggle for political power is assigned to a definite arena; it is roped off, so to speak, from the rest of life. In the Soviet Union, on the other hand, there is no clear distinction between politics and economics, or between politics and other human activities. No barriers exist to define what is a political question and what is not. Instead of being ordered and canalized as it is in constitutional democracies, the struggle for political power in Russia pervades, or can at any time pervade, every department of life. For this reason there is no area of human interest—the intellectual, literary, scientific, artistic, or religious— that may not at any time become a battleground of this struggle. Take, for example, the situation of a Soviet architect. Today without doubt he enjoys a certain security; he is not likely to lie awake fearing the dread knock at the door at midnight. Furthermore, he may now see opening before him in the practice of his profession a degree of artistic freedom that his predecessors did not enjoy. But he can never be sure that he will not wake up tomorrow morning and read in the papers that a new “line” has been laid down for architecture, since his profession, like every other, can at any moment be drawn into the struggle for power. He can never know the security enjoyed by those who live under a system

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where the struggle for political power is fenced off, as it were, from the other concerns of life. When Soviet “politics” invades a field like architecture, it cannot be said to spread beyond its proper boundaries, for it has none. It is precisely this defect in the Soviet regime that in the long run prevents the realization of the ideal of freedom under communism. It is only in the constitutional democracies that the human spirit can be permanently free to unfold itself in as many directions as are opened up for it by its creative urge. Only such governments can achieve diversity without disintegration, for only they know the full meaning of “those wise restraints that make men free.” Since the Communist philosophy of history is the central core of its ideology, that philosophy has of necessity permeated every theme I have so far discussed. Briefly stated the Communist philosophy of history is that man does not make history, but is made by it. Though communism denies to man the capacity to shape his own destiny, it does accord to him a remarkable capacity to foresee in great detail just what the future will impose on him. The literature of communism is full of prophecies, tacit and explicit. Probably no human faith ever claimed so confidently that it knew so much about the future. Certainly none ever  ran up a greater number of bad guesses. On a rough estimate the Communist record for mistaken prophecies stands at about 100 percent. Among the conclusions about the future that were implicit in the Communist philosophy, or were drawn from it by its prophets, we can name the following: That communism will first establish itself in countries of the most advanced capitalism; That in such countries society will gradually split itself into two classes, with the rich becoming fewer and richer, the laboring masses sinking steadily to a bare level of existence; That under capitalism colonialism will increase as each capitalistic nation seeks more and more outlets for its surplus production; That in capitalist countries labor unions will inevitably take the lead in bringing about the Communist revolution; That as soon as communism is firmly established steps will be taken toward the elimination of the capitalist market and capitalist political and legal institutions; etc.

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As with other aspects of communism, this record of bad guesses is no accident. It derives from the basic assumption of Marxism that man has no power to mold his institutions to meet problems as they arise, that he is caught up in a current of history which carries him inevitably toward his predestined goal. A philosophy which embraces this view of man’s plight is constitutionally incapable of predicting the steps man will take to shape his own destiny, precisely because it has in advance declared any such steps to be impossible. Communism in this respect is like a man standing on the bank of a rising river and observing what appears to be a log lodged against the opposite shore. Assuming that what he observes is an inert object, he naturally predicts that the log will eventually be carried away by the rising floodwaters. When the log turns out to be a living creature and steps safely out of the water the observer is, of course, profoundly surprised. Communism, it must be confessed, has shown a remarkable capacity to absorb such shocks, for it has survived many of them. In the long run, however, it seems inevitable that the Communist brain will inflict serious damage upon itself by the tortured rationalizations with which it has to explain each successive bad guess. This brings us to the final issue. Why is it that with all its brutalities and absurdities communism still retains an active appeal for the minds and hearts of many intelligent men and women? For we must never forget that this appeal does exist. It is true that in the United States and many other countries the fringe of serious thought represented by active Communist belief has become abraded to the point of near extinction. It is also the fact that many people everywhere adhere to groups dominated by Communist leadership who have only the slightest inkling of communism as a system of ideas. Then again we must remember that in the Communist countries themselves there are many intelligent, loyal, and hard-working citizens, thoroughly acquainted with the Communist philosophy, who view that philosophy with a quiet disdain, not unmixed with a certain sardonic pleasure of the sort that goes with witnessing, from a choice seat, a comedy of errors that is unfortunately also a tragedy Finally we must not confuse every “gain of communism” with a gain of adherents to Communist beliefs. In particular, we should not mistake the acceptance of technical and economic aid from Moscow as a conversion to the Communist faith, though the contacts thus established may, of course, open the way for a propagation of that faith.

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With all this said, and with surface appearance discounted in every proper way, the tragic fact remains that communism as a faith remains a potent force in the world of ideas today. It is an even more tragic fact that that faith can sometimes appeal not only to opportunists and ­adventurers, but also to men of dedicated idealism. How does this come about? To answer this question we have to ask another: What are the ingredients that go to make up a successful fighting faith, a faith that will enlist the devotion and fanaticism of its adherents, that will let loose on the world that unaccommodating creature, “the true believer”? I think that such a faith must be made up of at least three ­ingredients. First, it must lift its adherents above the dread sense of being alone and make them feel themselves members of a brotherhood. Second, it must make its adherents believe that in working for the objectives of their faith they are moving in step with nature, or with the forces of history, or with the divine will. Third, it must be a faith that gives to its adherents a sense of being lifted above the concerns that consume the lives of the nonbelieving. All of these ingredients are furnished in abundance by communism. In the Communist philosophy the first two ingredients are fused into one doubly effective amalgam. To become a Communist is no longer to be alone, but to join in the march of a great, oppressed mass of humanity called the proletariat. This silent, faceless army is being carried inevitably to its goal by the unseen forces of history. There is thus a double identification. History belongs to the proletariat, the proletariat belongs to history. By joining in this great march the Communist not only gains human companions but a sense of responding to the great pull of the universe itself. Now the picture I have just painted is not one that even the most devout Communist can comfortably carry about with him at all times. Indeed, there are probably few Communists who do not, even in their moments of highest faith, sense some of the fictions and contradictions of the dream to which they are committed. The absurdities of the Communist ideology are, however, by no means immediately apparent to the new convert, who is likely to be intrigued rather by the difficulty of understanding them. The old believer sees no reason to point out these absurdities, partly because he does not wish to undermine the faith of the young, and partly because he has become inured to them, has learned to live with them at peace, and does not want to disturb his own adjustment to them.

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One of the key fictions of the Communist edifice of thought is the belief that there is in modern industrial society an identifiable class of people called the proletariat. That such a class would develop was not a bad guess in 1848 and Marx had other economists with him in making this guess. As usual, history perversely took the wrong turn. And as usual, this has caused communism no particular embarrassment, for it continues—with diminished ardor, to be sure—to talk about the proletariat as if it were actually there. But professing to see things that are not there is often a sign of faith and furnishes, in any event, a bond of union among believers. To many of its American critics, communism has appeared as a kind of nightmare. Like awakened sleepers still recoiling from the shock of their dream, these critics forget that the nightmare is after all shot through and through with absurdities. The result is to lend to the Communist ideology a substance that, in fact, it does not possess. If in moments of doubt the Communist is inclined to feel that his philosophy is made of air and tinsel, he is reassured and brought back into the fold when he recalls that its critics have declared this philosophy to be profoundly and powerfully vicious. Part of the tarnish that an uncompliant history has visited on the Communist prophecies has in recent years been removed by the achievements of Russian technology. It is now possible to identify communism with the land that has the highest school buildings, the hugest outdoor rallies, the most colossal statues and the space satellites that weigh the most tons. It is not difficult to make all this appear as a kind of belated flowering of the promises communism began holding out more than a hundred years ago. It is easy to make men forget that none of the solid accomplishments of modern Russia came about by methods remotely resembling anything anticipated by Marx, Engels, or Lenin. In suggesting the ingredients that go to make up a successful fighting faith, I stated that such a faith must be one “that gives to its adherents a sense of being lifted above the concerns that consume the lives of the nonbelieving.” I have purposely left this aspect of the Communist faith to the last for it is here that the truly nightmarish quality of that faith manifests itself. Not that it is any objection to a faith that it enables those sharing it to be indifferent to things that seem important to others. The crucial question is, What is it that men are told not to heed? As to the Communist

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faith there is no ambiguity on this score. It tells men to forget all the teachings of the ages about government, law, and morality. We are told to cast off the intellectual burden left behind by men like Confucius, Mencius, Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas, Kant and Bentham. There are no “eternal truths” about society. There is no science of social architecture. Only the simple minded can believe that there are principles guiding the creation of sound legal and political institutions. For the enlightened there is only one rule: Smash the existing “bourgeois” economic and legal order and leave the rest to the “spontaneous class organization of the proletariat.” In diplomatic dealings the Russians display great respect for American military and economic power, but consider us hopelessly naive in matters political. We are still concerned with trifles as they feel themselves long since to have left behind—trifles like: How do you help a people to ­realize self-government who have had no experience with its necessary forms and restraints? How, following the overthrow of a tyranny, do you suggest steps that will prevent an interim dictatorship from hardening into a second tyranny? It is not that the Communists have ideas about sound government that differ from ours. According to strict Communist theory there can be no ideas on such a subject. If a gray market for such ideas has gradually developed in Russia it has not yet reached the point of being ready for the export trade. Russia has engineers able to help the underdeveloped countries build roads and dams and there is no reason to question the competence of these engineers. But whoever heard of Russia sending an expert in political institutions to help a new country design an appropriate form of representative self-government? Not only would such a ­mission stand in ludicrous incongruity with the present situation of the Communist countries in Europe; it would be a repudiation of the basic premises of the whole Communist philosophy. Even in the economic field, Russia really has nothing to offer the rest of the world but negations. For a long time after the establishment of the Soviet regime it was actively disputed in Russia whether for communism there is any such thing as an economic law. Communistic ideology has had gradually to bend before the plain fact that such laws exist. But Russia has as yet developed no economic institutions that are more than distorted shadows of their capitalist equivalents. Russia may help a new country to develop electric power. It has nothing

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to say about the social institutions that will determine how that power will be utilized for the good of the whole people. This great vacuum that lies in the heart of communism explains not only why its philosophy is in the long run so destructive of everything human, but why in the short run it can be so successful. Consider, for example, what it can offer to the leader of a successful revolution. A cruel dictatorship has been overthrown. It had to be overthrown by force because it permitted no elections or never counted the vote honestly. Following the successful revolt, there must be an interval during which order is kept by something approaching a dictatorship. Sooner or later, if the revolution is not to belie its democratic professions, some movement must be made toward representative self-government. This is a period of great difficulty. There is no mystery about its problems. They fit into an almost classic pattern known from antiquity. The revolutionary leaders must find some accommodation with what is left of the old regime. Sooner or later the firing squad must be retired. Even when this is done vengeful hatreds continue to endanger the successful operation of parliamentary government. Among the revolutionary party, men who were once united in overthrowing plain injustice become divided on the question what constitutes a just new order. Militant zealots, useful in the barricades, are too rough for civil government and must be curbed. If curbed too severely, they may take up arms against the new government. Etc., etc. What can communism offer the revolutionary leader caught in this ancient and familiar quandary? It can, of course, offer him material aid. But it can offer him something more significant and infinitely more dangerous, a clear conscience in taking the easy course. It can tell him to forget about elections and his promises of democracy and freedom. It can support this advice with an imposing library of pseudoscience clothing despotism with the appearance of intellectual respectability. The internal stability of the present Russian Government lends an additional persuasiveness to this appeal. If Russia can get along without elections, why can’t we? Men forget that it is a common characteristic of dictatorships to enjoy internal truces that may extend over decades, only to have the struggle for power renew itself when the problem of a succession arises. This is a pattern written across centuries of man’s struggle for forms of government consistent with human dignity. It is said that the struggle for power cannot under modern conditions with modern armies and modern weapons, take the form of a prolonged civil war. That is no

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doubt true in a developed economy like that of Russia. The shift in power when it comes may involve only a few quick maneuvers within the apparatus of the party, which have their only outward manifestation in purges or banishments that seal the results. But the fact remains that the fate of millions will be determined by processes which take no account of their interests or wishes, in which they are granted no participation, and which they are not even permitted to observe. It must not be forgotten that modern Russia was for an indefinite period prior to 1953 governed by a tyranny. This is admitted in Russia today. To be sure, the term “tyranny” is not used, because according to the Communist philosophy a term like that betokens a naive and outdated view of the significance of governmental forms. The Soviet term is “the cult of personality.” According to the official explanation Stalin and his followers in some mysterious way became infected with a mistaken view of Stalin’s proper role. According to ancient wisdom this was because Stalin ruled without the check of constitutional forms and without effective popular participation in his government. In the words of Aristotle, written some 23 centuries ago, “This is why we do not permit a man to rule, but the principle of law, because a man rules in his own interest, and becomes a tyrant.” It is plain that Stalin at some point became a tyrant. According to Aristotle this was because Russia did not base its government on the principle of law. According to the Communist theory some inexplicable slippage of the gears, some accidental countercurrent of history, led Stalin to embrace incorrect notions about himself. If mankind is to survive at a level of dignity worthy of its great past, we must help the world recapture some sense of the teachings of the great thinkers of former ages. It must come again to see that sound legal and political institutions not only express man’s highest ideal of what he may become, but that they are indispensable instruments for enabling him to realize that ideal. It would be comforting to believe that the forces of history are working inevitably toward this realization and that we too are cooperating with the inevitable. We can only hope that this is so. But we can know that the forces of human life, struggling to realize itself on its  highest plane, are working with us and that those forces need our help desperately.

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Ronald Reagan Address on Behalf of Senator Barry Goldwater Rendezvous with Destiny October 27, 1964

On the evening of 27 October 1964, Ronald Reagan delivered a nationwide paid political telecast on behalf of the presidential candidacy of Barry Goldwater. His presentation was so forceful and engaging that Reagan, hitherto little considered a political figure, became overnight a political force in the Republican party. Although Goldwater lost to Lyndon Johnson in an landslide and Richard Nixon captured the nomination—and the presidency—in 1968, Reagan’s reputation was firmly established and he recovered the fortunes of the Republican party with his victory in the presidential election of 1980.

T

hank you very much. Thank you and good evening. The sponsor has been identified, but unlike most television programs, the performer hasn’t been provided with a script. As a matter of fact, I have been permitted to choose my own ideas regarding the choice that we face in the next few weeks. I have spent most of my life as a Democrat. I recently have seen fit to follow another course. I believe that the issues confronting us cross party lines. Now, one side in this campaign has been telling us that the issues of this election are the maintenance of peace and prosperity. The line has been used “We’ve never had it so good.” 381

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But I have an uncomfortable feeling that this prosperity isn’t something on which we can base our hopes for the future. No nation in ­history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income. Today, 37 cents of every dollar earned in this country is the tax collector’s share, and yet our government continues to spend $17 million a day more than the government takes in. We haven’t balanced our budget 28 out of the last 34 years. We have raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations in the world. We have $15 billion in gold in our treasury—we don’t own an ounce. Foreign ­dollar claims are $27.3 billion, and we have just had announced that the dollar of 1939 will now purchase 45 cents in its total value. As for the peace that we would preserve, I wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in South Vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained indefinitely. Do they mean peace, or do they mean we just want to be left in peace? There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We are at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it has been said if we lose that war, and in doing so lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well, I think it’s time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers. Not too long ago two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, “We don’t know how lucky we are.” And the Cuban stopped and said, “How lucky you are! I had someplace to escape to.” In that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

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You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down—up to a man’s age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order—or down to the ant heap totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course. In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the “Great Society,” or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a “greater government activity in the affairs of the people.” But they have been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves—and all of the things that I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say “the cold war will end through acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism.” Another voice says that the profit motive has become outmoded, it must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state; or our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century. Senator Fullbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the president as our moral teacher and our leader, and he said he is hobbled in his task by the restrictions in power imposed on him by this antiquated document. He must be freed so that he can do for us what he knows is best. And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as “meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government.” Well, I for one resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me—the free man and woman of this country—as “the masses.” This is a term we haven’t applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, “the full power of centralized government”—this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don’t control things. A government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy. Now, we have no better example of this than the government’s involvement in the farm economy over the last 30 years. Since 1955, the cost of this program has nearly doubled. One-fourth of farming in

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America is responsible for 85% of the farm surplus. Three-fourths of farming is out on the free market and has known a 21% increase in the per capita consumption of all its produce. You see, that one-fourth of farming is regulated and controlled by the federal government. In the last three years we have spent $43 in feed grain program for every bushel of corn we don’t grow. Senator Humphrey last week charged that Barry Goldwater as President would seek to eliminate farmers. He should do his homework a little better, because he will find out that we have had a decline of 5 million in the farm population under these government programs. He will also find that the Democratic administration has sought to get from Congress an extension of the farm program to include that three-fourths that is now free. He will find that they have also asked for the right to imprison farmers who wouldn’t keep books as prescribed by the federal government. The Secretary of Agriculture asked for the right to seize farms through condemnation and resell them to other individuals. And contained in that same program was a provision that would have allowed the federal government to remove 2 million farmers from the soil. At the same time, there has been an increase in the Department of Agriculture employees. There is now one for every 30 farms in the United States, and still they can’t tell us how 66 shiploads of grain headed for Austria disappeared without a trace and Billie Sol Estes never left shore. Every responsible farmer and farm organization has repeatedly asked the government to free the farm economy, but who are farmers to know what is best for them? The wheat farmers voted against a wheat program. The government passed it anyway. Now the price of bread goes up; the price of wheat to the farmer goes down. Meanwhile, back in the city, under urban renewal the assault on freedom carries on. Private property rights are so diluted that public interest is almost anything that a few government planners decide it should be. In a program that takes for the needy and gives to the greedy, we see such spectacles as in Cleveland, Ohio, a million-and-a-half-dollar building completed only three years ago must be destroyed to make way for what government officials call a “more compatible use of the land.” The President tells us he is now going to start building public housing units in the thousands where heretofore we have only built them in the hundreds. But FHA and the Veterans Administration tell us that they have 120,000 housing units they’ve taken back through mortgage foreclosures.

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For three decades, we have sought to solve the problems of unemployment through government planning, and the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan. The latest is the Area Redevelopment Agency. They have just declared Rice County, Kansas, a depressed area. Rice County, Kansas, has two hundred oil wells, and the 14,000 people there have over $30 million on deposit in personal savings in their banks. When the government tells you you’re depressed, lie down and be depressed. We have so many people who can’t see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they are going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer and they’ve had almost 30 years of it, shouldn’t we expect government to almost read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn’t they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing? But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater, the program grows greater. We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet. But now we are told that 9.3 million families in this country are poverty-stricken on the basis of earning less than $3,000 a year. Welfare spending is 10 times greater than in the dark depths of the Depression. We are spending $45 billion on welfare. Now do a little arithmetic, and you will find that if we divided the $45 billion up equally among those 9 million poor families, we would be able to give each family $4,600 a year, and this added to their present income should eliminate poverty! Direct aid to the poor, however, is running only about $600 per family. It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead. So now we declare “war on poverty,” or “you, too, can be a Bobby Baker!” Now, do they honestly expect us to believe that if we add $1 ­billion to the $45 million we are spending . . . one more program to the 30-odd we have—and remember, this new program doesn’t replace any, it just duplicates existing programs—do they believe that poverty is suddenly going to disappear by magic? Well, in all fairness I should explain that there is one part of the new program that isn’t duplicated. This is the youth feature. We are now going to solve the dropout ­problem, juvenile delinquency, by reinstituting something like the old CCC camps,

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and we are going to put our young people in camps, but again we do some arithmetic, and we find that we are going to spend each year just on room and board for each young person that we help $4,700 a year! We can send them to Harvard for $2,700! Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that Harvard is the answer to juvenile delinquency. But seriously, what are we doing to those we seek to help? Not too long ago, a judge called me here in Los Angeles. He told me of a young woman who had come before him for a divorce. She had six children, was pregnant with her seventh. Under his questioning, she revealed her husband was a laborer earning $250 a month. She wanted a divorce so that she could get an $80 raise. She is eligible for $330 a month in the Aid to Dependent Children Program. She got the idea from two women in her neighborhood who had already done that very thing. Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we are denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we are always “against” things, never “for” anything. Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so. We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem. But we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments to those who depend on them for livelihood. They have called it insurance to us in a hundred million pieces of literature. But then they appeared before the Supreme Court and they testified that it was a welfare program. They only use the term “insurance” to sell it to the people. And they said Social Security dues are a tax for the general use of the government, and the government has used that tax. There is no fund, because Robert Byers, the actuarial head, appeared before a congressional committee and admitted that Social Security as of this moment is $298 billion in the hole. But he said there should be no cause for worry because as long as they have the power to tax, they could always take away from the people whatever they needed to bail them out of trouble! And they are doing just that. A young man, 21 years of age, working at an average salary . . . his Social Security contribution would, in the open market, buy him an insurance policy that would guarantee $220 a month at age 65. The government

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promises $127. He could live it up until he is 31 and then take out a policy that would pay more than Social Security. Now, are we so lacking in business sense that we can’t put this program on a sound basis so that people who do require those payments will find that they can get them when they are due . . . that the cupboard isn’t bare? Barry Goldwater thinks we can. At the same time, can’t we introduce voluntary features that would permit a citizen who can do better on his own to be excused upon presentation of evidence that he had made provisions for the non-earning years? Should we allow a widow with children to work, and not lose the benefits ­supposedly paid for by her deceased husband? Shouldn’t you and I be allowed to declare who our beneficiaries will be under these programs, which we cannot do? I think we are for telling our senior citizens that no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds. But I think we are against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program, especially when we have such examples, as announced last week, when France admitted that their Medicare program was now bankrupt. They’ve come to the end of the road. In addition, was Barry Goldwater so irresponsible when he suggested that our government give up its program of deliberate planned inflation so that when you do get your Social Security pension, a dollar will buy a dollar’s worth, and not 45 cents’ worth? I think we are for an international organization, where the nations of the world can seek peace. But I think we are against subordinating American interests to an organization that has become so structurally unsound that today you can muster a two-thirds vote on the floor of the General Assembly among the nations that represent less than 10 percent of the world’s population. I think we are against the hypocrisy of ­assailing our allies because here and there they cling to a colony, while we engage in a conspiracy of silence and never open our mouths about the millions of people enslaved in Soviet colonies in the satellite nation. I think we are for aiding our allies by sharing of our material blessings with those nations which share in our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world. We set out to help 19 countries. We are helping 107. We spent $146 billion. With that money, we bought a $2 million yacht for Haile Selassie. We bought dress suits for Greek undertakers, extra wives for Kenyan government officials. We bought a

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thousand TV sets for a place where they have no electricity. In the last six years, 52 nations have bought $7 billion worth of our gold, and all 52 are receiving foreign aid from this country. No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this Earth. Federal employees number 2.5 million, and federal, state, and local, one out of six of the nation’s work force is employed by the government. These proliferating bureaus with their thousands of regulations have cost us many of our constitutional safeguards. How many of us realize that today federal agents can invade a man’s property without a warrant? They can impose a fine without a formal hearing, let alone a trial by jury, and they can seize and sell his property in auction to enforce the payment of that fine. In Chico County, Arkansas, James Wier overplanted his rice allotment. The government obtained a $17,000 judgment, and a U.S. marshal sold his 950-acre farm at auction. The government said it was necessary as a warning to others to make the system work. Last February 19 at the University of Minnesota, Norman Thomas, six-time candidate for President on the Socialist Party ticket, said, “If Barry Goldwater became President, he would stop the advance of socialism in the United States.” I think that’s exactly what he will do. As a former Democrat, I can tell you Norman Thomas isn’t the only man who has drawn this parallel to socialism with the present administration. Back in 1936, Mr. Democrat himself, Al Smith, the great American, came before the American people and charged that the leadership of his party was taking the part of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. And he walked away from his party, and he never returned to the day he died, because to this day, the leadership of that party has been taking that party, that honorable party, down the road in the image of the labor socialist party of England. Now it doesn’t require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? Such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, inalienable rights are now

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considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment. Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to debate these issues. They want to make you and I believe that this is a contest between two men . . . that we are to choose just between two personalities. Well, what of this man that they would destroy? And in destroying, they would destroy that which he represents, the ideas that you and I hold dear. Is he the brash and shallow and trigger-happy man they say he is? Well, I have been privileged to know him “when.” I knew him long before he ever dreamed of trying for high office, and I can tell you personally I have never known a man in my life I believe so incapable of doing a dishonest or dishonorable thing. This is a man who in his own business, before he entered politics, instituted a profit-sharing plan, before unions had ever thought of it. He put in health and medical insurance for all his employees. He took 50 percent of the profits before taxes and set up a retirement program, a pension plan for all his employees. He sent checks for life to an ­employee who was ill and couldn’t work. He provided nursing care for the children of mothers who work in the stores. When Mexico was ravaged by floods from the Rio Grande, he climbed in his airplane and flew medicine and supplies down there. An ex-GI told me how he met him. It was the week before Christmas during the Korean War, and he was at the Los Angeles airport trying to get a ride home to Arizona for Christmas, and he said that there were a lot of servicemen there and no seats available on the planes. Then a voice came over the loudspeaker and said, “Any men in uniform wanting a ride to Arizona, go to runway such-and-such,” and they went down there, and there was this fellow named Barry Goldwater sitting in his plane. Every day in the weeks before Christmas, all day long, he would load up the plane, fly to Arizona, fly them to their homes, then fly back over to get another load. During the hectic split-second timing of a campaign, this is a man who took time out to sit beside an old friend who was dying of cancer. His campaign managers were understandably impatient, but he said, “There aren’t many left who care what happens to her. I’d like her to know I care.” This is a man who said to his 19-year-old son, “There is no foundation like the rock of honesty and fairness, and when you begin to build your life upon that rock, with the cement of the faith in God that you

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have, then you have a real start.” This is not a man who could carelessly send other people’s sons to war. And that is the issue of this campaign that makes all of the other problems I have discussed academic, unless we realize that we are in a war that must be won. Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us that they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy “accommodation.” And they say if we only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he will forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer—not an easy answer—but simple. If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based upon what we know in our hearts is morally right. We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion now in slavery behind the Iron Curtain, “Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skin, we are willing to make a deal with your slave masters.” Alexander Hamilton said, “A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.” Let’s set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second—surrender. Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand—the ultimatum. And what then? When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he has heard voices pleading for “peace at any price” or “better Red than dead,” or as one commentator put it, he would rather “live on his knees than die on his feet.” And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don’t speak for the rest of us. You and I know and

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do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ‘round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in  vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it’s a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, “There is a price we will not pay.” There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater’s “peace through strength.” Winston Churchill said that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits—not animals.” And he said, “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.” You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness. We will keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny. Thank you very much.

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Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech Richard M. Nixon

Republican National Convention Miami Beach, Florida August 8, 1968 Mr. Chairman, delegates to this convention, my fellow Americans. Sixteen years ago I stood before this Convention to accept your ­nomination as the running mate of one of the greatest Americans of our time—or of any time—Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eight years ago, I had the highest honor of accepting your nomination for President of the United States. Tonight, I again proudly accept that nomination for President of the United States. But I have news for you. This time there is a difference. This time we are going to win. We’re going to win for a number of reasons: first a personal one. General Eisenhower, as you know, lies critically ill in the Walter Reed Hospital tonight. I have talked, however, with Mrs. Eisenhower on the telephone. She tells me that his heart is with us. And she says that there is nothing that he lives more for and there is nothing that would lift him more than for us to win in November and I say let’s win this one for Ike! We are going to win because this great Convention has demonstrated to the nation that the Republican Party has the leadership, the platform and the purpose that America needs. We are going to win because you have nominated as my running mate a statesman of the first rank who will be a great campaigner and one who is fully qualified to undertake the new responsibilities that I shall give to the next Vice President of the United States. 393

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And he is a man who fully shares my conviction and yours, that after a period of forty years when power has gone from the cities and the states to the government in Washington, D.C., it’s time to have power go back from Washington to the states and to the cities of this country allover America. We are going to win because at a time that America cries out for the unity that this Administration has destroyed, the Republican Party—after a spirited contest for its nomination—for President and for Vice President stands united before the nation tonight. I congratulate Governor Reagan. I congratulate Governor Rockefeller. I congratulate Governor Romney. I congratulate all those who have made the hard fight that they have for this nomination. And I know that you will all fight even harder for the great victory our party is going to win in November because we’re going to be together in that election campaign. And a party that can unite itself will unite America. My fellow Americans, most important—we are going to win because our cause is right. We make history tonight—not for ourselves but for the ages. The choice we make in 1968 will determine not only the future of America but the future of peace and freedom in the world for the last third of the Twentieth Century. And the question that we answer tonight: can America meet this great challenge? For a few moments, let us look at America, let us listen to America to find the answer to that question. As we look at America, we see cities enveloped in smoke and flame. We hear sirens in the night. We see Americans dying on distant battlefields abroad. We see Americans hating each other; fighting each other; killing each other at home. And as we see and hear these things, millions of Americans cry out in anguish. Did we come all this way for this? Did American boys die in Normandy, and Korea, and in Valley Forge for this? Listen to the answer to those questions. It is another voice. It is the quiet voice in the tumult and the shouting.

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It is the voice of the great majority of Americans, the forgotten Americans—the non-shouters; the non-demonstrators. They are not racists or sick; they are not guilty of the crime that plagues the land. They are black and they are white—they’re native born and foreign born—they’re young and they’re old. They work in America’s factories. They run America’s businesses. They serve in government. They provide most of the soldiers who died to keep us free. They give drive to the spirit of America. They give lift to the American Dream. They give steel to the backbone of America. They are good people, they are decent people; they work, and they save, and they pay their taxes, and they care. Like Theodore Roosevelt, they know that this country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless it is a good place for all of us to live in. This I say to you tonight is the real voice of America. In this year 1968, this is the message it will broadcast to America and to the world. Let’s never forget that despite her faults, America is a great nation. And America is great because her people are great. With Winston Churchill, we say: “We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies because we are made of sugar candy.” America is in trouble today not because her people have failed but because her leaders have failed. And what America needs are leaders to match the greatness of her people. And this great group of Americans, the forgotten Americans, and ­others know that the great question Americans must answer by their votes in November is this: Whether we shall continue for four more years the policies of the last five years. And this is their answer and this is my answer to that question. When the strongest nation in the world can be tied down for four years in a war in Vietnam with no end in sight; When the richest nation in the world can’t manage its own economy; When the nation with the greatest tradition of the rule of law is plagued by unprecedented lawlessness;

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When a nation that has been known for a century for equality of opportunity is torn by unprecedented racial violence; And when the President of the United States cannot travel abroad or to any major city at home without fear of a hostile demonstration—then it’s time for new leadership for the United States of America. My fellow Americans, tonight I accept the challenge and the commitment to provide that new leadership for America. And I ask you to accept it with me. And let us accept this challenge not as a grim duty but as an exciting adventure in which we are privileged to help a great nation realize its destiny. And let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth—to see it like it is, and tell it like it is—to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth—that’s what we will do. We’ve had enough of big promises and little action. The time has come for honest government in the United States of America. And so tonight I do not promise the millennium in the morning. I don’t promise that we can eradicate poverty, and end discrimination, eliminate all danger of war in the space of four, or even eight years. But, I do promise action—a new policy for peace abroad; a new policy for peace and progress and justice at home. Look at our problems abroad. Do you realize that we face the stark truth that we are worse off in every area of the world tonight than we were when President Eisenhower left office eight years ago. That’s the record. And there is only one answer to such a record of failure and that is a complete housecleaning of those responsible for the failures of that record. The answer is a complete re-appraisal of America’s policies in every section of the world. We shall begin with Vietnam. We all hope in this room that there is a chance that current negotiations may bring an honorable end to that war. And we will say nothing during this campaign that might destroy that chance. But if the war is not ended when the people choose in November, the choice will be clear. Here it is. For four years this Administration has had at its disposal the greatest military and economic advantage that one nation has ever had over another in any war in history.

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For four years, America’s fighting men have set a record for courage and sacrifice unsurpassed in our history. For four years, this Administration has had the support of the Loyal Opposition for the objective of seeking an honorable end to the struggle. Never has so much military and economic and diplomatic power been used so ineffectively. And if after all of this time and all of this sacrifice and all of this support there is still no end in sight, then I say the time has come for the American people to turn to new leadership—not tied to the mistakes and the policies of the past. That is what we offer to America. And I pledge to you tonight that the first priority foreign policy objective of our next Administration will be to bring an honorable end to the war in Vietnam. We shall not stop there—we need a policy to prevent more Vietnams. All of America’s peace-keeping institutions and all of America’s foreign commitments must be re-appraised. Over the past twenty-five years, America has provided more than one-hundred and fifty billion dollars in foreign aid to nations abroad. In Korea and now again in Vietnam, the United States furnished most of the money, most of the arms; most of the men to help the people of those countries defend themselves against aggression. Now we are a rich country. We are a strong nation. We are a populous nation. But there are two hundred million Americans and they’re two billion people that live in the Free World. And I say the time has come for other nations in the Free World to bear their fair share of the burden of defending peace and freedom around this world. What I call for is not a new isolationism. It is a new internationalism in which America enlists its allies and its friends around the world in those struggles in which their interest is as great as ours. And now to the leaders of the Communist world, we say: After an era of confrontation, the time has come for an era of negotiation. Where the world’s super powers are concerned, there is no acceptable alternative to peaceful negotiation. Because this will be a period of negotiation, we shall restore the strength of America so that we shall always negotiate from strength and never from weakness. And as we seek peace through negotiation, let our goals be made clear:

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We do not seek domination over any other country. We believe deeply in our ideas, but we believe they should travel on their own power and not on the power of our arms. We shall never be belligerent but we shall be as firm in defending our system as they are in expanding theirs. We believe this should be an era of peaceful competition, not only in the productivity of our factories but in the quality of our ideas. We extend the hand of friendship to all people, to the Russian people, to the Chinese people, to all people in the world. And we shall work toward the goal of an open world—open skies, open cities, open hearts, open minds. The next eight years, my friends, this period in which we are entering, I think we will have the greatest opportunity for world peace but also face the greatest danger of world war of any time in our history. I believe we must have peace. I believe that we can have peace, but I do not underestimate the difficulty of this task. Because you see the art of preserving peace is greater than that of waging war and much more demanding. But I am proud to have served in an Administration which ended one war and kept the nation out of other wars for eight years. And it is that kind of experience and it is that kind of leadership that America needs today, and that we will give to America with your help. And as we commit to new policies for America tonight, let us make one further pledge: For five years hardly a day has gone by when we haven’t read or heard a report of the American flag being spit on; an embassy being stoned; a library being burned; or an ambassador being insulted some place in the world. And each incident reduced respect for the United States until the ultimate insult inevitably occurred. And I say to you tonight that when respect for the United States of America falls so low that a fourth-rate military power, like North Korea, will seize an American naval vessel on the high seas, it is time for new leadership to restore respect for the United States of America. My friends, America is a great nation. And it is time we started to act like a great nation around the world. It is ironic to note when we were a small nation—weak militarily and poor economically—America was respected. And the reason was that America stood for something more powerful than military strength or economic wealth.

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The American Revolution was a shining example of freedom in action which caught the imagination of the world. Today, too often, America is an example to be avoided and not ­followed. A nation that can’t keep the peace at home won’t be trusted to keep the peace abroad. A President who isn’t treated with respect at home will not be treated with respect abroad. A nation which can’t manage its own economy can’t tell others how to manage theirs. If we are to restore prestige and respect for America abroad, the place to begin is at home in the United States of America. My friends, we live in an age of revolution in America and in the world. And to find the answers to our problems, let us turn to a ­revolution, a revolution that will never grow old. The world’s greatest continuing revolution, the American Revolution. The American Revolution was and is dedicated to progress, but our founders recognized that the first requisite of progress is order. Now, there is no quarrel between progress and order—because neither can exist without the other. So let us have order in America—not the order that suppresses dissent and discourages change but the order which guarantees the right to ­dissent and provides the basis for peaceful change. And tonight, it is time for some honest talk about the problem of order in the United States. Let us always respect, as I do, our courts and those who serve on them. But let us also recognize that some of our courts in their decisions have gone too far in weakening the peace forces as against the criminal forces in this country and we must act to restore that balance. Let those who have the responsibility to enforce our laws and our judges who have the responsibility to interpret them be dedicated to the great principles of civil rights. But let them also recognize that the first civil right of every American is to be free from domestic violence, and that right must be guaranteed in this country. And if we are to restore order and respect for law in this country there is one place we are going to begin. We are going to have a new Attorney General of the United States of America.

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I pledge to you that our new Attorney General will be directed by the President of the United States to launch a war against organized crime in this country. I pledge to you that the new Attorney General of the United States will be an active belligerent against the loan sharks and the numbers racketeers that rob the urban poor in our cities. I pledge to you that the new Attorney General will open a new front against the filth peddlers and the narcotics peddlers who are corrupting the lives of the children of this country. Because, my friends, let this message come through clear from what I say tonight. Time is running out for the merchants of crime and corruption in American society. The wave of crime is not going to be the wave of the future in the United States of America. We shall re-establish freedom from fear in America so that America can take the lead in re-establishing freedom from fear in the world. And to those who say that law and order is the code word for racism, there and here is a reply: Our goal is justice for every American. If we are to have respect for law in America, we must have laws that deserve respect. Just as we cannot have progress without order, we cannot have order without progress, and so, as we commit to order tonight, let us commit to progress. And this brings me to the clearest choice among the great issues of this campaign. For the past five years we have been deluged by government programs for the unemployed; programs for the cities; programs for the poor. And we have reaped from these programs an ugly harvest of frustration, ­violence and failure across the land. And now our opponents will be offering more of the same—more billions for government jobs, government housing, government welfare. I say it is time to quit pouring billions of dollars into programs that have failed in the United States of America. To put it bluntly, we are on the wrong road—and it’s time to take a new road, to progress. Again, we turn to the American Revolution for our answer. The war on poverty didn’t begin five years ago in this country. It began when this country began. It’s been the most successful war on

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poverty in the history of nations. There is more wealth in America today, more broadly shared, than in any nation in the world. We are a great nation. And we must never forget how we became great. America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people—but because of what people did for themselves over a ­hundred-ninety years in this country. So it is time to apply the lessons of the American Revolution to our present problem. Let us increase the wealth of America so that we can provide more generously for the aged; and for the needy; and for all those who cannot help themselves. But for those who are able to help themselves—what we need are not more millions on welfare rolls—but more millions on payrolls in the United States of America. Instead of government jobs, and government housing, and government welfare, let government use its tax and credit policies to enlist in this battle the greatest engine of progress ever developed in the history of man—American private enterprise. Let us enlist in this great cause the millions of Americans in volunteer organizations who will bring a dedication to this task that no amount of money could ever buy. And let us build bridges, my friends, build bridges to human dignity across that gulf that separates black America from white America. Black Americans, no more than white Americans, they do not want more government programs which perpetuate dependency. They don’t want to be a colony in a nation. They want the pride, and the self-respect, and the dignity that can only come if they have an equal chance to own their own homes, to own their own businesses, to be managers and executives as well as workers, to have apiece of the action in the exciting ventures of private ­enterprise. I pledge to you tonight that we shall have new programs which will provide that equal chance. We make great history tonight. We do not fire a shot heard ‘round the world but we shall light the lamp of hope in millions of homes across this land in which there is no hope today. And that great light shining out from America will again become a beacon of hope for all those in the world who seek freedom and ­opportunity.

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My fellow Americans, I believe that historians will recall that 1968 marked the beginning of the American generation in world history. Just to be alive in America, just to be alive at this time is an experience unparalleled in history. Here is where the action is. Think. Thirty-two years from now most Americans living today will celebrate a new year that comes once in a thousand years. Eight years from now, in the second term of the next President, we will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the American Revolution. And by our decision in this election, we, all of us here, all of you listening on television and radio, we will determine what kind of nation America will be on its 200th birthday; we will determine what kind of a world America will live in the year 2000. This is the kind of a day I see for America on that glorious Fourth— eight years from now. I see a day when Americans are once again proud of their flag. When once again at home and abroad, it is honored as the world’s greatest symbol of liberty and justice. I see a day when the President of the United States is respected and his office is honored because it is worthy of respect and worthy of honor. I see a day when every child in this land, regardless of his background, has a chance for the best education our wisdom and schools can provide, and an equal chance to go just as high as his talents will take him. I see a day when life in rural America attracts people to the country, rather than driving them away. I see a day when we can look back on massive breakthroughs in solving the problems of slums and pollution and traffic which are choking our cities to death. I see a day when our senior citizens and millions of others can plan for the future with the assurance that their government is not going to rob them of their savings by destroying the value of their dollars. I see a day when we will again have freedom from fear in America and freedom from fear in the world. I see a day when our nation is at peace and the world is at peace and everyone on earth—those who hope, those who aspire, those who crave liberty—will look to America as the shining example of hopes realized and dreams achieved. My fellow Americans, this is the cause I ask you to vote for. This is the cause I ask you to work for. This is the cause I ask you to commit to—not just for victory in November but beyond that to a new Administration.

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Because the time when one man or a few leaders could save America is gone. We need tonight nothing less than the total commitment and the total mobilization of the American people if we are to succeed. Government can pass laws. But respect for law can come only from people who take the law into their hearts and their minds—and not into their hands. Government can provide opportunity. But opportunity means nothing unless people are prepared to seize it. A President can ask for reconciliation in the racial conflict that divides Americans. But reconciliation comes only from the hearts of people. And tonight, therefore, as we make this commitment, let us look into our hearts and let us look down into the faces of our children. Is there anything in the world that should stand in their way? None of the old hatreds mean anything when we look down into the faces of our children. In their faces is our hope, our love, and our courage. Tonight, I see the face of a child. He lives in a great city. He is black. Or he is white. He is Mexican, Italian, Polish. None of that matters. What matters, he’s an American child. That child in that great city is more important than any politician’s promise. He is America. He is a poet. He is a scientist, he is a great teacher, he is a proud craftsman. He is everything we ever hoped to be and everything we dare to dream to be. He sleeps the sleep of childhood and he dreams the dreams of a child. And yet when he awakens, he awakens to a living nightmare of ­poverty, neglect and despair. He fails in school. He ends up on welfare. For him the American system is one that feeds his stomach and starves his soul. It breaks his heart. And in the end it may take his life on some distant battlefield. To millions of children in this rich land, this is their prospect of the future. But this is only part of what I see in America. I see another child tonight. He hears the train go by at night and he dreams of far away places where he’d like to go. It seems like an impossible dream. But he is helped on his journey through life.

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A father who had to go to work before he finished the sixth grade, sacrificed everything he had so that his sons could go to college. A gentle, Quaker mother, with a passionate concern for peace, quietly wept when he went to war but she understood why he had to go. A great teacher, a remarkable football coach, an inspirational minister encouraged him on his way. A courageous wife and loyal children stood by him in victory and also defeat. And in his chosen profession of politics, first there were scores, then hundreds, then thousands, and finally millions worked for his success. And tonight he stands before you—nominated for President of the United States of America. You can see why I believe so deeply in the American Dream. For most of us the American Revolution has been won; the American Dream has come true. And what I ask you to do tonight is to help me make that dream come true for millions to whom it’s an impossible dream today. One hundred and eight years ago, the newly elected President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, left Springfield, Illinois, never to return again. He spoke to his friends gathered at the railroad station. Listen to his words: “Today I leave you. I go to assume a greater task than devolved on General Washington. The great God which helped him must help me. Without that great assistance, I will surely fail. With it, I cannot fail.” Abraham Lincoln lost his life but he did not fail. The next President of the United States will face challenges which in some ways will be greater than those of Washington or Lincoln. Because for the first time in our nation’s history, an American President will face not only the problem of restoring peace abroad but of restoring peace at home. Without God’s help and your help, we will surely fail; but with God’s help and your help, we shall surely succeed. My fellow Americans, the long dark night for America is about to end. The time has come for us to leave the valley of despair and climb the mountain so that we may see the glory of the dawn—a new day for America, and a new dawn for peace and freedom in the world.

Source: ‘Richard M. Nixon Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech’ Pamphlet, ­Published by Nixon/Agnew Campaign Committee

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Dictatorships & Double Standards Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, November 1979

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he failure of the Carter administration’s foreign policy is now clear to everyone except its architects, and even they must entertain private doubts, from time to time, about a policy whose crowning achievement has been to lay the groundwork for a transfer of the Panama Canal from the United States to a swaggering Latin dictator of Castroite bent. In the thirty-odd months since the inauguration of Jimmy Carter as President there has occurred a dramatic Soviet military buildup, matched by the stagnation of American armed forces, and a dramatic extension of Soviet influence in the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan, Southern Africa, and the Caribbean, matched by a declining American position in all these areas. The U.S. has never tried so hard and failed so utterly to make and keep friends in the Third World. As if this were not bad enough, in the current year the United States has suffered two other major blows—in Iran and Nicaragua—of large and strategic significance. In each country, the Carter administration not only failed to prevent the undesired outcome, it actively collaborated in the replacement of moderate autocrats friendly to American interests with less friendly autocrats of extremist persuasion. It is too soon to be certain about what kind of regime will ultimately emerge in either Iran or Nicaragua, but accumulating evidence suggests that things are as likely to get worse as to get better in both countries. The Sandinistas in Nicaragua appear to be as skillful in consolidating power as the Ayatollah Khomeini is inept, and leaders of both revolutions display an intolerance

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and arrogance that do not bode well for the peaceful sharing of power or the establishment of constitutional governments, especially since those leaders have made clear that they have no intention of seeking either. It is at least possible that the SALT debate may stimulate new scrutiny of the nation’s strategic position and defense policy, but there are no signs that anyone is giving serious attention to this nation’s role in Iranian and Nicaraguan developments—despite clear warnings that the U.S. is confronted with similar situations and options in El Salvador, Guatemala, Morocco, Zaire, and elsewhere. Yet no problem of American foreign policy is more urgent than that of formulating a morally and strategically acceptable, and politically realistic, program for dealing with non-democratic governments who are threatened by Soviet-sponsored subversion. In the absence of such a policy, we can expect that the same reflexes that ­guided Washington in Iran and Nicaragua will be permitted to determine American actions from Korea to Mexico—with the same disastrous effects on the U.S. strategic position. (That the administration has not called its policies in Iran and Nicaragua a failure—and probably does not consider them such—complicates the problem without changing its nature.) There were, of course, significant differences in the relations between the United States and each of these countries during the past two or three decades. Oil, size, and proximity to the Soviet Union gave Iran greater economic and strategic import than any Central American “republic,” and closer relations were cultivated with the Shah, his counselors, and family than with President Somoza, his advisers, and family. Relations with the Shah were probably also enhanced by our approval of his manifest determination to modernize Iran regardless of the effects of modernization on traditional social and cultural patterns (including those which enhanced his own authority and legitimacy). And, of course, the Shah was much better looking and altogether more dashing than Somoza; his private life was much more romantic, more interesting to the media, popular and otherwise. Therefore, more Americans were more aware of the Shah than of the equally tenacious Somoza. But even though Iran was rich, blessed with a product the U.S. and its allies needed badly, and led by a handsome king, while Nicaragua was poor and rocked along under a long-tenure president of less striking aspect, there were many similarities between the two countries and our relations with them. Both these small nations were led by men who had

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not been selected by free elections, who recognized no duty to submit them selves to searching tests of popular acceptability. Both did tolerate limited apposition, including opposition newspapers and political parties, but both were also confronted by radical, violent opponents bent on social and political revolution. Both rulers, therefore, sometimes invoked martial law to arrest, imprison, exile, and occasionally, it was alleged, torture their opponents. Both relied for public order on police forces whose personnel were said to be too harsh, too arbitrary, and too ­powerful. Each had what the American press termed “private armies,” which is to say, armies pledging their allegiance to the ruler rather than the “constitution” or the “nation” or some other impersonal entity. In short, both Somoza and the Shah were, in central ways, traditional rulers of semi-traditional societies. Although the Shah very badly wanted to create a technologically modern and powerful nation and Somoza tried hard to introduce mod ern agricultural methods, neither sought to reform his society in the light of any abstract idea of social justice or political virtue. Neither attempted to alter significantly the distribution of goods, status, or power (though the democratization of education and skills that accompanied modernization in Iran did result in some redistribution of money and power there). Both Somoza and the Shah enjoyed long tenure, large personal fortunes (much of which were no doubt appropriated from general revenues), and good relations with the United States. The Shah and Somoza were not only anti-Communist, they were positively friendly to the U.S., sending their sons and others to be educated in our universities, voting with us in the United Nations, and regularly supporting American interests and positions even when these entailed personal and political cost. The embassies of both governments were active in Washington social life, and were frequented by powerful Americans who occupied major roles in this nation’s diplomatic, military, and political life. And the Shah and Somoza themselves were both welcome in Washington, and had many American friends. Though each of the rulers was from time to time criticized by American officials for violating civil and human rights, the fact that the people of Iran and Nicaragua only intermittently enjoyed the rights accorded to citizens in the Western democracies did not prevent successive administrations from granting—with the necessary approval of successive Congresses—both military and economic’ aid. In the case of both

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Iran and Nicaragua, tangible and intangible tokens of U.S. support continued until the regime became the object of a major attack by forces explicitly hostile to the United States. But once an attack was launched by opponents bent on destruction, everything changed. The rise of serious, violent opposition in Iran and Nicaragua set in motion a succession of events which bore a suggestive resemblance to one another and a suggestive similarity to our behavior in China before the fall of Chiang Kaishek, in Cuba before the triumph of Castro, in certain crucial periods of the Vietnamese war, and, more recently, in Angola. In each of these countries, the American effort to impose liberalization and democratization on a government confronted with violent internal opposition not only failed, but actually assisted the coming to power of new regimes in which ordinary people enjoy fewer freedoms and less personal security than under the previous autocracy— regimes, moreover, hostile to American interests and policies.

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Honduras: Dictatorships and Double Standards Revisited Analysis by Daniel Luban and Jim Lobe, July 03, 2009

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hen the Honduran military deposed President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, in an incident that stirred memories of Cold War military coups in Latin America, it also seems to have caused at least some foreign policy commentators to revert to positions reminiscent of the Cold War. While the Organization of American States (OAS), the U.N. General Assembly, and the U.S. government all condemned Zelaya’s detention and forced exile, the coup makers found supporters among neoconservatives and other right-wing U.S. hawks, who defended the military’s action as a justified reaction to Zelaya’s allegedly unconstitutional power grab. The hawks’ support for the coup, which came as media reports from Honduras described a violent police crackdown against demonstrators and a government-imposed media blackout throughout the country, may have been surprising to many observers. After all, only days before many of the same commentators were fiercely decrying similar scenes coming out of Tehran, and calling for U.S. President Barack Obama to stand up for democracy in Iran against what was frequently described as a coup by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But to those with longer memories, this apparent discrepancy was anything but surprising. For although neoconservatism has in recent years become identified with former President George W. Bush’s “freedom agenda,” and aggressive 409

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U.S. support for so-called democracy promotion in the Middle East and beyond, the ideology has a very different history in Latin America. During the Cold War, neoconservatives were known as staunch defenders of right-wing authoritarians as counterweights to leftist movements in the region. These autocrats and dictators included Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Jose Efrain Rios Montt in Guatemala, and the military junta in Argentina—not to mention the former Honduran Chief of Staff, Gen. Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, who was so brutal and imperious that his fellow officers threw him out of the country in 1984. Support for right-wing authoritarianism in Latin America and Iran, and blistering criticism of Jimmy Carter’s human rights policy comprised the core of the movement’s early manifesto, “Dictatorships and Double Standards,” Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s famous 1979 essay in Commentary magazine. Ronald Reagan was so impressed with the article that he made Kirkpatrick his ambassador to the United Nations. The current debate over Honduras serves as a reminder that the simple polarities of recent foreign policy discussions, in which a “­neoconservatism” identified with “democracy promotion” is contrasted with a “realism” identified with acceptance of authoritarian governments, disguise a more complex history. After all, as neoconservatives claimed to be championing democratic “transformation” in the Middle East during the Bush administration, they simultaneously applauded the attempted coup in 2002 against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and were deeply disappointed by its failure. Two years later, they welcomed the forcible exile of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide aboard a U.S. Air Force jet in the face of an uprising by former military officers and their paramilitary allies. At the time, the neocons argued that the two presidents were dangerous, power-hungry—albeit democratically elected—demagogues who, if left unchecked, would wreck the constitutional order and threaten U.S. interests. These neoconservatives have made similar claims against Honduran president Zelaya, who had clearly managed to antagonize other ­branches of government, including the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that his effort to hold a non-binding referendum that could amend the constitution was unconstitutional, precipitating a series of events that culminated in his ouster. “Yes, Zelaya was elected, but Hitler was as well, and Chavez also was,” said influential Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer.

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“A coup isn’t a nice thing, but it’s preferable to having Zelaya dismantle the democracy.” Similarly, the right-wing National Review editorialized that “[t]he Honduran soldiers who escorted Pres. Manuel Zelaya from his home on Sunday were acting to protect their country’s democracy, not to trample it.” But the actual means by which Zelaya was ousted—specifically the military’s decision to intervene in what was essentially a political dispute by arresting the president and dispatching him to Costa Rica—bore all the hallmarks of a conventional coup d’état, even if it was ratified by the Congress immediately afterward. The OAS has already resolved “to condemn vehemently the coup d’état” against Zelaya, called for his “immediate, safe, and unconditional return” to office by a July 3 deadline, and vowed that “no government arising from this unconstitutional eruption will be recognized.” After some hesitation, on June 29 Obama also condemned the military’s actions as “not legal” and called for Zelaya’s restoration. In addition to arguing that Zelaya had himself acted in an unconstitutional manner, neoconservatives also stressed his ties to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other Latin American leftist leaders—and the alleged threat they pose to democracy in the region—as a justification for deposing him, whatever the means. “Look, a rule of thumb here is whenever you find yourself on the side of Hugo Chavez, [Nicaraguan president] Daniel Ortega, and the Castro twins [Raul and Fidel Castro of Cuba], you ought to reexamine your assumptions,” Krauthammer noted. Others depicted Zelaya as one more pawn in Chavez’s efforts to expand his influence, in much the same way that Kirkpatrick described Ortega and the Sandinistas as puppets of Moscow and Havana 30 years ago. Kirkpatrick criticized Carter for allegedly taking a harder line against right-wing but pro-U.S. dictators than against their left-wing, Sovietbacked counterparts. As brutal as they may be, she argued, “traditional authoritarian governments are less repressive than revolutionary autocracies” and generally “more compatible with U.S. interests.” In an echo of Kirkpatrick’s criticism of Carter’s human rights policy, former Bush speechwriter Peter Wehner complained about Obama’s alleged double standard, in denouncing the Honduran coup but failing to strongly condemn election fraud in Iran.

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“[T]here doesn’t seem to be any consistency on when Obama decides to meddle, beyond his tendency to take actions that make life easier for those who do not wish America well,” Wehner, who now heads the neoconservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, wrote on the Commentary website. “As a general matter, I’m not in favor of military coups,” he added, in another echo of decades-old rhetoric. “On the other hand, I’m not in favor of Zelaya doing to Honduras what Chavez has done in Venezuela.” Although the Reagan administration was fiercely criticized by human rights advocates for its support of military dictators against leftist movements that frequently enjoyed widespread popular support, neoconservatives argued that the larger threat to freedom posed by Soviet influence outweighed any injustice involved in suppressing opposition to “friendly authoritarians,” as they were sometimes called. If this argument seems jarring, it is likely because the popular image of neoconservative doctrine has undergone a marked change in recent years. This was in large part because of the neocons’ deliberate efforts to depict themselves as “idealists” dedicated to universal democratization, as laid out in Bush’s 2005 second inaugural address and his so-called “freedom agenda.” On closer examination, however, the neocons’ zeal for democratization appears to depend significantly on whether the target is considered ­friendly or hostile to U.S. interests. In that respect, not much has changed.

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The CIA’s Intervention in Afghanistan Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser

Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998 Posted at globalresearch.ca 15 October 2001 Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs [“From the Shadows”], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct? Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the proSoviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention. Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But ­perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it? B: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would. 413

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Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don’t regret anything today? B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire. Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists? B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war? Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today. B: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn’t a global Islam. Look at Islam in a ­rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries. Translated from the French by Bill Blum

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Sarah Palin slams Obama again on Ayers at Florida rally Transcript Lynn Sweet, October 6, 2008

LOCATION: Clearwater, Florida TIME: 9:00 a.m. EDT DATE: Monday, October 6, 2008 REPUBLICAN VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE GOVERNOR SARAH PALIN REMARKS AT A “ROAD TO VICTORY” RALLY GOV. PALIN: Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And Senator Lieberman, thank you for that kind introduction. And it is so good to have all of you here today. As Senator Lieberman just said, he’s never seen so many people up so early and we thank you for making that sacrifice. (Applause.) Thank you so much for that very, very warm welcome to the state of Florida. You take my breath away. Thank you, Florida. (Applause.) The flags are beautiful. Thank you for that also. God bless America. You guys get it. Thank you. (Applause.) It’s great to be here in the home of the Tampa Bay Rays, too. (Applause.) 415

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I know that earlier some of the experts this year are kind of tough on the Rays. I’ve been there. But what a difference a season can make. And now the Rays are in the playoffs for the first time ever. Florida knows a little something about turning an underdog into a victor, and together that’s what we can do. (Applause.) How about it Florida? Let us do that for Senator John McCain. (Applause.) So the last time that our campaign came to Florida it was up in the villages and it was so much fun. Thousands of people out there. Golf carts everywhere. We got such a kick out of that, that was cool. Thousands of people out there to hear our message of reform and positive change. And they came there like you today because the people of Florida are ready to shake things up in Washington. (Applause.) So John McCain and I, we are taking our cause and our case for reform to every voter of every background in every region of America. Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or an Independent, maybe you don’t belong to any party at all, we’re asking for your vote. And it’s going to be a hard fought contest. Right here in Florida it’s going to be a tough contest. With your support, though, we’ll win Florida. (Applause.) We’ll win for you. (Applause.) So, I wanted to come here a couple of days earlier but I had an appointment in St. Louis that just wouldn’t wait. (Applause.) And so on Thursday night I had a little debate with Senator Joe Biden. (Boos.) Joseph Biden is a decent man, he is. And I enjoyed meeting him for the first time. I was so proud, though, to get to make the case for the next president of the United States, John McCain. (Applause.) As I explained to Senator Biden, John McCain is the only man in this race who will solve our economic crisis and not exploit it. And he’s the only man in this race with a plan that will actually help our working families, and cut your taxes, and get our economy back on track. (Applause.)

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He’s the only man in this race who talks about the wars that America is fighting and he isn’t afraid to use the word victory. (Applause.) Our opponent gives speech after speech about the wars that America is fighting and it sure would be nice if just once he’d say that he wants America to win. (Applause.) See our opponent voted to cut off funding for our troops even after saying that he would never do so. (Boos.) And he said that our troops in Afghanistan are just quote, “raiding villages and killing civilians.” (Boos.) And that’s not what our brave men and women in uniform are doing in Afghanistan. The U.S. military is fighting terrorism and protecting us and our values. (Applause.) And they’re building schools for children in Afghanistan so that there is hope and there is opportunity in that country. That is what our troops are doing and they deserve our gratitude and they deserve our support. (Applause.) See, John McCain is a different kind of man. He believes in our troops and their mission. And as the mother of one of those troops that’s ­exactly the kind of man I want as commander in chief. (Applause.) Man, some of your signs just make me want to cry. Thank you so much. I love you guys. (Applause.) Thank you. (Applause.) Senator McCain—Senator McCain served our nation in uniform for 22 years, five and a half years he was a POW. In fact, it was after graduating from the Naval Academy, he was stationed right here in Florida. That’s where he learned to do what he does, here in Florida. (Applause.) And Florida, it was in your skies that he trained to become a naval aviator. And Senator McCain is proud to have been part of Florida’s strong tradition of military service. And today, we’re proud of all the Floridians who have worn our country’s uniform. Your state is home to millions. (Applause.)

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Florida is home to millions of our veterans and many of our nation’s active duty soldiers and airmen. And they continue to keep our nation strong and secure. And I know that here in the audience there are veterans, there are those who are serving today. Would you do me the honor, raise your hand, let us applaud you? Thank you, guys. (Applause.) We thank you and we love you guys. Thank you—and gals, thank you. (Applause.) Florida, in just 29 days it will be the time for choosing in this election. And here’s how I look at the choice that we face. In politics there are some candidates who use change to just promote their careers. And then there are those leaders, like John McCain, who use their career to promote change. (Applause.) This is a moment when principles and political independence matter a lot more than just the party line, as Senator Lieberman just told you. It matters a lot more than just the party line. John McCain is his own man. He doesn’t run with the Washington herd. And he and I don’t just talk about change, we’re the only candidates in this race with a track record of actually making change happen. (Applause.) As mayor and as a governor, I reminded people that government is not always the answer. In fact, government too often is the problem. So we got back to basics and we put government back on the side of the people. As mayor, I eliminated taxes on personal property and I eliminated taxes like small business inventory taxes. Those burdens on our small businesses, we got rid of them. Property taxes were too high. Every year that I was in office I reduced that (mill levy ?). And as governor, I brought the same agenda of positive change on a state level. I came to office promising to control spending, by request if possible, but by veto if necessary. And today, our state budget is under control and we have a surplus. And I put the veto pen to nearly half a billion dollars in wasteful spending. (Applause.) We suspended our state fuel tax and I’m returning a chunk of our surplus money right back to the people of Alaska. It’s their money and they can spend it better than government can spend it for them. (Applause.)

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Imagine that. Imagine that, having that principle. And that’s what we’re going to bring on a national level also. That principle of knowing that—no, the people, our families, our businesses they know best so let them keep more of what they earn and produce and not have this government take trying to quote, “solve” all the problems for our families and our businesses. No, we’re not going to do that. I’ve always known that I was accountable to the people who hired me. There, it was the people of Alaska. And in a McCain-Palin administration I promise you that we will never forget that we’ll be there in D.C. to work for you the people of America. (Applause.) So one mission of a McCain-Palin administration will be to set this nation firmly on a course of energy independence. (Applause.) Across Florida and all across America, high gas prices is making a full tank at the pump seem like a luxury. And the cost of living, of course, is going up. And the cost of groceries is going up. Everything is going up, but the value of your paycheck is going down. And that’s because of high energy costs. So, to meet America’s great energy challenge we’re going to need an all of the above approach. And that, in a McCain-Palin administration, will mean developing new alternative energy sources. And it will mean requiring to build more nuclear power plants. And in Florida, it means alternative sources of energy like wind and solar. God has so richly blessed you here. (Applause.) Look at these sources of energy here in Florida that are still sitting untapped. And we’ll tap into them, along with environmentally friendly off shore production. We do need to drill here and drill now. Now you can chant the drill baby drill. (Applause.) It’s as simple as this, Florida. In a McCain-Palin administration we will achieve energy security for our country. It is a matter of national security and economic prosperity. That means American energy resources brought to you by American ingenuity and produced by American workers. (Applause.) And we’re also going to bring tax relief to every American and cut taxes for businesses so you business owners you can hire more people. That’s how jobs are created. (Applause.)

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Here again, John McCain is the real reformer. In this election, he is the real reformer and he can do this and he has a record to prove it. And so do I, as a mayor, as a governor who cut taxes for the people of Alaska. You know, in this campaign, in this election, I think the phoniest claim in a campaign that’s been full of them, is that Barack Obama is going to cut your taxes? (Boos.) I mean, think about it. He’s built his whole career on doling out tax money, first as a Chicago politician, and then raising taxes as a senator. He’s voted 94 times to raise taxes. (Boos.) Even on middle class every day working Americans making $42,000 a year, he voted to raise those taxes. And he tried to waste a million dollars a day just on his requested earmarks. And now, he’s committed to almost a trillion dollars in new government spending. And yet, he never bothers to explain where all that’s going to come from to pay for all of that. And dog gone it, no one seems to be asking him how is he going to pay for the huge government growth that he wants. No one is asking him. So you all, just do the math. Either do the math or just go with your gut. In either way, you’re going to come up with the same conclusion, Barack Obama is going to raise your taxes. (Boos.) So, there’s a pattern here of a left-wing agenda that is packaged and prettied up to look like mainstream policies. And everybody knows that this country has got to be put back on the right track. But the problem with our opponent’s agenda is that higher taxes and bigger government and activist courts and retreat in war, that’s not the right track for our country. That’s another dead end. (Applause.) We have that plan to put our country back on the right track. Okay now Florida, evidently there’s some interest in what I’ve been reading lately. And I think that this comes from—it’s a result of a probably less than successful interview that I had recently with kind of mainstream media. (Boos.) Yet, you know what, in response to critics after that interview what I should have told them was I was just trying to keep Tina Fay in business, just giving her more information. (Applause.)

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Job security for SNL characters. All right. Really in that interview I was just getting really impatient because I was so convinced that Americans want to hear about the issues that are so important in your life: how to win the war, how to get the economy back on trace, public education, accountability in our schools, more choices for our parents with education. Those things. (Applause.) So, I do have to apologize, though, for being a little bit impatient, a little bit annoyed. But anyways, so one of the questions about well what do I read everyday? And my answer was sort of flippant, Well, I was reading my copy of the New York Times the other day, okay. (Boos.) And I knew you guys would react that way, okay. So I’m reading the New York Times, though, and I was really interested to read about Barack’s friends from Chicago, as the New York Times (put it ?). (Applause.) Now it turns out one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers. (Boos.) And according to the New York Times he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that quote, “launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol.” (Boos.) And then there’s even more to the story. Barack Obama says that Ayers was just someone in the neighborhood, but that’s less than truthful. His own top adviser said that they were quote, “certainly friendly.” In fact, Obama held one of his first meetings of his political career in Bill Ayers living room. (Boos.) And they worked together on various projects in Chicago. And, you know, these are the same guys who think that patriotism is paying higher taxes. (Boos.) Remember, that’s what Joe Biden had said. And I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way that you and I see America, as the greatest source for good in this world. (Applause.) I’m afraid this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country. (Boos.)

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This, ladies and gentlemen, has nothing to do with the kind of change that anyone can believe in, not my kids, not for your kids. What we believe in is what Ronald Reagan believed in, and that is America is an exceptional nation. (Applause.) (Chant of USA) Remember Ronald Reagan used to talk about America being that shining city on a hill for all mankind to see and that America is a good and honorable nation. We are not a perfect nation but we learn from our mistakes. And individually, no we are not perfect; but collectively together America represents a perfect ideal. It’s freedom. It’s tolerance. It’s respect for equal rights. It is those things that our military men and women have fought and died for, and freedom is worth fighting for. (Applause.) So look at the contrasts. On November 4th, you’ll have that choice, the contrasts. The only man who can take on Washington is Senator John McCain. (Applause.) Okay, so Florida you know that you’re going to have to hang onto your hats because from now until election day it may get kind of rough. That’s all right. You’re going to hear our opponents still go on and on about how they’re going to fight for you. But since he won’t say it on his own behalf, I’ve had to kind of make it my business to say it for him. There is only one man in this campaign who has ever really fought for you. (Applause.) He has the courage to go on fighting for you. That man is John McCain so god bless you for supporting John McCain. Thank you, Florida. God bless you and god bless America. (Applause.) Thank you. END.

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chapter nine

9/11–Today

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statement of principles June 3, 1997

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merican foreign and defense policy is adrift. Conservatives have criticized the incoherent policies of the Clinton Administration. They have also resisted isolationist impulses from within their own ranks. But conservatives have not confidently advanced a strategic vision of America’s role in the world. They have not set forth guiding principles for American foreign policy. They have allowed differences over tactics to obscure potential agreement on strategic objectives. And they have not fought for a defense budget that would maintain American security and advance American interests in the new century. We aim to change this. We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership. As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world’s preeminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: Does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievements of past decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests? We are in danger of squandering the opportunity and failing the ­challenge. We are living off the capital—both the military investments and the foreign policy achievements—built up by past administrations. Cuts in foreign affairs and defense spending, inattention to the tools of statecraft, and inconstant leadership are making it increasingly difficult to sustain American influence around the world. And the promise of shortterm commercial benefits threatens to override strategic considerations. As a consequence, we are jeopardizing the nation’s ability to meet present threats and to deal with potentially greater challenges that lie ahead. 425

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We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration’s success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States’ global responsibilities. Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. But we cannot safely avoid the responsibilities of global leadership or the costs that are associated with its exercise. America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership. Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences: we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future; • we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values; • we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad; • we need to accept responsibility for America’s unique role in ­preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles. •

Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.

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Narrative Niloofar Mina

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ere is another view from downtown New York: A week has passed but I am still engulfed in depression and anxiety and do not quite understand why. On Wednesday night, the day after the bombing, as we were driving out of the city to escape the confusion and smoke in my downtown neighborhood, the sight of the empty streets, army vehicles, and the refrigerated trucks on the road reminded me of the period of revolution in Iran. I think part of my fear stemmed from my experience of exile. The events that lead to my present life in downtown New York became once again vivid. I felt I could not bear moving again. There is an unbelievable force and power witnessing thousands die in front of you. And I saw it happen! I was riding my bike along the Hudson River to my school’s swimming pool at around 9. I was pretty close to the WTC. By the time I [reached] my school the second tower was hit and people were rushing uptown, filling up the bike path along the river. At school the pool was closed, so, I went to the Battery Park City, across the street, to see what was developing. The twin buildings were on fire. But all the surroundings were normal, just two buildings on fire. People from Wall Street were sitting in the park to take a breath, talking about bodies, falling off the top of the twin towers. From there I could see the black shadows falling off the buildings. People were standing there in disbelief. Some had brought out their telescopes from their apartments in Battery Park City to look closer. I rode my bike closer, opposite the world financial center, near the boats. I was thinking of all the people trapped, and looking at the towers like two torches, on fire. We were all transfixed; did not think that we should really be moving away from there. The area was full of people just looking up in astonishment and horror. I do not think it occurred to anyone that the buildings might collapse or pose any 427

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­ anger to the surrounding area. But suddenly the South tower collapsed. d It was unbelievable. It looked as if the top of the building was sliding off of it and coming toward us. But the building immediately disappeared in a white cloud and now the cloud was rushing to us. I looked up at the buildings right above me. In a flash I realized that they too were about to collapse or at the least the windows were sure to break on top of us. When the cloud reached us in a matter of seconds, the air was all white with small white particles in it. We could not breathe or see beyond our nose. I could not breath, things were falling from above and people were saying confusing things: like lie on the floor. Go to the right, no, left! There was a middle aged Wall Street CEO type within my field of vision. He was on the floor, hurt. I could not reach to help him. I was holding on to my bike and contemplating a jump in the Hudson River. At least I won’t be burned. For a short while I was essentially immobile, thinking that we were all about to die and there is little we can do about it. There was nothing to hide under. It was scary and unbelievable, strange. Like a Godzilla movie. I decided to get off the ground and walk up north through the park and to the West side highway, along the river. It was a good decision, because the pictures now show that area to be covered with metal and glass from the American Express Building. There were kids trapped in the Stuyvesant school engulfed in smoke. But I could not linger to help. The police kept pushing us to move. A sea of people moving slowly. Once on the highway I jumped on my bike and left the area. Right as I reached home the other building collapsed. People were screaming on the street right outside my window. I looked out and saw the second building reduced to smoke. Everything was covered with building particles, glass and smoke. By the next day my neighborhood was sealed off and the air was full of smoke and chemical vapors. I realized that when confronted with human loss political and cultural differences disappear. I felt for the WTC victims the same way I feel for the continuing plight of the Palestinian people, the people of Iraq, and for the over 2 million Iranian and Iraqi people who were killed in a war that was used by the US to destabilize and devastate the Gulf region and fund terrorist groups in Central America. A war that took the lives of many of my friends. This is precisely the reason why the current talks of revenge and war, and the patriotic sentiments forced on the American people scare me. Clearly, violence diminishes us.

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Transcript of Obama’s Speech Opposing the Iraq War

Remarks of Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama Against Going to War with Iraq, Chicago, Illinois—October 2, 2002

I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all ­circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don’t oppose all wars. My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil. I don’t oppose all wars. After September 11, after witnessing the ­carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, ­weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne. 429

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What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. . . . The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him. But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors . . . and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure that . . . we vigorously enforce a nonproliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing

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their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil. Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.

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Bush makes historic speech aboard warship

ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (CNN)—The following is an unedited transcript of President Bush’s historic speech from the flight deck of the USS Lincoln, during which he declared an end to major combat in Iraq:t

T

hank you. Thank you all very much.

Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country. In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty and for the peace of the world. Our nation and our coalition are proud of this accomplishment, yet it is you, the members of the United States military, who achieved it. Your courage, your willingness to face danger for your country and for each other made this day possible. Because of you our nation is more secure. Because of you the tyrant has fallen and Iraq is free. Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out with a combination of precision and speed and boldness the enemy did not expect and the world had not seen before. From distant bases or ships at sea, we sent planes and missiles that could destroy an enemy division or strike a single bunker. Marines and soldiers charged to Baghdad across 350 miles of hostile ground in one of the swiftest advances of heavy arms in history. 433

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You have shown the world the skill and the might of the American armed forces. This nation thanks all of the members of our coalition who joined in a noble cause. We thank the armed forces of the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland who shared in the hardships of war. We thank all of the citizens of Iraq who welcomed our troops and joined in the liberation of their own country. And tonight, I have a special word for Secretary Rumsfeld, for General Franks and for all the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States: America is grateful for a job well done. The character of our military through history, the daring of Normandy, the fierce courage of Iwo Jima, the decency and idealism that turned enemies into allies is fully present in this generation. When Iraqi civilians looked into the faces of our service men and women, they saw strength and kindness and good will. When I look at the members of the United States military, I see the best of our country and I am honored to be your commander in chief. In the images of fallen statues we have witnessed the arrival of a new era. For a hundred of years of war, culminating in the nuclear age, military technology was designed and deployed to inflict casualties on an ever-growing scale. In defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Allied forces destroyed entire cities, while enemy leaders who started the conflict were safe until the final days. Military power was used to end a regime by breaking a nation. Today we have the greater power to free a nation by breaking a dangerous and aggressive regime. With new tactics and precision weapons, we can achieve military objectives without directing violence against civilians. No device of man can remove the tragedy from war, yet it is a great advance when the guilty have far more to fear from war than the ­innocent. In the images of celebrating Iraqis we have also seen the ageless appeal of human freedom. Decades of lies and intimidation could not make the Iraqi people love their oppressors or desire their own enslavement. Men and women in every culture need liberty like they need food and water and air. Everywhere that freedom arrives, humanity rejoices and everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.

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We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We’re bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We’re pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime who will be held to account for their crimes. We’ve begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons, and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We are helping to rebuild Iraq where the dictator built palaces for himself instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by and for the Iraqi people. The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done and then we will leave and we will leave behind a free Iraq. The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001 and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men, the shock troops of a hateful ­ideology, gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the beginning of the end of America. By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation’s resolve and force our retreat from the world. They have failed. In the battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the Taliban, many terrorists and the camps where they trained. We continue to help the Afghan people lay roads, restore hospitals and educate all of their children. Yet we also have dangerous work to complete. As I speak, a special operations task force lead by the 82nd Airborne is on the trail of the terrorists and those who seek to undermine the free government of Afghanistan. America and our coalition will finish what we have begun. From Pakistan to the Philippines to the Horn of Africa, we are hunting down Al Qaida killers. Nineteen months ago I pledged that the terrorists would not escape the patient justice of the United States. And as of tonight nearly one half of Al Qaida’s senior operatives have been captured or killed. The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We have removed an ally of Al Qaida and cut off a source of ­terrorist funding.

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And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more. In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused and deliberate and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th, the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States, and war is what they got. Our war against terror is proceeding according to the principles that I have made clear to all. Any person involved in committing or planning terrorist attacks against the American people becomes an enemy of this country and a target of American justice. Any person, organization or government that supports, protects or harbors terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent and equally guilty of terrorist crimes. Any outlaw regime that has ties to terrorist groups and seeks or possesses weapons of mass destruction is a grave danger to the civilized world and will be confronted. And anyone in the world, including the Arab world, who works and sacrifices for freedom has a loyal friend in the United States of America. Our commitment to liberty is America’s tradition, declared at our founding, affirmed in Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms, asserted in the Truman Doctrine and in Ronald Reagan’s challenge to an evil empire. We are committed to freedom in Afghanistan, Iraq and in a peaceful Palestine. The advance of freedom is the surest strategy to undermine the appeal of terror in the world. Where freedom takes hold, hatred gives way to hope. When freedom takes hold, men and women turn to the peaceful ­pursuit of a better life. American values and American interests lead in the same direction. We stand for human liberty. The United States upholds these principles of security and freedom in many ways: with all of the tools of diplomacy, law enforcement, intelligence and finance. We are working with a broad coalition of nations that understand the threat and our shared responsibility to meet it.

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The use of force has been and remains our last resort. Yet all can know, friend and foe alike, that our nation has a mission: We will answer threats to our security, and we will defend the peace. Our mission continues. Al Qaida is wounded, not destroyed. The scattered cells of the terrorist network still operate in many nations and we know from daily intelligence that they continue to plot against free people. The proliferation of deadly weapons remains a serious danger. The enemies of freedom are not idle, and neither are we. Our government has taken unprecedented measures to defend the homeland and we will continue to hunt down the enemy before he can strike. The war on terror is not over, yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide. No act of the terrorists will change our purpose, or weaken our resolve, or alter their fate. Their cause is lost; free nations will press on to victory. Other nations in history have fought in foreign lands and remained to occupy and exploit. Americans, following a battle, want nothing more than to return home. And that is your direction tonight. After service in the Afghan and Iraqi theaters of war, after 100,000 miles on the longest carrier deployment in recent history, you are homeward bound. Some of you will see new family members for the first time; 150 babies were born while their fathers were on the Lincoln. Your families are proud of you, and your nation will welcome you. We are mindful as well that some good men and women are not ­making the journey home. One of those who fell, Corporal Jason Mileo, spoke to his parents five days before his death. Jason’s father said, “He called us from the center of Baghdad, not to brag but to tell us he loved us. Our son was a soldier.” Every name, every life is a loss to our military, to our nation and to the loved ones who grieve. There is no homecoming for these families. Yet we pray in God’s time their reunion will come. Those we lost were last seen on duty. Their final act on this Earth was to fight a great evil and bring liberty to others. All of you, all in this generation of our military, have taken up the ­highest calling of history: You were defending your country and ­protecting the innocent from harm.

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And wherever you go, you carry a message of hope, a message that is  ancient and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, “To the ­captives, come out; and to those in darkness, be free.” Thank you for serving our country and our cause. May God bless you all. And may God continue to bless America.

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SUMMARY OF THE MUELLER REPORT ON OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE April 8, 2019

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY TO VOLUME II

Our obstruction-of-justice inquiry focused on a series of actions by the President that related to the Russian-interference investigations, including the President’s conduct towards the law enforcement officials overseeing the investigations and the witnesses to relevant events. FACTUAL RESULTS OF THE OBSTRUCTION INVESTIGATION The key issues and events we examined include the following: The Campaign’s response to reports about Russian support for Trump. During the 2016 presidential campaign, questions arose about the Russian government’s apparent support for candidate Trump. After WikiLeaks released politically damaging Democratic Party emails that were reported to have been hacked by Russia, Trump publicly expressed skepticism that Russia was responsible for the hacks at the same time that he and other Campaign officials privately sought information 439

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[Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] about any further planned WikiLeaks releases. Trump also denied having any business in or connections to Russia, even though as late as June 2016 the Trump Organization had been pursuing a licensing deal for a skyscraper to be built in Russia called Trump Tower Moscow. After the election, the President expressed concerns to advisors that reports of Russia’s election interference might lead the public to question the legitimacy of his election. Conduct involving FBI Director Comey and Michael Flynn. In midJanuary 2017, incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn falsely denied to the Vice President, other administration officials, and FBI agents that he had talked to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about Russia’s response to U.S. sanctions on Russia for its election interference. On January 27, the day after the President was told that Flynn had lied to the Vice President and had made similar statements to the FBI, the President invited FBI Director Comey to a private dinner at the White House and told Comey that he needed loyalty. On February 14, the day after the President requested Flynn’s resignation, the President told an outside advisor, “Now that we fired Flynn, the Russia thing is over.” The advisor disagreed and said the investigations would continue. Later that afternoon, the President cleared the Oval Office to have a one-on-one meeting with Comey. Referring to the FBI’s investigation of Flynn, the President said, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” Shortly after requesting Flynn’s resignation and speaking privately to Comey, the President sought to have Deputy National Security Advisor K.T. McFarland draft an internal letter stating that the President had not directed Flynn to discuss sanctions with Kislyak. McFarland declined because she did not know whether that was true, and a White House Counsel’s Office attorney thought that the request would look like a quid pro quo for an ambassadorship she had been offered. The President’s reaction to the continuing Russia investigation. In February 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions began to assess whether he had to recuse himself from campaign-related investigations because of his role in the Trump Campaign. In early March, the President told White House Counsel Donald McGahn to stop Sessions from recusing.

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And after Sessions announced his recusal on March 2, the President expressed anger at the decision and told advisors that he should have an Attorney General who would protect him. That weekend, the President took Sessions aside at an event and urged him to “unrecuse.” Later in March, Comey publicly disclosed at a congressional hearing that the FBI was investigating “the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,” including any links or coordination between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. In the following days, the President reached out to the Director of National Intelligence and the leaders of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) to ask them what they could do to publicly dispel the suggestion that the President had any connection to the Russian election-interference effort. The President also twice called Comey directly, notwithstanding guidance from McGahn to avoid direct contacts with the Department of Justice. Comey had previously assured the President that the FBI was not investigating him personally, and the President asked Comey to “lift the cloud” of the Russia investigation by saying that publicly. The President’s termination of Comey. On May 3, 2017, Comey testified in a congressional hearing, but declined to answer questions about whether the President was personally under investigation. Within days, the President decided to terminate Comey. The President insisted that the termination letter, which was written for public release, state that Comey had informed the President that he was not under investigation. The day of the firing, the White House maintained that Comey’s termination resulted from independent recommendations from the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General that Comey should be discharged for mishandling the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But the President had decided to fire Comey before hearing from the Department of Justice. The day after firing Comey, the President told Russian officials that he had “faced great pressure because of Russia,” which had been “taken off’ by Comey’s firing. The next day, the President acknowledged in a television interview that he was going to fire Comey regardless of the Department of Justice’s recommendation and that when he “decided to just do it,” he was thinking that “this thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.” In response to a question about whether he was angry with Comey about the Russia investigation, the President said, “As far as

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I’m concerned, I want that thing to be absolutely done properly,” adding that firing Comey “might even lengthen out the investigation.” The appointment of a Special Counsel and efforts to remove him. On May 17, 2017, the Acting Attorney General for the Russia investigation appointed a Special Counsel to conduct the investigation and related matters. The President reacted to news that a Special Counsel had been appointed by telling advisors that it was “the end of his presidency” and demanding that Sessions resign. Sessions submitted his resignation, but the President ultimately did not accept it. The President told aides that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and suggested that the Special Counsel therefore could not serve. The President’s advisors told him the asserted conflicts were meritless and had already been considered by the Department of Justice. On June 14, 2017, the media reported that the Special Counsel’s Office was investigating whether the President had obstructed justice. Press reports called this “a major turning point” in the investigation: while Comey had told the President he was not under investigation, following Comey’s firing, the President now was under investigation. The President reacted to this news with a series of tweets criticizing the Department of Justice and the Special Counsel’s investigation. On June 17, 2017, the President called McGahn at home and directed him to call the Acting Attorney General and say that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and must be removed. McGahn did not carry out the direction, however, deciding that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night Massacre. Efforts to curtail the Special Counsel’s investigation. Two days after directing McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed, the President made another attempt to affect the course of the Russia investigation. On June 19, 2017, the President met one-on-one in the Oval Office with his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, a trusted advisor outside the government, and dictated a message for Lewandowski to deliver to Sessions. The message said that Sessions should publicly announce that, notwithstanding his recusal from the Russia investigation, the investigation was “very unfair” to the President, the President had done nothing wrong, and Sessions planned to meet with the Special Counsel and

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“let [him] move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections.” Lewandowski said he understood what the President wanted Sessions to do. One month later, in another private meeting with Lewandowski on July 19, 2017, the President asked about the status of his message for Sessions to limit the Special Counsel investigation to future election interference. Lewandowski told the President that the message would be delivered soon. Hours after that meeting, the President publicly criticized Sessions in an interview with the New York Times, and then issued a series of tweets making it clear that Sessions’s job was in jeopardy. Lewandowski did not want to deliver the President’s message personally, so he asked senior White House official Rick Dearborn to deliver it to Sessions. Dearborn was uncomfortable with the task and did not follow through. Efforts to prevent public disclosure of evidence. In the summer of 2017, the President learned that media outlets were asking questions about the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between senior campaign officials, including Donald Trump Jr., and a Russian lawyer who was said to be offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” On several occasions, the President directed aides not to publicly disclose the emails setting up the June 9 meeting, suggesting that the emails would not leak and that the number of lawyers with access to them should be limited. Before the emails became public, the President edited a press statement for Trump Jr. by deleting a line that acknowledged that the meeting was with “an individual who [Trump Jr.] was told might have information helpful to the campaign” and instead said only that the meeting was about adoptions of Russian children. When the press asked questions about the President’s involvement in Trump Jr.’s statement, the President’s personal lawyer repeatedly denied the President had played any role. Further efforts to have the Attorney General take control of the investigation. In early summer 2017, the President called Sessions at home and again asked him to reverse his recusal from the Russia investigation. Sessions did not reverse his recusal. In October 20 17, the President met

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privately with Sessions in the Oval Office and asked him to “take [a] look” at investigating Clinton. In December 2017, shortly after Flynn pleaded guilty pursuant to a cooperation agreement, the President met with Sessions in the Oval Office and suggested, according to notes taken by a senior advisor, that if Sessions unrecused and took back supervision of the Russia investigation, he would be a “hero.” The President told Sessions, “I’m not going to do anything or direct you to do anything. I just want to be treated fairly.” In response, Sessions volunteered that he had never seen anything “improper” on the campaign and told the President there was a “whole new leadership team” in place. He did not unrecuse. Efforts to have McGahn deny that the President had ordered him to have the Special Counsel removed. In early 2018, the press reported that the President had directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed in June 2017 and that McGahn had threatened to resign rather than carry out the order. The President reacted to the news stories by directing White House officials to tell McGahn to dispute the story and create a record stating he had not been ordered to have the Special Counsel removed. McGahn told those officials that the media reports were accurate in stating that the President had directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed. The President then met with McGahn in the Oval Office and again pressured him to deny the reports. Tn the same meeting, the President also asked McGahn why he had told the Special Counsel about the President’s effort to remove the Special Counsel and why McGahn took notes of his conversations with the President. McGahn refused to back away from what he remembered happening and perceived the President to be testing his mettle. Conduct towards Flynn, Manafort, [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter]. After Flynn withdrew from a joint defense agreement with the President and began cooperating with the government, the President’s personal counsel left a message for Flynn’s attorneys reminding them of the President’s warm feelings towards Flynn, which he said “still remains,” and asking for a “heads up” if Flynn knew “information that implicates the President.” When Flynn’s counsel reiterated that Flynn could no longer share information pursuant to a joint defense agreement, the President’s personal counsel said he would make sure that the

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President knew that Flynn’s actions reflected “ hostility” towards the President. During Manafort’s prosecution and when the jury in his criminal trial was deliberating, the President praised Manafort in public, said that Manafort was being treated unfairly, and declined to rule out a pardon. After Manafort was convicted, the President called Manafort “a brave man” for refusing to “break” and said that “flipping” “almost ought to be outlawed.” [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] Conduct involving Michael Cohen. The President’s conduct towards Michael Cohen, a former Trump Organization executive, changed from praise for Cohen when he falsely minimized the President’s involvement in the Trump Tower Moscow project, to castigation of Cohen when he became a cooperating witness. From September 2015 to June 2016, Cohen had pursued the Trump Tower Moscow project on behalf of the Trump Organization and had briefed candidate Trump on the project numerous times, including discussing whether Trump should travel to Russia to advance the deal. In 2017, Cohen provided false testimony to Congress about the project, including stating that he had only briefed Trump on the project three times and never discussed travel to Russia with him, in an effort to adhere to a “party line” that Cohen said was developed to minimize the President’s connections to Russia. While preparing for his congressional testimony, Cohen had extensive discussions with the President’s personal counsel, who, according to Cohen, said that Cohen should “stay on message” and not contradict the President. After the FBI searched Cohen’s home and office in April 2018, the President publicly asserted that Cohen would not “flip,” contacted him directly to tell him to “stay strong,” and privately passed messages of support to him. Cohen also discussed pardons with the President’s personal counsel and believed that if he stayed on message he would be taken care of. But after Cohen began cooperating with the government in the summer of 2018, the President publicly criticized him, called him a “rat,” and suggested that his family members had committed crimes. Overarching factual issues. We did not make a traditional prosecution decision about these facts, but the evidence we obtained supports several general statements about the President’s conduct.

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Several features of the conduct we investigated distinguish it from typical obstruction-of-justice cases. First, the investigation concerned the President, and some of his actions, such as firing the FBI director, involved facially lawful acts within his Article II authority, which raises constitutional issues discussed below. At the same time, the President’s position as the head of the Executive Branch provided him with unique and powerful means of influencing official proceedings, subordinate officers, and potential witnesses—all of which is relevant to a potential obstruction-of-justice analysis. Second, unlike cases in which a subject engages in obstruction of justice to cover up a crime, the evidence we obtained did not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference. Although the obstruction statutes do not require proof of such a crime, the absence of that evidence affects the analysis of the President’s intent and requires consideration of other possible motives for his conduct. Third, many of the President’s acts directed at witnesses, including discouragement of cooperation with the government and suggestions of possible future pardons, took place in public view. That circumstance is unusual, but no principle of law excludes public acts from the reach of the obstruction laws. If the likely effect of public acts is to influence witnesses or alter their testimony, the harm to the justice system’s integrity is the same. Although the series of events we investigated involved discrete acts, the overall pattern of the President’s conduct towards the investigations can shed light on the nature of the President’s acts and the inferences that can be drawn about his intent. In particular, the actions we investigated can be divided into two phases, reflecting a possible shift in the President’s motives. The first phase covered the period from the President’s first interactions with Comey through the President’s firing of Comey. During that time, the President had been repeatedly told he was not personally under investigation. Soon after the firing of Comey and the appointment of the Special Counsel, however, the President became aware that his own conduct was being investigated in an obstruction-of-justice inquiry. At that point, the President engaged in a second phase of conduct, involving public attacks on the investigation, non-public efforts to control it, and efforts in both public and private to encourage witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation. Judgments about the nature of the

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President’s motives during each phase would be informed by the totality of the evidence. STATUTORY AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEFENSES The President’s counsel raised statutory and constitutional defenses to a possible obstruction-of-justice analysis of the conduct we investigated. We concluded that none of those legal defenses provided a basis for declining to investigate the facts. Statutory defenses. Consistent with precedent and the Department of Justice’s general approach to interpreting obstruction statutes, we concluded that several statutes could apply here. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 1503, 1505, 1512(b)(3), 1512(c)(2). Section 1512(c)(2) is an omnibus obstruction-of-justice provision that covers a range of obstructive acts directed at pending or contemplated official proceedings. No principle of statutory construction justifies narrowing the provision to cover only conduct that impairs the integrity or availability of evidence. Sections 1503 and 1505 also offer broad protection against obstructive acts directed at pending grand jury, judicial, administrative, and congressional proceedings, and they are supplemented by a provision in Section 1512(b) aimed specifically at conduct intended to prevent or hinder the communication to law enforcement of information related to a federal crime. Constitutional defenses. As for constitutional defenses arising from the President’s status as the head of the Executive Branch, we recognized that the Department of Justice and the courts have not definitively resolved these issues. We therefore examined those issues through the framework established by Supreme Court precedent governing separation-of-powers issues. The Department of Justice and the President’s personal counsel have recognized that the President is subject to statutes that prohibit obstruction of justice by bribing a witness or suborning perjury because that conduct does not implicate his constitutional authority. With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a

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President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice. Under applicable Supreme Court precedent, the Constitution does not categorically and permanently immunize a President for obstructing justice through the use of his Article II powers. The separation-of-powers doctrine authorizes Congress to protect official proceedings, including those of courts and grand juries, from corrupt, obstructive acts regardless of their source. We also concluded that any inroad on presidential authority that would occur from prohibiting corrupt acts does not undermine the President’s ability to fulfill his constitutional mission. The term “corruptly” sets a demanding standard. It requires a concrete showing that a person acted with an intent to obtain an improper advantage for himself or someone else, inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others. A preclusion of “corrupt” official action does not diminish the President’s ability to exercise Article Il powers. For example, the proper supervision of criminal law does not demand freedom for the President to act with a corrupt intention of shielding himself from criminal punishment, avoiding financial liability, or preventing personal embarrassment. To the contrary, a statute that prohibits official action undertaken for such corrupt purposes furthers, rather than hinders, the impartial and evenhanded administration of the law. It also aligns with the President’s constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws. Finally, we concluded that in the rare case in which a criminal investigation of the President’s conduct is justified, inquiries to determine whether the President acted for a corrupt motive should not impermissibly chill his performance of his constitutionally assigned duties. The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law. CONCLUSION Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President’s conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confi-

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dence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.